Original subtitles

Yes, please. So, one of the biggest rating hits of the coronavirus

has been a show called Tiger King... Yeah.

..and the man who's the star of this is a former zoo owner

who's serving a 22-year prison sentence.

He's asking you for a pardon, saying he was unfairly convicted.

He has 22 years for what? What did he do?

He allegedly hired someone to murder an animal rights activist,

but he said that he didn't do that.

Would you recommend a pardon?

I'm not weighing in on Tiger King.

I don't think you would. I don't think we would.

Go ahead. Do you have a question?

I'll take a look.

Is that Joe Exotic? That's Joe Exotic?

So, this is a letter that was sent by Joe Exotic from jail.

It was forwarded on to me because I'm mentioned in it,

and it says, "I'm being kept locked down 24/7 with nothing,

"so my life sucks.

"Please tell everyone in the UK I love them,

"and message Louis Theroux that I need to tell the real story,

"but they keep me silenced."

Here he comes. Yeah, you guys are going to throw a mic on him? Yeah.

Back in the back pocket, is that cool? Yeah.

Are they going to follow you?

Like I said, as long as they don't mind me cussin'.

I got to know the gun-toting, proud mullet-wearing zoo owner

Joe Exotic in 2011.

Stay where you are for a second. There goes that serious thing.

That's what I see on the internet!

OK.

All you see is Louis...

I was making a programme about dangerous animals

that live in captivity.

ROAR

Scared the hell out of me!

Eight years later, he was convicted

of conspiring to murder animal rights activist Carole Baskin.

The jury came back finding Joseph Maldonado-Passage guilty

on all 19 counts.

Two of those largest ones

were the alleged use of interstate commerce for murder for hire.

The saga was recounted in a seven-part documentary series

that swept the world,

making a global icon of the man I'd once known.

All right, let's go.

Come on, Louis.

Louis, my bud.

Now a campaign was under way casting doubt over Joe's conviction

and aiming to have him freed.

Pardon Joe Exotic!

An army of supporters was mobilising.

And so, nine years on, I was going back to pick up where I left off

in the stranger-than-fiction tale of Joe Exotic.

Easy, you want to show him your stuff?

This is Isai.

Easy? Easy.

Yeah. How are you doing? I'm good. How about yourself?

This is Joe Exotic Central Station, right here.

We created this area.

So this is the pardon Joe Exotic call to arms.

Correct.

"Dear Joe Exotic fan,

"I want President Trump to hear from you

"in support of my presidential pardon.

"I would like to sincerely extend thanks to you all

"for your loyalty during this trying time."

"Dear Joe Exotic, AKA Tiger King.

"Hello, my name is Ella, I'm 12 years old, turning 13 soon.

"I just have a question. Why tigers?

"My favourite pen pal, Joe.

"My friend asked me to make her pickled Brussels sprouts.

"I've never even tried them. Have you?"

Does he really read all of this?

Yes.

He reads all of them,

and he responds to every last one of those fans.

Every single one of them, he responds to 'em.

He wrote over 5,000 letters in four months.

Really?! Handwritten. From prison? Yeah. Amazing.

Yeah, he is singlehandedly,

I mean, by far the most popular prison inmate

in the history of the United States.

KNOCK AT DOOR

Hi, Joe. Hi! I'm Louis. Joe.

Nice to meet you. Good to meet you. How's it going? Good. Awesome.

Awesome. Yeah. Thanks for having us. Are you good? Yeah, good.

We appreciate you coming.

OK!

You are the first people here ever to do a film crew,

and probably will be the last. We appreciate it.

Well, we appreciate it.

This story needs telling.

Has anyone seen Joe Exotic anywhere?

Are y'all ready? We're ready. Shall we go? Let's do it.

Where do you want to take us?

Where do you want to go?

Is there a tiger or a lion you have more of a rapport with, maybe?

Bears are more my thing.

Bears and the chimps.

Shall we see the bears?

Yeah, why not? Want to do the bears?

Can we do it without your sunglasses?

You're going to mess up my face-lift!

I just had a face-lift.

Let me go get some Twinkies for the bear.

This is footage that's never aired before,

of me on my first day of filming with Joseph Schreibvogel,

better known as Joe Exotic.

I'd stumbled across his website

and immediately been taken by his flamboyant personality

and his enormous park.

You never saw my bullet holes, did you?

I got shot in the chest three times.

HE CHUCKLES

Is it a joke?

What are you showing me? Tattoos of bullet holes!

Let's see. Let me see them again!

Show me again.

There's one...there's one...

..there's one.

We were doing a joke and... You've got pierced nipples, too?

We were doing a joke... How is that...?

That's unconventional, isn't it?

Are you a little unconventional? Yeah.

Are you happy to talk about your private life at all?

Hey, my life is an open book.

I have nothing to hide.

Then nobody can tell stories about you.

So, what's your story?

What's my story?

You really want to know? Private life. You asked. Yeah.

You really want to know? Yeah.

OK.

I'm gay.

I'm married to a man - have been for eight years -

and we both have the same boyfriend that lives with us, as well.

So, it's kind of a menage a trois?

Would that be the phrase? I guess!

I don't understand French, but yeah.

Look! We need a bigger bathtub.

