All language subtitles for Tiger.King.Murder.Mayhem.and.Madness.S01E02.Cult.of.Personality.720p.NF.WEB-DL.DDP5.1.x264-NTG-HI

[phone line droning, dialing]

[operator] 911, what's your emergency?

[woman] We've got an employee
that was attacked by a tiger.

And he's hurt bad.

They will not send a helicopter
until the ambulance gets here.

[Joe] The arm is completely gone.

- We do not have time to wait.
- [animals calling out]

Go get the gurney here.

Get everything out of the driveway.

- Give me a stretcher. How's it coming?
- They're... they're getting it.

[Joe] Fuck the fire extinguisher.

You all right? Stay with me.
Stay with me, Saff.

Make a sweep through the park
and make sure there's no other customers

somewhere else in the park, please.

[door creeks]

Ladies and gentlemen, before you hear it
on the news, I'm gonna tell you.

About an hour ago, we had an incident

where one of the employees stuck their arm
through the cage

and a tiger tore her arm off.

I can give you your money back,
or I can give you a rain check.

Why don't you come back another day?

What do you want me
and Paul to do right now?

- Do chores. Be safe.
- Do chores.

- Okay. Back to it then. All right.
- Do not stick your hands in any cages.

Oh, my god.

I'm never gonna financially recover
from this.

[reporter 1]
A woman is fighting to keep her arm

after it was mauled by a tiger.

[reporter 2] The victim was airlifted

to OU Medical Center
for lifesaving surgery.

[woman] The story hit the news.

It was a tiger mauling
in Wynnewood, Oklahoma.

Tiger attack, blah, blah, blah.

The fence ripped the skin off the bone.

[Safferty] Joe and John Reinke

had already come to the hospital
to see me,

and I specifically remembered
Reinke handing me a pen,

and I picked it up and I wrote my name,
and then I handed it back to him.

So my hand was still a functioning hand
at the time,

just really bandaged up
and in a lot of pain.

But the next morning,

the surgeon came in and said,

"Hey, Saff, it's gonna be, you know,

about two years
of reconstructive surgery."

He said, "Or you can amputate it."

And I said, "Amputate it."

My biggest thing, and it was...

derived from Joseph...

he said, "Our mission is to give
these animals a fighting chance."

So I knew...

if I stayed in that hospital,
the media wins.

Is this a reflection
of what's not getting done right

at your zoo? That's the question.

[Safferty] I seen how much they blew it up
into this horror story

that I felt like the best thing to do
was get right back to work...

to kind of set things right.

I was back on the park
in five days after my amputation.

It was a total of seven days
in the hospital.

Yeah! [laughs]

[reporter] This had to have been
the most terrifying, traumatic event

a human being could experience.

- And yet...
- Some would say.

Yet, you're back on the park today,

still loyal, still working,
still loving these cats.

[man]
I was the first person that she talked to

about losing her arm,

and amazingly, she held no bitter,
ill feelings.

This was just another day for me,
um, to overcome.

Uh, my attitude is
nothing can bring me down,

and it's really easy
to do that here, Rick,

and you know this because

I work with a man that also has no legs.

[man]
A lot of people think tigers took my legs.

No, it actually happened
from a zip line accident.

I fell 50 feet, landed on my feet...

crushed my feet, broke my hip,
broke my back,

tore all my insides up.

I was paralyzed from the waist down,
but I could move a big toe,

and that's when I said, "I can do this,"

so I took it on myself
to learn how to walk.

Usually you build up muscles,
you build up calves,

you build up your heel,
you know, your ankle.

Well, I couldn't build all that up,

so I was literally walking on bone.

I bet I walked 20 miles a day
at that zoo...

12 hours a day, seven days a week.

Give me a kiss! Good boy!

Over time from walking on them,
I just ended up losing my feet.

He loves Daddy.

It wasn't the zoo's fault.

I mean, it was all my fault.

Now, I just got these cool looking legs.

[Kirkham] It's hard to explain
the addiction of exotic animals.

I felt it when I got to hold a tiger
in my hands,

when I got to get in a cage

with six,
eight-month-old tigers and lions.

There's something very addicting about

the feeling of power
being around these animals.

["Way Down in the Hole"
by Tom Waits plays]

- [car horn honks]
- [man] Hey, Doc, how's it going?

