Netflix is getting a serious workout thanks to Coronavirus. And one of its most popular recent offerings is the wild true crime docuseries, Tiger King: Murder, Mayhem and Madness. Celebrities are quarantined just like everyone else, and no less than Kim Kardashian West recently revealed that she was into Tiger King and has some questions about events recounted in the show.
Specifically, Kim K. wanted to know if one of the subjects of the series, Carole Baskin, murdered her own husband at some point.
Has anyone seen Tiger King on Netflix?!?! It is crazy!!!!
— Kim Kardashian (@KimKardashian) March 22, 2020
Here’s the story synopsis for Tiger King as published on IMDB:
Among the eccentrics and cult personalities in the stranger-than-fiction world of big cat owners, few stand out more than Joe Exotic, a mulleted, gun-toting polygamist and country western singer who presides over an Oklahoma roadside zoo. Charismatic but misguided, Joe and an unbelievable cast of characters including drug kingpins, conmen, and cult leaders all share a passion for big cats and the status and attention their dangerous menageries garner.
But things take a dark turn when Carole Baskin, an animal activist and owner of a big cat sanctuary, threatens to put them out of business, stoking a rivalry that eventually leads to Joe’s arrest for a murder-for-hire plot, and reveals a twisted tale where the only thing more dangerous than a big cat is its owner.
Yes, it’s as crazy as it sounds.
As for animal activist Carole Baskin, it’s revealed in the series that her husband, millionaire Don Lewis, vanished just after he’d filed a restraining order against his wife. She’s never been arrested or charged and Lewis’s disappearance is unsolved.
At the risk of spoiling the series climax—which is easy to find online anyway, given it’s a true story—Joe Exotic, AKA Joseph Maldonado-Passage, developed a grudge against Baskin after she won a hefty lawsuit against him and his Wynnewood, Oklahoma G.W. Exotic Animal Memorial Park in Wynnewood, Oklahoma. So he hired someone to travel to Florida and kill her.
It was a sting. Joe Exotic was arrested and ultimately convicted of attempted murder-for-hire and is serving 22 years in federal prison. Over the course of Tiger King Lewis’s disappearance is revealed and Exotic suggests at one point that Baskin got rid of him by feeding him to tigers.
As for Kardashian, her chatty tweet definitely received some attention.
Wow the amount of texts I’ve gotten about Tiger King since I tweeted about it all have mentioned their belief that Carol killed her husband! What are your thoughts? Do you think Carol killed him?
— Kim Kardashian (@KimKardashian) March 23, 2020
“Wow the amount of texts I’ve gotten about Tiger King since I tweeted about it all have mentioned their belief that Carol killed her husband!” She tweeted later, “What are your thoughts? Do you think Carol killed him?”
Baskin herself has addressed the allegations aired in Tiger King in a blog post published on March 22, 2020:
[The docuseries] has had the sole goal of being as salacious and sensational as possible to draw viewers. As part of that, it 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 unsavory lies are better for getting viewers.
Baskin went on to discuss her husband’s disappearance at length and state that the “bottom line” was “Don was not easy to live with and like most couples we had our moments. But I never threatened him and I certainly had nothing to do with his disappearance.”
We don’t know if that assuaged Kim Kardashian’s suspicions or not.
You can watch Tiger King: Murder, Mayhem and Madness to do your own sleuthing on netflix.com.