Joe's zoo, the Garold Wayne Exotic Animal Memorial Park,

spread out over 16 acres of Wynnewood, Oklahoma,

and contained more than 1,000 animals, including 150 tigers.

Are we OK to come in? Yeah. TIGER GROWLS

Is this safe?

Come here. Come here!

They'll reach clear out to here.

Ugly face!

Hey, want a drink? Ugly face!

OK. Smile. Big girl.

That's some good stuff, huh?

CRASH Ooh!

Come here. Monique! What?

What is that?!

He said, "That's my girlfriend!"

He said, "My girlfriend," huh?

LOW SNARL

What?

If I got in there with these two,

would they be all right with me?

If he was to get you...

..he would not...he would not kill you and eat you right away.

He's going to torment you.

I'd just shoot you.

You would shoot me? Yeah. In the head?

Yeah!

Cos I'm not going to get you back,

so why make you suffer?!

HE CHUCKLES

Hm.

Joe advertised his park as a sanctuary for exotic animals

whose private owners could no longer keep them.

All right, guys, we can't let you touch him,

but we can just let you see him.

He's going to bring him around so you can see him.

About three weeks old, he just got sponsored last weekend.

We're waiting on the name.

Visitors could sponsor animals,

paying for cages with monthly donations,

but the park made most of its money

by allowing the public to handle tiger cubs.

You can talk a little bit, can't you?

24 hours old. 24 hours old.

Oh, that's the one that had cubs last night, right?

Please do not touch these guys.

Isn't it amazing?

How little they are.

This makes 12 I have in the house now.

APPLAUSE Oh, wow.

So, will he stay here, or...?

Well, most of these are already spoken for, for other zoos.

Oh, OK. We'll have three that will stay with us out of the 12.

How much is the sponsorship?

Just different. We'll talk about it up front. OK.

The most lucrative and controversial aspect of Joe's fundraising

was his cub-petting road show.

It travelled America visiting malls,

offering customers a chance to pay for photos with infant animals.

Olivia!

Not too tight. Not too tight, baby. There you go. It's OK.

How are you doing? Good. How are you?

I'm Louis. Louis, I'm Beth.

You've been here all week, is that right?

We started yesterday and we'll be here through Sunday,

set up every day so that we can be here to...

Hopefully people will come and enjoy the animals

and...go play with the tigers.

Who goes in these two?

This right here is Fergie,

and this right here, over to your right, is the older cats.

Fergie is one of the bigger... Who's Fergie?

He's the, uh, liger. The liger.

And the bear?

The bear, she stays on the other side, over there.

So, these animals could be out here for...

They'll be on the road for maybe a couple of months? Yes.

And how do you think they like it?

Cos some might think, "Oh, it's a bit stressful for them

"being trucked around like that."

It's not stressful on them at all.

They're very content, very happy,

and they enjoy coming out and getting the attention.

Do you think they're happy in the cages?

I don't really want this to go anywhere else about this, OK?

As far as they're...

I don't want to say anything else, OK?

I just don't want to. OK. OK?

You're basically saying, yes, they are, basically, isn't that...?

Well, yes, absolutely.

I mean, this is the life they know

and this is the life that they're going to be very happy with.

Joe's road show required a constant stream of new cubs,

and made him a frequent target of animal rights activists.

One in particular preoccupied him to the point of obsession.

This name Carole Baskin keeps coming up... Mm-hm.

..and it seems to be something that's on your mind.

See, this is...this is what's going on right now.

This is an alert Carole Baskin just put out yesterday.

Let me rewind.

So, there's someone called Carole Baskin.

Yeah. Who is she?

She's a psychotic woman

that supposedly killed her husband in '97,

that owns Big Cat Rescue in Tampa, Florida.

I don't think we can say...

I don't know that we can say all that, for legal reasons.

JOE SNIGGERS

She's an animal rights person?

We don't know what she is.

She runs a...? She runs a... Sanctuary?

..shoddy sanctuary in Tampa, Florida.

What do you allege that she did?

Well, she's the prime suspect in her husband's disappearance.

Her husband disappeared. Yeah, in 1997.

You think she may have... um, whacked her husband?

I think she fed him to the tigers.

In a way, whether or not that's true,

what does that have to do with her allegations against you?

Well, I mean, our agenda is, by the year 2015,

is to control the entire cat... exotic cat population.

I haven't watched this in ten years.

It's just weird.

You know, I had no idea it was going to lead to a federal case,

and Joe getting 22 years.

You think this is just a... a game for me?

This is... This is how many letters she has wrote my clients.

Saying what? That we are abusing animals.

Can I see? You can.

Which kind of clients, what kind of clients?

My malls, my advertisers, my shows.

How badly does it hurt you? Financial wise?

Yeah, her activities? Oh... Since 2006,

she's probably cost us $5 million plus.

She has become one of America's biggest domestic terrorists.

In a way, shouldn't your focus be keeping your park going,

maximising your resources? But I can't keep my park going

as long as this bitch is around. Why?

Because she harasses everybody we deal with.

In the years after we filmed,

Joe shared, his grievances with a growing audience

on his regular YouTube show.

One thing you will never do, bitch, is shut me up.

We hear it's Carole's birthday next month.

We're shipping her two of these!