♪ When you walk through the garden ♪

♪ You gotta watch your back ♪

♪ Well, I beg your pardon ♪

♪ Walk the straight and narrow track ♪

♪ We just got to keep the devil ♪

♪ Way down in the hole ♪

So you want to see them walk around?
You want to lay on that couch with them?

What do want...
What do you think the shot is?

- [grunts]
- [tiger yowls]

Nothing is cooler, sexier,
and more significant

to the world we live in today
than a tiger.

It has this primordial calligraphy

that tells a message
just in its very image.

Everyone loves them.

Anyone who says they don't
is just insecure and broken.

[tiger yowls]

[woman]
The minute you meet one of these people

that has an exotic cat,

the first thing they do is
they whip out those pictures.

Look at me, I'm holding this cub.

Look at me, I'm petting this tiger.

Look at me, I've got this cat on a leash.

It's all about "look at me."

They want to use those cats
to elevate their status.

[crowd murmuring in excitement]

- Oh my god!
- They're only an hour old.

[overlapping chatter]

[tigers yowling]

I breed more tigers
than anybody in the country.

[Kirkham] Breeding was his whole thing.

The whole idea was to keep baby tigers
being born.

Joe had so many animals

that he sold them
to a lot of these little animal parks

around the country.

[man] Selling the animals was
the biggest moneymaker for him.

I drove lions, tigers, bears...

ligers, all kinds of different animals.

I can't really tell you
all the places I've been.

Let's just say
that I've been to 38 different states.

[man] But if I wanted to just buy

a regular baby tiger...

- …from a breeder, how much would it cost?
- Two thousand bucks.

And keep in mind, it's illegal now.

[man] This is organized crime.

Criminal enterprises are operating
under the radar illegally

because the Endangered Species Act
forbids selling a tiger.

[Reinke]
You can't buy, sell, trade, or barter

anything endangered,

but there ain't a damn zoo out there

that ain't buying cubs
when they don't have 'em.

Some of the places
that the cubs have actually went to,

you got Doc Antle in the Carolinas,

you got Brown Zoo, you got Tim Stark.

[man] According to Thomas Jefferson,

any law that you think's unfair
or unjustice,

it is your obligation,
it is your responsibility

to stand up against that bullshit law.

If people are concerned about tigers,

they should be donating their money

to places like mine, where we breed them.

Number one, they're endangered species.

Duh. What's the first thing you should do
to protect an endangered species?

Make more.

Not eliminate the source.

[big cats growling]

[Stark] I bought shitloads from Joe.
Hundreds of thousand dollars worth of 'em.

I posted online, 28 different places
that are all part of this whole...

what I call the bad guy network,

of people that are breeding cubs
and selling cubs.

I think, honestly...
[chuckles] you're gonna...

The woman's just obsessed with me.

Carole, goddamn it,
you've missed out on it again.

[Carole] For each one
of these people Joe traded cats to,

there's more information about them,

in the hopes that with law enforcement
taking this serious and going after it,

that they'll actually search out
some of those connections

and see that it's this big network
of people.

Mario Tabraue in Miami
has a criminal history.

His claim to fame
is being one of the biggest drug dealers

that our state ever knew.

But despite having
this criminal background,

he operates a wildlife menagerie.

I don't know of anyone
who has ever been able to infiltrate

Mario Tabraue's facilities.

[man] Oh, shit, what is this? Hey!

[guard] Good morning, how are you, sir?
Do you have a reservation?

- I don't.
- You don't?

Well, unfortunately, I can't let you go,
because it's a private place.

[man] I've been trying to call
and they... You know, we wanted...

This is a private property.
You actually have to have permission, sir.

- All right. thanks a lot. Okay. Shit.
- Thank you. Have a great day.

[Carole] You're never
going to get into a place like Mario's,

because they're just not going to allow
the public to see

what really happens there.

[man] Probably around 1982,

I went to work for Mario's place.

I would have people come up and go,
"I can't believe you work for that guy,

why would you work for that guy?
Aren't you scared?"

I says, "He has the coolest animals,

I don't care about anything else!"

He had cheetahs, he had leopards,

he had tigers, black jaguars,
snow leopards, cloud leopards,

and this is his private collection
at his home.

Come on, Johnny!

I got food. [cooing]

Pretty much any way
they would smuggle illegal drugs,

they would do the same with the animals...

but the penalties for that were far less

than if you were busted
for smuggling drugs.

Open up the snakes,

stick bags of cocaine inside of them,
stitch them back up.

