Carole Baskin breaks down in tears recalling her tough time after Tiger King

Hey, all you cool cats and kittens, we’re here to talk about Carole Baskin and Tiger King.

The documentary series premiered on March 20, 2020, right as the coronavirus pandemic was plunging the world into chaos. I think part of the draw of Tiger King was that it was telling an untamed, unique story filled with uncertainty, just as many people around the world were facing the unknown.

People also love a murder mystery, which Tiger King had in excess. If you watched the show, I’m sure that you remember learning about the disappearance of Don Lewis.

As reported by People, Lewis vanished on August 18, 1997. His van was found abandoned at an airport, as Lewis had allegedly been planning to take a trip to Costa Rica to deal with businesses and property that he owned there. His disappearance, and potential homicide, has remained unsolved ever since.

The titular Tiger King in the Netflix docuseries, Joe Exotic, constantly accused Carole of killing Don and feeding him to tigers in order to secure his vast fortune.

Fans of the series were shocked and entertained when it was announced that Carole Baskin would be starring on Dancing with the Stars season 29. During the second week of the dancing competition series, she explained the negative impact Tiger King had on her family.

Baskin was reduced to tears as she explained how her mental health has suffered as a result of how the show portrayed her. “I keep it inside,” she shared. “That is the absolute worst of this.” You can watch a teaser from the episode below.

Carole had also explained to People previously that she believes Tiger King completely skewed her life’s ambition to help animals in favor of framing her as a relentless opportunist. Here is what she had to say earlier this month:

"I am not the money-grubbing, gold-digging, murderous person that they portrayed. I am the type of person who will come after any person who is abusing animals. I am relentless. I just won’t stop until I find some legal way to make it stop,” she continued. “From that perspective, I think they got me right. Me as a person, that was a total assassination of my character for nothing other than whatever money they could get for selling that to Netflix."

I have to admit, the sensational nature of Tiger King initially had me thinking that there was a chance Baskin had something to do with Don’s disappearance.

However, one of my favorite murder podcasts did an episode about Don Lewis, and there is essentially no evidence that Baskin was involved. Conjectures about Lewis’ murder are many and varied, but the actual proof in the case does not point to Carole Baskin. The podcast is called Morbid and you can check out the Tiger King episode on Spotify.

We’ll be watching to see how far Carole Baskin makes it on Dancing with the Stars, and how many more feline-themed songs she will dance along to.