Animal rights activist Carole Baskin claims she’s received death threats since Tiger King began airing on Netflix.
Baskin was the target of big cat breeder Joe Exotic’s failed murder-for-hire plot and in a new interview, she says she’s had abusive calls from strangers who have found her telephone number.
Speaking to the Tampa Bay Times, Baskin and her husband, Howard, said that the producers of Tiger King "betrayed" them by focusing on Carole and Exotic’s rivalry and not the cruelty in the captive tiger trade.
"There’s almost no way to describe the intensity of the feeling of betrayal," Howard said in the couple’s first interview since the Netflix show became a global phenomenon.
Carole told the newspaper that she is now too scared to cycle to work alone after the death threats.
Tiger King has become a sensation since it first aired last month and has caused much debate among viewers, with some seeing the Baskins as being as exploitative as the animal abusers they’ve spent years trying to shut down.
"I just feel so angry that people have totally missed the point," Carole also told the Tampa Bay Times. "And the point is these cubs are being abused and exploited and the public is enabling that."
Speaking to the Los Angeles Times in March, Tiger King co-producer Eric Goode said: "Carole talked about her personal life, her childhood, abuse from her first and second husband, the disappearance of her ex, Don Lewis…She certainly wasn’t coerced."
Carole maintains that she thought the details she provided were going to be used for background context only.
Joe Exotic was jailed for 22 years in 2019 for conspiring to kill Carole. He was also imprisoned for 17 other animal welfare violations. In Tiger King, Exotic accused Carole of having murdered her husband Don Lewis when he disappeared 21 years ago, claims which she denies.