Did not really care
if the snake lived or died,

it's just to get it in there.

[man] Why is it so hard
to get into these places?

[McCarthy] I'll try to put in a call
for you to get into Mario's place.

[engine roaring]

Everything's super... secure.

We try to make everything stupid-proof
'cause people will do stupid things.

Come out! And don't go for my leg.

Come out! Come on out! There you go.

[lions growling]

Can I take it from you? Yes.

Can I throw it? Go get it. Go get it.

We interact with our animals.
We give them love and passion.

If you can't keep them in the wild

that they supposedly deserve,
that doesn't exist anymore,

you give them as much happiness
as you can.

And they do get bonded with humans.

People like Carole Baskin,

they use me as a poster child.

I shouldn't have animals
because I was a convicted felon.

Smile, give a big smile. There you go.

But I did my time for what I did.

- [elephant brays]
- [tiger growls]

People used to drive by his house
and scream out, "Tony Montana!"

and drive on.

I'm Tony Montana! You fuck with me,
you fucking with the best!

Sometimes they say that
I'm the prototype for Scarface.

[reporter]
Mario Tabraue and his father Guillermo

are accused of operating a ten-year,

top-dollar family drug enterprise.

[Tabraue] The money coming in suitcases
to the bank? I did that.

But not with a fat guy in a van.
It was a Corvette. I did it by myself.

I would call the bank in advance,

and they would have ten tellers
sit there and count it.

There was no counting machines.

Back then, I sold drugs
to maintain my animal habit.

I got to a point where
I was on the phone saying,

"Mario's Drugstore, specializing
in marijuana, cocaine, and quaaludes.

Anybody interested come and get it.
Including you...

Metro-Dade Organized Crime Bureau."

They got me on tape.

[reporter] Working out of
Zoological Imports Unlimited,

Tabraue is also accused of covering up
the murder,

mutilation, and cremation
of a federal drug informant

seven years ago.

[Tabraue] His name was Larry Nash.
He was an ATF informant.

A guy who worked for me shot him,

and they panicked
and dumped him on my farm.

I had a crazier partner than me who said,
"Let's just cut up and burn him."

So we burned him.

You know, I really didn't do most
of the stuff,

but I carry the stigma of it.

What am I gonna tell the feds now,
or the judge?

"Your Honor, I did not shoot him,

and I did not use the circular saw
on his neck. It was somebody else."

What difference does it make?
I was still there.

Come here. Come here.

Come here. Hello.

The judge gave me 100 years,

but I won the appeal.

It cost me 12 years of my life.

It's okay.

[kisses] It's okay. Down. Down.

Oh, now you're gonna...

Animals don't judge you
as long as you're really good at heart.

They don't care who you are
or what you've done in your past.

Mario's always treated me with respect,

and, you know, everybody's got a past.

[Tabraue] Since I was a child,
I had an affinity for animals.

My mother was anti-pets.

So when I got out of my house,
the first thing I did was

I went and bought not one,
but three Great Danes.

It was like, I'm gonna... It's like
you can't eat chocolate, but now you can.

Then I went to a pet shop
selling a cougar. I bought a cougar.

Then it was legal.
That was my second animal.

The third animal was a guy
killed by the lions,

and I got those six lions.

Then, I got a tiger from a lady
that had it in a houseboat illegally.

Next thing I know,
I had a whole bunch of shit.

Here! Up! Up! Up! Up! Up! Up! Up!

I used to acquire them from Doc Antle,
a friend of mine.

Those are my four girls.

[tiger cub murmuring]

- [man] How did you meet Doc?
- He came to see me.

- [man] What year?
- 1982... 83?

So you guys have known each other
a long time.

Yeah, I have pictures of it too.

There's your Doc Antle, look.

That's how I met him.

He would bring the tiger
in the parking lot or inside the business.

- [man] Damn, look at his mustache.
- He looked like Yanni.

That's Doc Antle in my office.

[man] So of all the cat people,
you're possibly closest to Doc Antle?

Yeah, because we learned a lot
from each other,

and he did a lot of things for me
when I came out of prison.

That's my wife and me.
This is Doc Antle's place, T.I.G.E.R.S.

- [man] Is she from Cuba too?
- Yeah.

We have 28 species of primates.

[man] And you nurse these

and actually, literally,
raise them in your own house?

Right now this is the only one I have,
but at times,

I have seven or eight that we raise.