His rants about Carole Baskin developed into overt threats

that would later be used in evidence at Joe's trial.

Carole Baskin better never, ever, ever see me face to face.

That is how frickin' tired of this shit I am.

Well, hello there.

All right?

Welcome to Big Cat Rescue!

Thank you!

I was worried about the weather,

but this doesn't look too bad, does it?

I brought an umbrella this time.

Is that what you call Howard, your umbrella?

THEY LAUGH He's my rock.

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

Howard and Carole Baskin

are the husband-and-wife team behind Big Cat Rescue,

a sanctuary in Tampa, Florida, that takes in abused animals

and campaigns to end breeding in captivity.

I've been providing care for exotic cats for more than 30 years,

and if there's one thing I know for sure,

it's that big cats don't belong in cages.

Priya's a 17-year-old tiger.

And where did Priya come from, Carole?

It was a tiger breeding mill out in Colorado

called Serenity Springs.

They're breeding the cubs for photos, mainly?

That's the primary thing.

People paying to have their picture made with a cute little cub -

and they can only use them between about 8 to 12 weeks safely,

and then there's nowhere for them to go,

except for the ones like her,

who end up just pumping out cubs in a tiger mill.

So, someone like Joe called his facility a sanctuary.

He would also say, "Oh, I'm rescuing cats from people who can't keep them

"and taking care of tigers so they can live out their lives."

So, what's the difference?

The first time that Joe Schreibvogel came up on my radar was in 2004,

and he was quoted in an article in the Oklahoman

as saying that this lion cub

that was very crippled from all of the inbreeding

that had happened at his facility, he was there talking about her,

and so, from that point forward is where I started paying attention

to what was happening there.

Sanctuaries don't breed.

They don't buy, they don't sell these animals.

A place that is claiming to be a sanctuary

and saying that they're rescuing animals

while they're breeding more of them for life in prison,

that's a zoo. That's not a sanctuary.

For her animal rights work,

Carole has paid the price of being fiercely hated,

as was shown in evidence submitted at court.

I'm the most dangerous exotic animal owner

on this planet right now -

and before you bring me down,

it is my belief...

..that you will stop breathing.

As you know, in 2011, I filmed at GW zoo, Joe's park,

and he ranted about Carole, it won't surprise you to know,

calling you, at one point, the number one terrorist in America.

How do you account for the level of hatred he had for you, Carole?

I think because an organisation like PETA coming after him

is an organisation, whereas, with me,

he could blame it on a single person,

but the battle was never with him.

The battle's always been to protect the big cats from people like him.

We were the ones who were stopping the mall exhibits.

Right. We were effective.

We were having an impact -

one by one, these malls were saying, "No, you can't come here any more,"

and that, understandably, really pissed him off.

JOE MURMURS

One of my discoveries going back over my old footage

was that, even with me,

Joe had made dark and apparently serious references

to the possibility of Carole being killed.

I want to show you how serious people are.

OK, put the camera off.

Put the camera off. I want to show you how serious this is getting.

OK...

People are so fed up with it

that this guy right here is a hit man in Tampa, Florida,

and he's gotten off of everything he's ever done,

and people are considering it.

That's how out of control this is getting.

What is the next step? If we can't get anywhere with this lawsuit...

..somebody is just going to have to...

I don't... I don't even know any more.

I've been to the Department of Justice,

I've been to the Attorney General.

Who do you go to and say, "Look, something bad's fixing to happen

"if y'all don't step in and put a stop to this"?

The A-Team? The A-Team, there you go.

But, seriously, it's getting to the point somebody's going to die.

She's either going to kill one of us

or somebody is going to have her killed.

Um, what do you make of that?

Joe characteristically would talk unguardedly

in front of the whole world,

but here he's saying it, like, he's like, "Turn the camera off.

"I want to tell you something off the record, or behind the scenes,"

and he's saying, "One of us is going to die,"

and that makes you take it more seriously in retrospect,

but, at the time, it felt...like talk.

I had entirely forgotten this conversation with Joe,

and, at the time, hadn't even realised

the camera was still recording.

I can only assume I took what he was saying

as an expression of his overactive imagination.

But, seriously, it's getting to the point somebody's going to die.

She's either going to kill one of us

or somebody is going to have her killed.

TRAIN HORN BLOWS

In the background to Joe's behaviour at the park

was an area of rural Oklahoma

beset by drugs and dwindling opportunities.

For many young people,

the zoo offered the closest thing to an escape.

In 2011, after a few days of filming,

I'd come to see the potential for an entire documentary

all about Joe and his world,

and I began interviewing the people around him.

Workers lived on site in trailers, surviving on $150 a week

and food donated by Wal-Mart,

but were pleased to have a chance to be involved

in what must have seemed an exciting lifestyle.

Among those I met was Ray, who, after a three-year stint,

was preparing to leave the park.

So, where do you actually stay?

I stay in the middle bedroom. Oh, down there?

Come on.

RAY LAUGHS

There's my room.

How old are you?

30.

Do you think this may be it for you, once you've left this time?

No. No?

Joe'll call. I'll come back.

Why? Just way I am.

Joe gave me an opportunity to better myself.

I'll do anything for Joe. And he knows it.

He has my phone call... He has my phone number!

So, where are we going?

We gotta go up to the office and interview an applicant for a job.

