Carole Baskin told Tiger King producers to ‘lose my number’ after they reached out to ‘clear the air’

Tiger King’s Carole Baskin has revealed she’s been contacted for the first time by show producers since the series aired, and it wasn’t to smooth things over after how she was portrayed in the programme.

The seven-part documentary, which explored the wild underworld of big cat breeding, catapulted the likes of Joe Exotic, 58, Doc Antle, 61, and Carole, 59, to worldwide fame in March 2020.

The owner of Big Cat Rescue, one of the world’s largest accredited sanctuaries for exotic cats, said she received hate for months after the show hit Netflix.

In an exclusive interview with Metro.co.uk, Carole revealed that despite the backlash she received, this is the first time producers have reached out.

‘I didn’t talk to them until a month or two ago. They contacted me for the first time since it aired and they said “we just want to clear the air”,’ she said.

‘I know what they were doing, they were going around and getting all of the people who had been in the show to sign new release forms with them.’

Carole explained that she already knew about the release forms before the call. This is because people in her life had already been sent the legal document, and asked her whether they should sign them.

She elaborated: ‘The new release forms said they weren’t allowed to speak to anybody except them about the show.

‘What I think they were doing was trying to control what the narrative was because if those people had been allowed to talk to other producers or media, the story would have come out much differently than what we saw on Tiger King. They didn’t want that to happen.’

The tiger conservationist said the producers contacted her under the guise of wanting to bury the hatchet.

‘I said “lose my number” that’s the extent of my conversation with them,’ she shared.

Carole went on to say that she feels like she was made to look ‘evil’ on the programme, calling it ‘character assassination’.

Despite this, she would still do it again.

‘As for whether I’d do it again, I would because I think everything happens for the best and no matter how horrible it might be there might be some good that comes with that,’ the 59-year-old explained.

‘I think the good thing that has come out of Tiger King is that people know [tiger breeding] exists and they’re speaking out about it. We shouldn’t be breeding tigers in cages.’

Metro.co.uk has reached out to Tiger King producers for comment.

Tiger King can be streamed on Netflix.

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