- [man] In your bedroom?
- In our bedroom at night.

[door opening]

I usually go to Babies "R" Us
and buy the preemie clothes.

Like, every occasion.

Let's say Easter. See, this is the boys.

[man] Feels like you love them
as much as your children.

[Maria Tabraue] Yeah, I think even more.

[laughs]

This here is Mario's office.

This is things he has collected
through the years.

This book is Doc Antle, actually,
Bhagavan Doc Antle.

- [woman] What kinda doctor is he?
- Mystical science.

- Mystical science?
- Yeah.

[man] Who's that?

One of his wives.

[man]
One of his wives? Oh, I like that answer.

- [laughter]
- He's very eccentric. Like...

[woman] How many wives does he have?

- I would say that he has three.
- [woman] He has three wives?

- Yes.
- [man] Wow.

[man 1]
Doctor Antle, he has four or five wives.

Well, he has three or four girlfriends.

He has, like, nine wives.

[man] How many wives does Doc Antle have?

I don't fucking care.

[Antle]
Operating the T.I.G.E.R.S. preserve here

takes place by
a great, big, cohesive family unit.

We have people that have joined
our apprentice program over the decades.

These are apprentices that come on
generally as teenagers,

live on the preserve,

many of whom have stayed on
for decades themselves.

Look at the camera and smile!
Over there, babe!

[Antle] This is my longtime
girlfriend-partner, China,

the blonde lady running the stuff here.

Since she was 17 years old,

she's been living here
and taking care of my stuff.

Rajnee, the little Italian lady,

20 years ago, when she was a young woman,

she came and lived with me,
has been staying there ever since.

Moksha, the pretty blonde
with the big teeth

and the bright, big smile,

she's going on 16 years of living here
and taking care of all that stuff.

My girl China's house is there,

and my Italian partner there.

She lives in that house.
And then Moksha is on the front,

the big home there in the front.

Every day, you're really gonna care for
the animals first,

and that has always been very difficult
for my kids

and the ladies of my life.

Everybody's jealous.

[man]
Do you live in the house with others?

[Antle]
You can't get into my complex lifestyle.

It's not for prime time.

[woman] I know I'll always love Doc,

because he meant so much to me
for so long.

I worked there from 1999
until I left in 2007.

When I read what it was like there,

it sounded like a utopia.

And I stumbled upon
the T.I.G.E.R.S. website,

and they talked about
how everyone was vegetarian

and how they used, like,
principles of yoga to train animals.

These were all things
that I was already into.

Perfect, you know?

I'm gonna go be a... yoga animal trainer.

That sounds great.

I packed up everything, I sold my car,

and I convinced my dad to drive me down.

This is me when I first got there.

My dad left.

He actually... What he said to me was,

"Goodbye.
Don't fall in love with your boss."

Because back then he was, like,

"Oh, my god, this guy is a chick-getter."

You know what I mean, he's... Anyway.

[man] Why do you choose to call him
Bhagavan, is that how everyone...

- That's what we called him.
- Bhagavan, which means what?

"Lord." It means "lord."

- Bhagavan means "lord."
- Yeah.

What does the name Bhagavan mean?

Bhagavan means
that you're a friend of God.

[man 1] The Bhagavan is the master
of the universe.

It's the all-knowing,
all-seeing kind of guy.

[man 2] And your dad is that guy?

For... Certainly in his universe
he definitely is that character,

no doubt.

[Antle] It's Shangri-La here.

It's an unbelievable, unprecedented,

magical place
where incredible things happen

and where everything is neutral
and happy and going well.

You know, we lived
in these terrible horse stalls, basically.

Like, with sliding doors
with bars on them.

It was full of cockroaches.

I mean... everywhere.

Like, I would go to make a sandwich,
my bread would be full of cockroaches

and it was like, nothing,
just throwing the co...

I mean, it was just...
That's the way it was.

Doc says, "You're this garbage person,

but if you listen to me,
I'll make you great."

If they wanted to...

get to the top really quickly,

they should sleep with him.

I certainly didn't want to sleep with him,
but I was thinking about it.

[Antle speaking indistinctly]

[drumming]

[Fisher] There was a certain personality
of woman that he wanted.

They were virgins or close to virgins.

He would become
that... sex partner for them,

the first,
and then they would be bonded to him

in this way, where he felt like
he could get them to do anything.

According to them,
it was like his Shaktipat.

