Join Date: Feb 2011
Posts: 47,672
Thanks: 27,646
Thanked 14,458 Times in 10,262 Posts
|
re: Tiger King S2 >More Madness & Mayhem Coming to Netflix
Joe Exotics' Former Zoo Now - Bones, Graffiti Abuse and Carole Baskins'Filthy Discovery
Louis Theroux makes some strange discoveries at the GW Exotic Animal Park, which is now owned by Carole Baskin, while exploring the wreckage of Tiger King star Joe Exotic's old house, including a rude photo
Daily Mirror UK, 5 APR 2021.
Louis Theroux goes through the rubble of Joe Exotic's old house (Image: PA)
Louis finds a cage that he was previously inside with Joe and a tiger (Image: BBC)
Joe's old bedroom is now a wreck (Image: netflix)
Louis also visits Carole Baskin's Big Cat Sanctuary in Florida (Image: MindhouseTV/Twitter
Joe Exotic's former zoo now lies in ruins as a grim memorial to his controversy-ridden reign.
A decade since his first visit to the Greater Wynnewood Exotic Animal Park in Oklahoma, Louis Theroux returns to see what has become of the Tiger King star's former kingdom in new BBC documentary Shooting Joe Exotic.
It's a haunting sight to behold, as Louis walks along rows of empty cages that once housed majestic wild animals in alarming conditions which viewers witnessed in the Netflix documentary.
Now permanently closed to the public and without any animals, the GW zoo has now passed into the hands of Joe's nemesis, Big Cat Rescue founder Carole Baskin and her husband Howard.
Carole tells Louis that he would be a better tour guide than she is and the documentary-maker points to a cage he had previously been inside along with a bear and tiger cub.
But the most shocking discoveries come in the wreck of Joe's old house, which leave Louis and Carole squirming in disgust after viewing a rude photo.
Joe, real name Joseph Maldonado-Passage, is now behind bars for two counts of attempted murder for hire for a plot to kill Carole and federal charges of animal abuse.
Businessman Jeff Lowe, who purchased the park in 2016, was ordered to vacate the park within 120 days in May last year and remove all animals from the property.
A federal judge gave ownership to Baskin after ruling Exotic had fraudulently transferred ownership to his mother to avoid paying debts which had been incurred as a result of Baskin's lawsuit.
There is lots of disgusting graffiti all around the animal park aimed at Carole, including some promoting the theory she 'murdered' her late husband Don Lewis, a claim she has always vehemently denied.
Carole has explain the meaning of one bit of graffiti which references the samba - telling Louis its because she did badly while performing the dance on the US version of Strictly, Dancing With The Stars.
They head to where Joe's office used to be which is also full of abusive graffiti, but Louis admits its strange that it's all come from Jeff Lowe and his team.
When asked why there is so much animosity, Carole's husband Howard explains: "We took the property and got a court order and he had to leave the so we’re not his best friend. The whole property was trashed very intentionally."
However, Lowe has denied vandalising the park, which he briefly reopened in May last year as 'Tiger King Park' to draw crowds in off the back of the Netflix series.
While looking at tiny pens that were once storage for surplus tigers, emotional Carole says: "It's just so sad."
The Baskins say there were three tigers, 11 wolves and two bears still remaining when they took over that were moved to a sanctuary in Colorado.
Animals that Joe didn't shoot are dispersed but still caged at roadside zoos and sanctuaries around the US.
While looking through a pile of rubble they find tiger bones and a skull - but the most grisly discoveries come in Joe's former home.
With an uneasy feeling of trespassing, I was entering the wreckage of what I'd once known as Joe's home," says Louis.
What was once his living area has been desolated and Carole claims it's all just "garbage" now.
Using a torch, Louis enters what he believes was once Joe's bedroom and finds a crib where he used to keep tiger cubs.
"What a god awful nursery," says Carole before making a bizarre discovery on the floor.
She cries: "And oh my gosh and there are d*** pics down here on the floor now that I'm looking down at my feet."
Stunned Louis replies: "Are you serious? Oh my goodness. That is the reproductive organ of the male species in a state of arousal."
A throwback to Joe's time in the limelight, Louis spots a dirty Joe Exotic TV hat on the side and admits: "It takes a bit of work for a place to look this bad."
In the wreckage of Joe's house, Louis wonders if it might contain clues to his life and story.
He describes it as a "mausoleum to Joe's dreams after finding magazines and newspaper cuttings stretching back to the earliest years of his life.
There are photos of his brief stint as a Texas police chief, first marriage to late partner Brian Rhyne and a momento of his brother Garold Wayne Schreibvogel, who was killed at 36 after a car crash and in whose memory the park was founded.
Louis also visits Carole's Big Cat Rescue site in Tampa, Florida which provides a home for abused animals and aims to end breeding in captivity.
He points out that Joe called his animal park a sanctuary that rescued big cats so asks Carole what makes her so different.
"Sanctuaries don’t breed, they don’t buy, they don’t sell these animals," she explains.
"A place that claims to be a sanctuary and saving these animals while they’re breeding more for a life in prison thats a zoo, not a sanctuary."
Carole paid the price for trying to hit back at Joe's practises as he seemingly made death threats and claimed she was "the number one terrorist in America".
Reflecting on the turbulent time, Carole and her husband Howard tell Louis that Joe was angry because their campaigning meant malls were not allowing him to bring tigers along anymore and had a major impact on his income.
"I think an organisation like PETA coming after him was an organisation, where as me who could blame it on a single person," says Carole.
"But the battle was never with him, it was always to protect the big cats from people like him."
Carole and Howard now have ownership of Joe's former zoo (Image: BBC / Jack Rampling / Mindhouse)
The GW Exotic Animal Park made most of its money by allowing the public to handle tiger cubs.
Visitors were allowed to sponsor the tigers, paid to hold them and were even shown tiny cubs that were only 24 hours old.
The most lucrative and controversial of the fundraising activities were Joe's cub-petting roadshows where he would visit malls to see a wider range of customers.
While confessing he saw things that were "at best questionable", Louis admits it was hard not to "warm" to Joe.
Looking back at his original documentary while reflecting on hours of unseen footage, Louis sets out to understand who the real Joe Exotic is and comes to some worrying realisations.
*Louis Theroux: Shooting Joe Exotic airs Monday on BBC One at 9pm
|