Shooting Joe Exotic: Louis Theroux on the ‘veiled threat’ to Carole Baskin discovered in unseen footage and his 2011 off-camera showdown with the Tiger King

While millions were shocked, appalled, and also wildly entertained by Joe Exotic when they were introduced to the Tiger King in Netflix’s 2020 documentary, over a decade earlier Louis Theroux became well acquainted with the eccentric zookeeper.

As one by one countries across the world locked down, humanity adjusted to what would become a year of extraordinary uncertainty, loss, and fear, Joseph Allen Maldonado-Passage captivated us when his vendetta against rival big cat owner Carole Baskin played out in the now notorious true crime blockbuster, Tiger King: Murder, Mayhem and Madness. 

Through the course of Tiger King, Joe marries three husbands altogether – two simultaneously – one is killed by an accidental gunshot to the head, his zoo is taken away, an employee loses his arm to the teeth of a wild cat, he embarks on a failed but typically eventful political campaign, and is arrested and jailed for plotting to kill Carole. 

But Joe was first handed a global audience in the 2011 BBC documentary America’s Most Dangerous Pets, building somewhat of a friendship with Louis who at times is clearly quite understandably daunted by his subject, but also warms to the same absurdity, humour and charm millions more would succumb to a decade later. 

Trawling through hours of footage from his time with Joe, Louis uncovered more eye-opening moments that never saw the light of day and will finally air on the BBC over the coming weeks in his new film, Shooting Joe Exotic.

’I was reminded that in fact, we had originally envisioned that as a program entirely about Joe Exotic or even potentially a two-part series,’ he tells Metro.co.uk. 

America’s Most Dangerous Pets is an unnerving deep dive into the legal breeding of wild cats in America and Joe’s out-of-this-world charisma was just an added bonus. In it, Joe discusses his three-way marriage and his larger-than-life character is paramount, but unlike Tiger King the documentary barely touches on the feud with Carole. 

Looking back through old recordings of Joe, Louis discovered a ‘kind of seemingly veiled threat to do Carole harm’, suggesting that either Joe or his enigmatic rival would end up dead from the ongoing fallout.

‘I want to be totally honest with you, when I saw that I was excited because I thought, “oh my God here’s a little extraordinary, little jewel actually that I hadn’t even remembered,’ admits Louis. ‘I didn’t even realise we were filming at the time.

‘I had no recollection of it taking place, and when I heard, I thought, “That’s extraordinary, here’s Joe saying that. Someone’s in touch with a hitman in Tampa Florida and either Carole is going to be killed or Joe is going to be killed.”

‘I thought that was really odd, and then I had to listen to it a few times to really get exactly what he’s saying. He’s not saying, “I’m Joe, I’m gonna have Carole killed,” he’s just suggesting that. So it’s both sorts of everything and nothing in an odd way and I think more than anything, it sort of is a description of the fee bridal mindset that Joe was slipping into.’

For Louis, the Joe he met in 2011 compared to the erratic loose canon shown in Tiger King, had similarities but was clearly ‘dialled up by two or three notches’. 

Unlike the 70 million who devoured Tiger King within its first month of release – a record for Netflix at the time – Louis watched through a unique lens, having his own experience with Joe, his world, and the characters within it. But the startling allegations made against Carole in Tiger King passed him by in 2011 and he didn’t speak to the Big Cat Rescue owner. 

In Tiger King, speculation surrounding the disappearance of Carole’s first husband Don Lewis in 1997 is given its own standalone episode. Producers sit down with his daughters and ex-wife, who quite candidly put the blame firmly on Carole, while several contradictory theories are explored – from Don being fed to tigers, to his body still festering in the Big Cat Rescue’s septic tank.

‘I sort of thought, “Well she’s an animal rights activist like I’m not really interested in telling the story of the “good guys”, do you know what I mean? Like the people who are more or less as I see it, on the side of the angels in terms of caring about animal welfare rights, I sort of thought, “where’s the story there?”

‘That’s good work, and it should be applauded. Where I was kind of maybe more intrigued and maybe surprised was how Tiger King went deep into Carole’s backstory and the amount of attention it gave to him.

‘The disappearance of her husband Don, although Joe it talked a little bit about that, that wasn’t really something that I regarded as a significant part of the story.’