And you were saying... I bet you $100

that, A, he's only got half his teeth,

B, he's probably been...

..a felony conviction

of some kind of drug charge,

and if he's got a car,

which I probably doubt,

and nowhere to live.

In a way, you kind of...

In a way, you kind of rescue and rehome your employees. People.

Do you? Yeah.

Two years ago we took in a chimpanzee AND its owner

because neither one of them had a home.

The members of Joe's inner circle

also tended to be people looking for a second chance.

His park manager, John Reinke, was a former bungee ride attendant.

He'd lost both his legs in a zip line accident,

and had bonded with a disabled lion called Bonedigger.

Oh...

Man, that's a lot of weight!

Oh, my gosh.

He is getting so big.

If he starts to eat you, what is the protocol?

If I have any problem at all,

I yell "banana", these guys will help me out.

For real? Yeah. Banana? Banana.

Are we all right with the glasses?

Yeah, better... Better without.

Really bright!

Joe's husband, John Finlay, had been one month out of high school

when he came to live at the park.

How do you think it's going so far?

Good.

Everything's as it should be right now.

And Joe...Joe seems to be enjoying it.

He was a bit tense this morning, but now he's more relaxed.

Yeah, he's... Everything's starting to go as he planned. Sorry...

Sorry. If we just get up there and do it, is that easier? Yeah.

You've worked here for a while, John?

Eight years. Do you enjoy it?

Oh, yeah.

How did you get involved?

I just needed a job and come around,

and luckily I get hired at the time, so...

Are you happy to talk about your relationship with Joe, as well?

That's fine. You're basically...

..in a kind of a domestic arrangement with him.

Well, yeah.

You could call it that. You wear his ring.

Oh, yeah.

Oh, yeah. Wear it proudly, too.

TIGER CUB YOWLS

What do you love about Joe?

Everything, actually.

He's taught me a lot.

Uh...I was just a little snot-nosed 19-year-old when I first started,

and...now I'm 27 and know quite a bit more than what I did.

And there's also Paul, right? Mm-hm.

And what is Paul?

He's...just something Joe wanted to add in one day,

and I said yeah.

Isn't that right? And does that work?

Mm-hm.

Paul seems a little more mysterious than some of the other people here,

because he doesn't wear the uniform.

That's because he's not an employee.

He's not? He's not a volunteer?

Uh-uh. Well... I live here. He's my other half.

You know what's weird is, I met him when he was 19,

and I met him when he was 19.

JOE LAUGHS

Is that important to you? That's an important part of your world?

Yeah. Having two props, two pillars?

You know what? It used to never be, because when I started this,

it was just me and my other half back then,

but he died in 2001,

and before then, it was never three people.

There's two men in your life.

Yes. Is that difficult?

No.

What better could you ask for

of having a best friend, a lover, a relationship,

someone that likes to hunt, hike, fish and do man things

without having to worry about some girl bitching about it all the time?

OK?!

It's also, you're never alone.

It's not about sex, it's about having a friend.

Joe's need for companionship

was something many of those in his circle would comment on -

but the vulnerability of the people he attracted also gave him power.

Within his park, he was unaccountable.

In later years, most of Joe's friends would move away.

One of the few still in the area is his niece Chelsea.

Hi, there. How are you doing? Good. How are you?

You must be Chelsea. Yes, I am.

Shall we come in? Yes. OK.

She lives in a house that once belonged to Joe's parents,

and which remains a repository for family photos and memorabilia.

That's me and Joe.

You were close enough to Joe that even after you'd grown up,

or as you were growing up, you were visiting the park

and volunteering at the park?

Yes, I worked there off and on since it's been open. Mm-hm.

That is me playing with one of the lions

that was in Joe's front yard.

That was at GW?

Yeah, that's in Joe's front yard.

Wow.

How did he... How did Joe change as the years went by?

I want to say it was after he learned how to make a quick buck,

really, like, "Oh, this...

"If you tell people this, they'll donate money to you. Oh, cool."

And you know, I think even made a Facebook or YouTube video

at one point in time that says,

"Who needs to work when you have sponsors like mine?"

And he posted a picture of a car or something,

and, you know, that's exactly his attitude over time.

He... The way this family would describe him is,

he always thought he was more or less above the law -

but you don't think, "Oh, my family is capable of murder."

No way. But the more he changed,

and, like, just his attitude towards people,

now I'm just like... I'm an idiot for not seeing it.

I spent time with him, as well. Right.

What I found was, you were aware that he was doing things

that were at best questionable, right? Mm-hm.

And you could see that it was somewhat chaotic,

and yet it was hard not to warm to him

and almost feel a little bit protective of him.

What you've seen as chaotic, I thought was normal,

because that's how I was taught.

Just like...forging the vet certificates.

You did that? I did it.

I filled out vet certificates that were already signed by a vet. I did.

What did that achieve, though? I'm wondering why he asked you... So...

You had to have a vet certificate for certain states at that time,

and if he was going to a different state

that required a vet certificate,

I would have to fill out what animals he had with him

and then send it to them.

To give the impression that a local vet had checked them out? Yes.

I didn't know it was illegal,

just like running people's credit cards every month,

writing down their credit card numbers and keeping it on file.

I didn't know that was illegal either.