So there's this concept
where a guru will touch you

and you'll become enlightened.

So essentially, it's...

Shaktipat with penis.

Well, I guess, I don't know.

His touch brings them up
to his level of enlightenment.

[Joe] Doc Antle is like...

my mentor...

in the animal industry.

When I met him, I had two husbands,
whatever you want to call them.

He had three girlfriends or wives.

[chuckles]

Are we running a competition?
I don't think so.

♪ You were my first love
The one that's gonna last ♪

[Reinke]
Joe's had a pretty good cast of characters

as far as husbands go.

He's had John as a husband
since I've been around.

John's a muscled-up bully kind of guy.

Doesn't come off to me as being gay,

but, you know, he lives with Joe.

Hey, don't show all my secrets now.

[Reinke]
It's a... it's a unique relationship.

And then there's Travis.

Travis is another
musclebound skateboarding guy.

Hi, I'm Travis.

- [Joe] Maldonado.
- Hi, I'm Travis Maldonado.

[Joe] Tell me more about your feet!

[both laughing]

My feet? My feet? Size 16.

I've got some big hands.

[Finlay]
The day Travis came to the park...

he looked like...

just a little, innocent person.

I'm 19 years old,
and I am from Southern California,

and I am tall, tan, and beautiful.

[Joe] He arrived and, my god,
it was this 6'6"...

dark-complected gentleman

with the most god-awful big hands
you've ever seen in your life.

Joe immediately is, like,
love-struck by this.

So we're taking the trash trailer down
one day. John's driving the truck.

Me, Joe, and Travis are in the back
of the trailer.

And, uh, Joe says...

"How straight are you?"

And he goes, "Pretty straight."

And I said, "You watch porn?"

He says, "Yeah."

I said, "Well, do you enjoy...

the guy with the little one doing her,

or do you enjoy watching
the guy with the big one doing her?"

And he says, "Well, obviously you want
to watch the guy with the big one."

I said, "Well, you ain't that straight."

[laughs]

[Finlay] It wasn't weird to share Joe
with another guy because...

Joe had tried for many years
to bring other people in,

and one day Joe asked me if...

Travis could be in a relationship
with us too, and...

I wasn't...

I didn't really know any better.

I didn't care.

[slow-tempo country song plays]

[officiant] In our society today,
no wedding is really normal,

but even by modern standards,
this is an unusual wedding.

Today, we have gathered to witness
the union of Travis, John, and Joe.

Go with love. You may now kiss.

♪ You'll know
By the wind in my eyes ♪

♪ And the beat of my heart
I'll be there ♪

♪ You'll know ♪

♪ 'Cause you'll never be lonely again ♪

♪ Anytime, anywhere ♪

[Maldonado]
I haven't had much of a life before this,

but when I did come here,

I started experiencing
a lot of different things.

I enjoy being around Joe and John
and all the animals.

I think what's going on around here
is great.

Uh...

[Howard] People like Joe have
an amazing grip over people,

generating an affection and a devotion

that is totally irrational.

[Carole] Frequently, these people
that have these animals

will use them as a lure
to bring in young people

that really haven't had
the opportunity yet

to build a lot of relationships

and understand how badly
they're being abused themselves.

And they're using those animals
as the way of forcing these people

into... labor camps.

[Antle] It has to supersede

all of your other hopes, wants,
dreams and desires.

It's what you're gonna wake up doing,
it's what you're gonna go to sleep doing,

and it's gonna happen 365 days a year.

Weddings, funerals, and relationships
at Christmas fade away

because the 80 tigers
will still be standing there

waiting for you to deliver
their next meal.

I just work all day.

- I'm kinda like a stay-at-home...
- Like 8:00 to midnight.

- 8:00 a.m. to midnight. Yeah.
- You're working every day.

It sounds insane,
it sounds intense and whatever,

but it's, like... it's my lifestyle,
it's what I want to do.

[bird chirps]

[man] So many of us are programmed
to believe that, you know,

we need weekends off,
we're only working 40 hours a week.

Um, that, you know, in some ways,

this is, you know, the military.

Except instead of having, you know,
hand grenades, we have tigers.

[Antle] The only survivors here look at it

that they're getting to do
something they like,

and it's not a job,
it's a lifestyle they have dove into.

We worked so hard...

- for so long.
- [man] How much did people get paid?

A hundred dollars a week.

A hundred dollars a week.

