Tiger King: Carole Baskin rejects Netflix documentary's portrayal

Netflix Joe Exotic and a tigerNetflix
Tiger King focuses on Joe Exotic and Carole Baskin, among others

One of the stars of Netflix's true crime documentary Tiger King is unhappy with the way she's portrayed in the series.

The documentary focuses on Joe Exotic, a tiger trader, and his rivalry with Carole Baskin, who says he unethically breeds big cats.

Carole's then-husband Don went missing 21 years ago and people in the documentary accuse her of killing him.

Carole says interviewees in the series are "not credible".

'No regard for the truth'

Carole Baskin, who runs the Big Cat Rescue sanctuary in Florida, wrote a long post arguing against the way she is represented.

In it, she says the docuseries "has a segment devoted to suggesting, with lies and innuendos from people who are not credible, that I had a role in the disappearance of my husband Don 21 years ago.

"The series presents this without any regard for the truth or in most cases even giving me an opportunity before publication to rebut the absurd claims.

"They did not care about truth. The unsavoury lies are better for getting viewers."

Netflix has told Radio 1 Newsbeat it has no comment at this time.

Netflix Carole Baskin and a lion in a cageNetflix
Carole Baskin runs Big Cat Rescue

In her long post, Carole details why she thinks the testimonies of people interviewed in the series are untrustworthy.

They include accounts from Don's ex-assistant, a man he had business dealings with and members of Don's family from a previous marriage.

Accusations in the series include one that Carole fed Don's body to the big cats in their sanctuary, or that she dissolved his body in acid.

However, she has never been charged of anything relating to Don's disappearance.

She calls "the most ludicrous of all the lies" the allegation she may have ground Don's body up in a meat grinder before feeding him to the cats.

She even includes a photo of a small meat grinder, saying: "The idea that a human body and skeleton could be put through it is idiotic. But the Netflix directors did not care. They just showed a bigger grinder."

One of the many people posting about the show on social media was Kim Kardashian West, who asked her 64 million followers whether Carole had killed her husband.

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Who is Joe Exotic?

Joseph Maldonado-Passage is a big cat breeder who ran an exotic animal park in Oklahoma - but went to prison last year for 22 years, for crimes including trying to hire someone to murder Carole Baskin, and various crimes related to endangered species and conservation.

His feud with Carole goes back a long way.

Joe calls Carole a hypocrite and accuses her of doing the same thing she criticises him for - breeding big cats for sale - which Carole denies.

Carole's then-husband Don did breed big cats for sale when they first met in the 1980s, but she says she was never on board with this.

Joe dedicated a lot of his time to talking about Carole, even making a country music video called Here Kitty Kitty where a character, who is made to look like Carole, is seen seemingly feeding her husband to tigers.

Carole had set up a website which she said highlighted animal abuse on Joe's property.

Louis Theroux meets Joe Exotic and his dangerous pets

From prison, Joe Maldonado-Passage recently filed a $94m (£76.7m) lawsuit against the US government and ex-business partners and colleagues.

$78m of that is against government departments for placing the "generic tiger" on the endangered species list, which he argues results in loss of his property.

He is seeking an additional $15m from his former business partner Jeff Lowe and another former colleague, whom he alleges lied to prosecutors, informed against him and planted evidence.

He's also asked for a presidential pardon from Donald Trump, according to TMZ.

He appeared in a 2011 Louis Theroux documentary about dangerous pets.

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