Because after a while, I would have to take phone calls of people irate,

"I told you to stop running my credit card

"and you ran it again this month," and... Yeah.

It seems to me that he was increasingly intent

on becoming famous.

He's dying to be famous, like, that was his goal.

I remember the first...

..YouTube video he made, one of the first ones,

it was like, "Oh, folks, I'm going to Hollywood.

"My dream's come true. I'm going to Hollywood."

And that never happened, he never went to Hollywood,

but he made his own Hollywood.

His little fortress up there that he created,

he did what he wanted to,

and, you know, got away with it for so long.

Joe's quest for fame stretched back years.

Even in his time before the zoo,

while running a pet store in Texas with his older brother, GW,

he'd carefully saved all his newspaper cuttings.

Show business, my God!

Light might need to come closer.

In my time at the park,

he'd hosted a low-budget YouTube show.

I think we have a Gary from Tulsa, Oklahoma, on there

that says he can't hear me.

Let me turn you up, then.

OK, go ahead and talk.

Julie from Colorado - I think!

Trying to keep track of all these fans all over the United States.

FANFARE PLAYS

Later, a succession of TV producers would make their way to the zoo

and add polish to his broadcasts, creating portentous graphics

as Joe continued to fixate on his feuds

in freewheeling attacks on perceived enemies.

..fucking nuts, or Carole Baskin or PETA

crawl this fence and try and hurt any of my animals again,

you can guaran-goddamn-tee I'll put a cap in your ass the first time

to make you squirm around on the ground,

and then I'll put a bullet right between your fucking eyes.

# Cos it's a big forty acres

# And if you're not careful... #

A short-lived musical career would also be an opportunity

to antagonise the woman he saw as his nemesis, Carole Baskin.

# ..No bones, no remains

# But that won't change the fact

# That Don sure ain't coming back... #

Glossy and over the top,

one of his videos enacted a conspiracy theory

about Carole and her missing husband, Don Lewis.

The surprisingly strong vocal performance

was later revealed not to be by Joe.

Did y'all come all the way over from the UK?

Yeah. We've been talking to a few different people...

Many of Joe's show business efforts involved him doing magic

using the name Cody Ryan.

The performances were billed as fundraisers for the park,

and, in the early days, involved a young illusionist

who still calls himself Johnny Magic.

That is in Oklahoma City.

So, this would have been February-ish 2003.

We've been doing this for about a month now, together.

Each of us have been performing for over six years,

and all of the proceeds of our show

go to help the animals at the animal park.

Whoa.

Is that you? Yeah.

This was actually one of the first times I went out to the park.

So, you would have been in your teens.

I was just turned 19 about that time.

So, how long were you associated with Joe?

Probably about eight months. Were you living there?

Yes, I was living in the trailers out back.

THEY LAUGH

That's quite sweet, in a funny way.

It looks like he's really having fun.

Yeah.

The Joe I met, Joe Schreibvogel,

was not this over-the-top push-it-in-your-face...

He was more shy.

How did it happen that you finally left?

I mean, what was that decision like?

Started going by Joe Exotic - in those eight months...

..I saw the power, money and ego go to his head.

You have hundreds of people coming up

and saying, "Hey, you did a great job, great show, we enjoyed it.

"Thanks for doing what you're doing for the animals."

Suddenly, Joe's getting all this recognition,

all this recognition of, "Hey, that's great, that's great."

I think between that building up of the ego

and then the constant cash flow,

and, you know, this is pre the little square card-readers,

this is mainly $10,000 cash a weekend.

Suddenly you're looking at a minimum of $40,000 a month

that he was getting into the animal park.

And then Joe would start to buy extravagant gifts for people,

like a brand-new truck or a four-wheeler.

And knowing that Joe didn't have this money, you're like,

"Hmm, I know we just raised $16,000 this last weekend,

"and he goes out and buys two new four-wheelers for these people."

Who was he buying four-wheelers for?

The one person I remember he bought a truck and a four-wheeler for

was John Finlay. Mm-hm. I know he bought it for him.

And then there was other people

that, you know, he was either flirting with or whatnot

that he bought things for that.

That was another thing, is that when a cat was...

We were told a cat... by other crew members of the park,

"Joe got rid of that cat because we can't afford to feed that cat."

How can we not afford to feed all these animals?

We're bringing in, at minimum, 40,000 a month.

He gets rid of them at the drop of a hat,

while he could have sold the jewellery, sold the truck,

sold all these nice things that he was buying.

And that's where I was like, "I've got to get out of here."

The high price of Joe's lifestyle and his need for money

fed into Joe's conflict with Carole.

We can prove she's cost us $10.6 million in the last three years.

Carole? Yeah.

So our lawsuit will be for 15 million.

What's the... What's the good news?

I'm going to win. Oh! LAUGHTER

As time went on, the dispute would play out in lawsuits.

How can you not lose? Yeah.

This whole box is full of nothing but letters she's wrote my clients.

Harassment letters. Yeah.

Hang in there a little bit, guys, and we'll all be driving Maseratis

compliments of Carole Baskin.

LAUGHTER

OK, senor? I'll get you your own plane

to go to Honduras and pick up ladies.

LAUGHTER

So, you're filing a lawsuit for lost earnings

to the tune of $15 million? Yes.