[Carole] Good morning, everybody. Hi!

Oh, thank you for coming.

I don't pay anybody to do animal care,

because people will do that for free.

Carole Baskin of Big Cat Rescue has
an army of people working for free.

She is not a stupid woman.

She makes everybody else
do her dirty work.

Because we're gonna have so many people
here today,

we have brought in 76
of our own volunteers,

and they brought their families.

- This is Regina and Bonnie...
- Hello.

...and Bonnie has the best pants
of the entire place so far that I've seen.

I love those.

[both laughing]

[Carole] Our volunteers wear
a color-coded shirt system.

Red shirts primarily function as, like,

your beginner, like, keeper trainees
and partner trainees.

If you get all your classes done,
you can apply for yellow shirt.

It takes about almost a year
to get your yellow,

then you have to have your yellow
for a full year.

Then you can apply to be a green shirt.
You have to have a minimum of two years.

And it goes by so quickly.

After they've been here for, like,
five years or so,

they can graduate to a master keeper.

- [man] And that's blue?
- That's a navy blue.

- Navy blue.
- There's royal blue.

I'm actually an intern.

I work six days a week, twelve hours days,

basically fast-pacing
through the volunteer program.

[man]
Are you super hands-on with the interns?

Sadly, I hardly ever know who they are

until they've been here, like...
They're here for level five,

and it's, like,
"I've seen you around here a lot.

[laughs] You keep coming back,
you're getting older."

You know, that's when
they really start showing up on my radar.

You definitely don't work regular hours.

So Christmas could be a bummer
for some people?

Yeah, no, I don't take Christmas.
I'm here Christmas.

[Joe] How does she brainwash
all of them volunteers

into the same bullshit?

She can make all these people think

that everybody else in society are
abusers but her.

I mean, she's a master marketer,
I'll give her that.

[man] I noticed that you have
a huge presence on social media.

[Carole] We've got
over two million fans on Facebook,

but in a given week,
we can reach three million.

Hey, all you cool cats and kittens,
it's Carole at Big Cat Rescue.

Max and Marianne the bobcats' enclosure
got finished and it looks great.

Every two weeks,
we get a check from Facebook,

and last two weeks were, like, $23,000.

And every two weeks it's going up
by thousands of dollars.

Hey, all you cool cats and kittens.

It's Carole from Big Cat Rescue.

I am about to go live on the Dodo Impact.

All right.

She rode the first wave of social media.

Her YouTube channel has 200 million views.

Her accounts have ten million people
watching them.

[somber instrumental music playing]

We're kind of popular. [laughing]

[both laugh]

♪ You see them in the jungles ♪

♪ In the forests, on the plains ♪

♪ And you can feel their spirits... ♪

[Carole] People see that logo,
they know who we are.

The first thing they'll say is,
"I love your videos!"

We get that everywhere we go.

♪ Living beautiful, wild and free ♪

♪ Oh! Beautiful, wild and free ♪

♪ And just like them, I see ♪

[Antle] High-quality social media,

duping tons of teenage children

to devote their days and times
to the cause that she has.

And so they go to Big Cat Rescue,

a derelict, rundown,
backyard collection of 12 cats,

and think they're going
to the world's greatest big cat sanctuary.

Come a little closer.

- Did you get the big cat?
- [camera operator] Yep.

Hi, I'm Joe Exotic,
and this is Big Cat Rescue.

[Joe] We went to go on a tour
of Big Cat Rescue,

and I paid my fees to go on a tour,
and I videotaped the tour.

[volunteer]
We are accredited as a true sanctuary.

We are totally hands off.
We don't touch them at all.

Her sanctuary is probably worse
than most people's backyards.

I mean, the cages are tiny,

the weeds are shoulder high.

It is literally a wire jungle
in a mess of trees.

[Reinke] USDA do not care.

They kept giving her a perfect inspection
where we couldn't get one.

And it just aggravated Joe.

[Joe] She advertises she has
over 100 big cats,

and on this tour, we only saw 12.

So I wanted to see
where she's hiding the other 100 big cats.

[volunteer]
We're going to to the gift shop.

Feel free to look around
as much as you want.

I went to the gift shop
and introduced myself, you know,

and I said,
"Well, in a couple hours, you know,

look up, it'll be me."

So we went to this little airport
outside of Tampa

and rented a helicopter,
and I flew over Big Cat Rescue.