For Shooting Joe Exotic, Louis sat down with Carole and her third husband Howard Baskin, and discussed how she thinks Don disappeared. ‘But we deal with it fairly fleetingly,’ he says.

she’s an animal rights activist like I’m not really interested in telling the story of the “good guys”, do you know what I mean?

In the time that’s passed since a year of Tiger King, from the confinements of his cell Joe has still managed to expand brand Joe Exotic. He’s launching a footwear line, still regularly getting himself in headlines via his lawyer, and garnered the attention of former President, Donald Trump. Although despite a fierce campaign, he failed to get a presidential pardon. His legal team was so confident Joe would be saved by the commander-in-chief, a limousine was actually waiting to pick him up on Trump’s final day in office. 

Arguably, Joe and Trump have a lot in common. Both are such enormous characters that they often seem to be able to get away with saying whatever they please and their loyal fandom stands by them. In Joe’s case, even hiring a hitman to kill Carole didn’t deter his vast range of supporters – who come from all walks of life and are another phenomenon entirely, explored in Shooting Joe Exotic

‘He gets a lot of female attention,’ Joe’s lawyers told Louis, and children writing in saying, ‘Do you like Brussel sprouts?’ – a genuine question, stresses Louis. Some fans are clearly more harmless than others – since Tiger King’s release, Carole has been inundated with death threats every day. What that says about humanity is perhaps another documentary in itself, but there’s possibly an explanation in the case of Joe versus Carole.

‘The way in which she came across she was maybe perceived as being judgmental or censorious and he was seen as sort of lovable,’ says Louis. ‘I suppose one of the things I’m looking at in the film is the fact that the story sort of flipped upside down halfway through.

‘The first 45 minutes is a kind of telling how Joe became increasingly obsessed with Carole Baskin and tried to have her killed and then is convicted at trial. The jury deliberates for three hours, he was found guilty on all charges and sent to 22 years in federal prison. Then Tiger King comes out and suddenly Joe is the most loved person on TV – well, the most celebrated – and Carole Baskin is the most hated. How that plays out is the second half of the film.’

But Louis wasn’t immune to Joe’s charm either, as seen in America’s Most Dangerous Pets. Of course, he wasn’t quite aware of the full picture in 2011 but was charmed nevertheless, and by his own admission craved approval from Joe, much like the team of devoted zoo workers shown in Tiger King.

‘I liked him,’ admits Louis. ‘He’s one of those people who has a quality of being both flamboyant and larger than life, but also rather fragile, which is an intriguing combination because you laugh at his jokes, you enjoy his eccentricities, like the funny things he says, his tattoos, his pierced nipples, his mullet hairdo, and then at the same time you notice that he sensitive.

‘I saw a similar quality in Ike Turner who I spent a week with many years ago, and he was also an exquisite noticer of people’s energy, of people’s attitude and somebody who took our criticism or perceived swipes very, very seriously.’

But by the end of their time together, Joe became wary of Louis, cautious the filmmaker had an animal rights agenda. After eight or nine days of comradery, suddenly Joe flipped.

‘One of the most surprising or intriguing discoveries I made going back was that in this last sort of showdown interview I had with him on the last day I ever saw him. Having asked him a few questions that I thought were sort of you know, robust, but you know, but not in any way unnecessarily abrasive, he ripped up his mic and told me to go f**k myself, I remember that.

‘But what I didn’t remember is having then continued to get him back on track. I said, “can I have a hug?” And said, “Oh, we buds again?” And I go over and I hug him and he sort of permits me to hug, but doesn’t really hug me back very much. But it’s quite a lot, like the idea that I seemed to need him to be okay with me again.

‘I thought that was very revealing of the power of his influence. The millions of people who loved him on Tiger King, many of them were tuning into that quality of wanting to feel protective of him.

‘And in different ways, I’m responding to that sense that the projects have been beset by tragedy and abuse.’

Shooting Joe Exotic airs on BBC Two later this year. 

Got a story?

If you’ve got a celebrity story, video or pictures get in touch with the Metro.co.uk entertainment team by emailing us celebtips@metro.co.uk, calling 020 3615 2145 or by visiting our Submit Stuff page – we’d love to hear from you.