Because of cancelled performances of your magic show

and your animal road show. Yes.

And visits to the park, too? Yep.

Slander, defamation of character.

The whole nine yards.

She's already got a suit against me.

For what?

For that trademark infringement thing!

Because you called your road show...

Big Cat Rescue Entertainment Group.

And her outfit is called...? Big Cat Rescue.

Did it not occur to you that those were quite close

when you named the show?

There's five other places called Big Cat Rescue. Who cares?

You have a beef with her,

so did you slightly do it to piss her off? No.

Not at all!

Not at all.

Didn't even think about it.

She'll fight you.

I'm sure she'll fight me.

But there ain't no way she's going to win in front of a jury.

NEWS REPORT: An Oklahoma man who goes by the name Joe Exotic

has agreed to pay a Florida animal sanctuary nearly $1 million

to resolve a trademark infringement lawsuit

filed more than two years ago in federal court.

Well, she got her large judgment that she got against us...

Joe did not win his legal case.

In a local news report, he spun his loss as a positive.

Declaring bankruptcy,

he said he saw his financial collapse

as the launchpad for a new career.

I have signed a movie contract,

I have signed several magazine deals,

and I'm going Hollywood,

thanks to all the harassment and publicity.

I could never have marketed myself

the way that the animal rights people marketed me,

and my television producers and my PR firm

all say the same thing.

It doesn't matter how bad somebody hates you,

if you're on TV or if you're in a magazine,

they're going to watch it, they're going to buy it,

just to see what the hell you're up to.

By 2016, Joe had still not paid Howard and Carole

the million-dollar judgment.

That year, he transferred control of his park to a new friend

to keep it out of the hands of the Baskins,

while continuing to work there and hanging on to a few of his animals.

Joe's friend was a high-rolling exotic animal owner named Jeff Lowe.

Lowe announced his arrival on the scene during a mediation session

intended to resolve the financial issues

between Joe and the Baskins.

It was around this time, while working at the park under Jeff,

that Joe began plotting Carole's murder.

Do you have a sense of when this went into high gear,

and what was behind that?

In November of 2017,

I'm sitting at my desk, the phone rings, I pick it up

and a voice says, "Howard, this is..."

or, "Mr Baskin, this is the Fish and Wildlife Service

"and the FBI," at which point I'm thinking, "What did I do?!"

And they said, "Look, we don't want to worry you or upset you,

"but we want you to be advised that we have information

"that Joe is actively trying to hire someone to kill Carole.

"We are on it, we're monitoring it,

"but we want you to take precautions."

Meantime, day after day, we're waiting for them

to finally get enough on him to feel like they could arrest him.

Joe's case went to trial in March 2019.

He was charged with two counts of murder for hire

involving two different hit men.

In undercover recordings,

jurors heard a zoo worker called Allen Glover,

who Joe had paid $3,000 to kill Carole.

I sat through the trial and, like, I wanted to bawl,

because stuff was coming out, like, hard-fact evidence of stuff,

and I didn't want to believe it.

I have the transcripts of all that. Do you?

Yeah. We might take a look at that? Yeah, that's fine.

I've got 'em over here in this box.

This one is... It'll tell you whose transcript it is.

John Finlay's. Joe's husband.

"Who asked you to take Mr Glover to Dallas?"

Allen Glover was the guy who was allegedly the hit man.

Yeah. I was there for Allen's testimony, too.

It says, "Mr Schreibvogel." That's Joe Exotic. Mm-hm.

And then it says,

"Did you learn why you were taking Mr Glover to Dallas?"

"Yes." "What did he tell you?"

"He called me and he was hesitant of what to tell me.

"Then he told me I was taking Allen down there to get a fake ID

"so he could go take care of Carole."

And then Allen says that he took the cash

and then started driving to Florida

and he spent all of his money on drugs and booze when he got there!

And couldn't make it any further. Allen Glover? Yeah.

After Joe's first plan to kill Carole failed,

he reached out to another hit man who, unknown to him,

was an undercover FBI agent.

Joe talked in detail about how much he would pay

and the best way to do it.

Joe was also charged with the unlawful shooting of five tigers

in his possession, allegedly to make room for a travelling circus

that had offered to pay him $5,000 to board their animals.

I think it's been said by friends of Joe that he shot the tigers

because they were infirm.

No. You don't think so?

No, because I have seen the pictures

of the bones they dug up, and the studies -

and that's one thing no-one has made a big deal about.

It was said in the trial

that there was nothing wrong with those cats.

After just three hours of deliberation,

the jury convicted Joe on all counts.

It was noted that Joe had been largely without supporters at trial.

Alone in jail, he blamed his legal woes on Jeff Lowe,

saying his old friend had set him up

as a way of getting final control of the park.

Password. Er, the usual one.

Joe's sense of abandonment comes across in a recording

used in evidence of a phone call

with the man who'd once told me he loved everything about Joe -

his ex-husband, John Finlay.

She wanted to shut down his zoo,

and he wanted her gone.

When Tiger King launched on Netflix in March 2020,

its surreal, larger-than-life depiction

of the world of big cat owners

quickly made it a cultural phenomenon

He's a completely insane, gay, gun-toting

drug addict fanatic.