[Carole] He wanted to get footage
of the cages and the enclosures

and all of that,

but he had clearly done it
to antagonize us.

[helicopter blades whirring]

[Carole] In the course of doing

this low-flying buzzing
over the sanctuary,

we have a cat who,

if she hears any kind of, like,
motorized sound, has seizures.

I wish that helicopter would go away!

When Joe rented that helicopter,

it gave him a lot of really bad ideas.

He was talking about dropping grenades.

Pulling the pins and just dropping them
out of the helicopter.

[Howard] We always have
a level of worry about these people,

but if we were to say, "You know what?
This is dangerous.

Let's just stop,"

we'd be miserable,

because it causes us so much pain

to see these animals treated this way.

My email says, "Judge me
by the enemies I have made." [laughs]

So I really appreciate the fact
that none of these people like me.

Hi, little man. Hi, little man.

[man] Now this is a liger?

This... well, I always don't say
they're ligers,

'cause there's like an anti-liger vein,

so I just pretend
they're all big cats. [laughs]

But yes,
this is a nine-month-old liger child.

And how big will this cat get?

If he hits the giant size,
then he's gonna be 900-plus pounds,

and he's gonna be 11 and a half feet tall.

And his chain's not been cleaned properly,

so my shirt's ruined.

[handler] I'm sorry.

[Antle chuckles]

[handler] He had to see his girlfriend.

[Stark] Me and Doc were friends,
you know, for years.

I kinda idolized him, you know.

Hell, number one,
not just because of the way

he had the animals and stuff he had,

the way he had them women trained.

For his own damn, you know...

harem and shit, you know.

The first time I ever met...
First time I went to Doc's place,

first time, I told him, "I don't need you
to teach me a damn thing about animals.

How the fuck you got these women trained?"

He's good at getting what he wants
out of things...

people and animals.

He chose all of our outfits.

We were supposed to be sexy,
because we're luring people in.

China came right after I came.

Her name was Michelle.

Moksha was named Meredith.

Rajnee, when I met her,
her name was Renee.

I had my name legally changed to Bala
for many years.

Changing your name is a very quick way
to change everything else about you.

He controlled every aspect of our day

and what we were allowed to do,

what we were, you know...

Definitely what we were allowed to eat
as vegetarians,

but also,
they were pushing me to get implants...

um...

which I don't remember agreeing to.

It was more like...

the appointments were made
and they had decided,

and I was too... scared to say
I didn't want to do it.

And also, I got to sleep for a few days...

to heal from that,

and that looked so good
after working so hard

for so many hours with no break.

No break.

Nothing else but work, work,
work, work, work.

It was like, I'll do anything...

I'll do anything to just rest.

[man] It's not every day
that you're asked to have a job

where you can't take any time off,

because people do have lives

and they do have families
outside of creating...

You're leading me down a road
where people are just gonna say,

"You have to join a fucking cult
to be a tiger trainer."

Promise you. Been here 35 years.
Heard it all forever.

Ho!

[drumming]

[Fisher] He would say,
"They're free to leave at any time."

[drumming]

[Fisher]
But that's the way it is in all cults.

I mean, they're free to leave,
they're usually not locked up.

They're being held by a thousand,
like, social ties

and by the idea of losing everything,

and how are they gonna even go

and where will they go when they leave?

- What?
- I'm gonna do something.

[Joe] He's got his little cult,
and I've got my little cult, you know.

It's just two complete opposite,
different worlds.

You know, he's a little more upscale,

and I'm working with people
that just got out of prison.

But it tends to work for him,

and the way I do it tends to work for me.

[Safferty]
Joe definitely liked to hire people...

who... that was their only option.

Don't try this at home, kids.

[Safferty] And his reasoning for it was,

if this is all they have, and it's decent,

they'll work hard enough to keep it.

It's kept me sober and not drinking.

[grunts]

Keeps me from getting into trouble.

He had people in the community saying,

"Hey, I saw someone come in
at the bus station in Midwest City...

and they're still sitting there tonight.

They have no family, nowhere to go,
and now they're on the side of the road."

You wanna trade a place to live
that you can call your own

in one of them trailers
out there at the park

in exchange to work at the Burger Barn?

Yeah, I can do that.

- Give you a start.
- Yeah.

- Yeah.
- Give me a start. Thank you!

- [Reinke] He pays the staff $150 a week.
- [man] Twenty dollars a day?