Arriving at the height of lockdown,

its compulsive storytelling provided a much-needed diversion.

The well-known zoo owner was taken into custody.

He could be looking at nearly 80 years in prison.

The series' jaw-dropping twists and turns

left many sharing Joe's view that had been set up

and that the real villains of the piece

were Jeff Lowe and Carole Baskin.

Our mission is to ban the private possession

of these magnificent animals.

Episode three aired theories

that Carole might have murdered her ex-husband Don.

It's why we haven't spoken out.

Because you're afraid of Carole Baskin?

Oh, yes, I am.

I am.

Several other faces familiar to me also appeared,

including a shirtless John Finlay.

I was Joe's right-hand man for 16 years.

I don't know what I would go to prison for.

By the time the title appeared on the final episode,

the news was reporting that fans of the series

had taken social media by storm.

REPORTER: Stars like Jared Leto posting pictures

dressed up like Joe Exotic,

and Cardi B wants to free the Tiger King.

Amid all the adulation and Tiger King mania,

a small minority raised concern about some aspects of the series.

Why did you convict Joe Exotic?

One internet streaming channel

interviewed a juror at Joe's trial.

The documentary, or docu-series,

is really not even close to what we saw in court.

It makes the jury look like we were incompetent

and that we convicted him on basically nothing,

when it wasn't like that at all.

The dissenting voices were proving no obstacle

to Tiger King's world domination.

A second series was said to be in the works,

and members of the cast were now in high demand

for interviews, live shows and spin-off projects.

Without realising it, I'd wandered into something very different

to my normal documentary terrain.

I got an e-mail with a letter attachment, which is from a law firm

acting on behalf of the producers of Tiger King, the TV series.

It says, "Dear Mr Theroux, we write in connection

"with the proposed documentary project for BBC Two

"about Joseph Maldonado, AKA Joe Exotic.

"It's come to our client's attention

"that Mindhouse has recently approached Josh Dial, Eric Love,

"John Reinke, James Garretson, Tim Stark,

"Joseph Maldonado..." - that's Joe Exotic -

"..Dillon Passage Maldonado..." - that's his latest husband -

"..and Kelci Saffery.

"We are writing to point out that the participation

"of any of these individuals in your programme

"would violate their exclusive agreements with RGP

"and put you in the position of being liable

"for tortious interference with contract."

I don't know what that is, but it doesn't sound good.

"Tortious interference can create liability

"for possibly millions of dollars in punitive damages."

It's annoying, is what it is.

You know, we didn't know about any of this until the letter arrived.

No-one we'd contacted

had said that they were under an exclusive relationship.

There was no question it was a bump in the road.

Having been invited back by Joe,

I now found he'd signed something

making it legally impossible for me to contact him.

Also off limits was Eric Love, the Texas private investigator

behind the campaign for Joe's pardon.

President Trump, please pardon Joe Exotic.

Hi, we're here for Francisco Hernandez.

However, on the bright side, Eric's two partners on the project,

lawyers Francisco Hernandez and Jeff Hoover,

had not signed contracts with the Tiger King producers,

meaning I could speak to them.

They had agreed to meet me

to explain why they were so keen to see Joe freed.

Hi. How are you?

Thank you for doing this. You're welcome.

So, basically, as I understand it,

you weren't part of his defence counsel at trial.

That's correct, isn't it? He had a different defender. Correct.

How did you become involved in this whole thing?

Well, we became involved when Eric Love,

who I'd befriended a couple of years before, came to me

and asked if I were interested in jumping on a case

that he had just gotten hired on.

So, he came in and asked me if I'd watched the show,

and, of course, who hasn't?

And, so, then I volunteered to get on the case.

We get on the case, what, was it around April, Eric?

He's standing right behind you. Yeah.

At this point, Eric Love had entered the room,

putting me in a delicate legal situation.

This is Eric Love right here.

Now, before you film him, Jack, we've been advised by our lawyers

that I think Eric signed something that made them nervous.

I know these two guys are, but I think we were advised

that you were in an exclusive arrangement.

Hang on, Jack. I don't think we've... I don't think...

I'd like to film you.

I just don't know if we're going to get in legal hot water.

I wasn't entirely certain, but I had a bad feeling

that tortious interference might be looming into view.

"I acknowledge and agree that I shall not participate

"nor grant any rights to my likeness

"in connection with any other documentary projects

"based on substantive and creative concepts of storylines

"of the programme,

"including Joe Exotic, based on themes of big cats."

Maybe that is exclusive.

You know what? I think we'll leave it for now.

Let's focus on the matter at hand.

What's going to happen? Do you think you're going to get a pardon?

I expect a pardon, or a commutation.

It is before the President, front and centre, with his main advisers.

They're very aware of who Joe Exotic is, very aware.

Joe was convicted because the people that he put his trust in

and all of his confidence turned on him, set him up -

it was a set-up. Not to put him in prison -

I guarantee you Jeff Lowe never thought Joe would end up in prison.

He just wanted control of the... rip off the zoo from him.

Carole Baskin never would have thought

that he would go to prison for 22 years.

Joe was convicted at trial, right? Correct.

Some of the evidence was extremely persuasive, I would submit,

and they had him on tape, right?

Persuasive as to what?

Talking about an intent to kill Carole Baskin.