For 12 hours.
Ten to 12 hours every day of work, yeah.

One hundred and thirty-eight dollars
and twenty-six cents, to be precise.

This is probably gonna get me in trouble,
but... we just eat off the meat truck.

[truck beeping]

There was a truck that picked up meat
from all these Walmarts in the area

that had expired to feed the animals.

If you go to Walmart
and you put a brisket in your basket

and a couple t-bone steaks,

and you go to the register

and your credit card declines
or your check declines,

it can't go back, it goes to the trash.

And once it leaves that cold shelf,
it cannot go back.

[Cowie]
Oh, man! This stuff is still frozen.

Take that home.

[Reinke] Staff was world's worst
about going through the truck.

You know, to render it,
it needs to go to the cats,

but they would all go through it
and get 'em something to eat.

Ain't nothin' wrong with it, man.
I like my shit medium rare.

Lobster tails
and bad-ass cuts of beef and shit.

Joe would let them pick out
what they wanted first,

and they'd carry bags of this expired meat
and foods back to their mobile home,

and that's what they ate,
because that's all they had.

There were four mobile homes
inside the zoo.

The washing machine didn't work.

The water didn't run in the bathroom.

One air conditioner for the entire thing.

It can be 120 degrees in there at night.

That was the nice one.

[man] Whoa, motherfucker!

- What's in there?
- Fuckin' rat, right there.

Oh, shit.

Oh, my god, there he is!

- Oh, fuck!
- [rat squeaking]

[Carole] If you talk to the people
who have escaped some of these situations,

what they'll say is
that they were treated so abusively.

But not only are they abusing the people
that worked there...

they're abusing the animals there as well.

Those people feel like
they can't talk about it

because they could be accused
of having done it for their leader

that they were so enamored with.

[Fisher] I was really looking for somebody
to tell me what to do.

Doc said men are pigs and women are sheep.

I was a sheep, I guess,
ripe for the slaughter.

What I did, basically,
when I was there was raise tiger cubs.

At first, it was only, like,
a couple of litters a year,

and they were only for a certain time.

By the time I left,

there were always multiple litters

just... all over the place.

There's all of us. The family.

Oh, this was my favorite tiger ever,

Lakshman.

Such a sweetheart.

And he...

That was like a turning point
for me there.

Doc saw how well I did with Lakshman.

You know, just being gentle,
just following Lakshman's lead

and just making suggestions, you know,

and he was...
He would do anything I asked him to.

He just trusted me so much.

- He was a good tiger.
- [man] What happened to him?

Um...

We don't... We didn't really ask,

because...

only he's like, "I know where they go."

We didn't see that,
and we weren't really part of that.

One of the main things he told Joe Exotic:

"You can't keep 'em all."

That's a bad business decision,
because, you know,

once a tiger gets out of the stage
where you can use 'em,

they're nothing more than a bill then.

[tiger huffing]

There's always been a rumor out there

that Doc Antle euthanizes his cubs
when he's done with them.

[Carole]
We've had whistle-blowers come to us

and say that they've heard a gunshot
in the middle of the night

and the next day there's no cat...

but they don't know where the cat went.

And I think
that these people are smart enough

to only use their very closest circle
of people that they've got good dirt on...

That they would use to dispose of a body,

because it takes a few people
to lift a big cat.

Unless you part 'em out right there,
I guess.

[McCarthy] She thinks
she's the Cleopatra of big cats.

And to tell you the truth,
she's not that good.

And any time anyone attacks her,

she goes after them with her millions,

which she inherited from her husband
that's dead and missing for years now.

[man] Wait. How does
someone's husband just go missing?

- Like they just go missing?
- He just vanished.

[Tabraue] Carole Baskin is full of shit,
in my opinion.

She's got a missing husband
that's supposedly buried in her property.

That's a real true story.

Her husband disappeared.

The lady who runs Big Cat Rescue,
who seems, in my opinion

to be completely out of her gourd,

and seems, in my opinion,

to have killed her own husband,
potentially.

[Joe] Carole Baskin's third husband,
they can't find his body.

We believe that she fed him to the tigers.

It just makes for wonderful sales
of newspapers, I'm sure...

for them to speculate
that I fed him to the tigers, which is...

crazy.

[reporter] And Mike says his children

from a previous marriage
and former secretary

have been quoted as saying that
they believe Carole fed him to a tiger.

[tiger roaring]

[instrumental folk music]