OK. If you're going to kill somebody, you don't talk about it.

OK? If you really want to hire somebody to kill somebody,

you don't talk about, you don't put it on the internet. No.

So, you're saying that even though he said that,

he didn't really mean it?

Yeah.

You know, I can say, "I'm going to kill the President,

"I'm going to kill the President!"

If I don't take any affirmative steps to go kill the President,

it's not a murder for hire,

or it's not an intent to kill the President.

I mean, Joe was someone who clearly, I would argue...

..wanted to see Carole Baskin dead, right?

You know, if she'd fallen under a bus,

he would have been dancing in the street, right?

He loathed her... He loathed her.

..and dedicated hours, days, weeks...

Yeah. ..to indicating to the world how much he hated her,

how happy he would be

if only she was dead. Because she was such a hypocrite.

She was doing what she was criticising Joe of doing.

The key detail in the terms of the difference

between what Carole Baskin does at her facility and what Joe was doing

is her whole mission was to stop breeding

in America, right, of tigers,

and Joe's...and Joe was the opposite.

He was breeding as many as possible. He was.

I mean, if you really go back and look, who do people think was evil?

Even if you take those statements as true,

Carole was evil.

Everybody believes, with zero evidence,

that Carole Baskin killed her husband.

Everybody believes beyond a reasonable doubt that Carole Baskin

killed her husband in 1997, just by the way she speaks.

She reeks deception.

Joe just reeks naiveness.

But I think that's why so many people

that watched the TV show support Joe.

Because of seeing her on TV,

seeing the way she was speaking, seeing the things she was saying,

everybody's like, "That woman's lying."

Whatever its legal merits,

and though it mainly seemed to be the side effect of a TV show,

Joe's campaign for a pardon

was being viewed as having a real chance of success.

Carole Baskin will never recover from this,

she's the most hated woman on Earth.

Meanwhile, Joe's former friend, Jeff Lowe,

gave crowing interviews from what had once been Joe's zoo

about the outcome of the case and the series.

She deserves it.

She deserves every bit of criticism,

and this is better than her dying.

You know, everybody said, "Don't you want her dead?"

I wouldn't miss her if she died,

but I'd rather see her suffer through this same shit

that she put everybody else through.

Jeff Lowe's reign at the park proved short lived.

Scant months after this interview,

in the latest twist of the long-running legal drama,

the courts forced the transfer of the park to the Baskins.

LINE RINGS

VOICEMAIL: You've reached the cellphone of Howard Baskin.

Please leave a message

and I'll call you back as soon as I can. Thank you.

Hi, Howard, it's Louis, Louis Theroux, calling.

We're just a few minutes away from the park,

so we will see you there shortly.

Bye-bye.

Nine years since I'd last been there,

I was returning to Joe's zoo to meet Carole and Howard.

The site of the tiger breeding they'd fought so hard to end

and where the plotting of Carole's murder had taken place

was now in the hands of the Baskins.

They're already there, waiting.

You guys like to be punctual, don't you?

Sir, do you have your tickets? LOUIS LAUGHS

Did you buy them online, your tickets?

Let me open the gate.

You can drive in. OK!

Here we are! Nice to see you, Carole.

How are you? I'm good. How are you?

I'm good. Shall we head in?

You're probably a better tour guide to this place than I would be.

Wow. I'm told that these were all tigers on this side,

and that those were bears. Yeah, I think they would have been.

In fact, I've been in that cage.

Oh, really?! Yeah.

What's going on here?

There's a bear and a... And a tiger.

Look at that. Can you see that? They're kind of cuddling.

That's what we promote here, is love, no matter who you are.

Love for Carole Baskin? JOE LAUGHS

Come on in.

RADIO CHIRPS

Are you calling me?

ON RADIO: Did you say you wanted me to holler at you

when I'm getting the tigers out again?

Who would have written that, do you think?

I'm guessing somebody in Jeff Lowe's crew.

Is there much of that? There's a lot of that.

A lot of that,

that's really disgusting.

Did you understand that one?

I did the samba in Dancing With The Stars... Ah!

..and I did it very badly!

It was my last dance. It was so bad.

This was all the pens that were storage, you know,

where they used to keep the surplus tigers.

So, some of them would be, you know, 20 years in there.

It's just so sad.

This was the office, I think.

Weird that...this isn't from Joe,

this is from Jeff Lowe and his team, right?

What's their reason for holding so much animosity?

Well, we took the property and got a court order that he had to leave.

So, you know, we're not his best friend.

The whole property was trashed.

Very intentional.

Were there any animals when you took the place?

Yes. There were three tigers, 11 wolves and two bears.

Where did they go?

They went to a sanctuary in Colorado.

Oof... Yeah. That's a bone, isn't it?

I have the feeling there's a lot of bones in this pile.

Weird.

Have you been into Joe's house?

It's just full of garbage.

For real? Yeah.

With an uneasy feeling of trespassing,

I was entering the wreckage of what I had once known as Joe's home.

I think this was his bedroom.

Yikes.

And, look, this is where they kept the tiger cubs, Carole.

What a godawful nursery.

Oh, my gosh, and there are dick pics

down here on the floor that you may want, as well!

Are you serious? I'm looking down at my feet!

Yeah, right there.

Oh, my goodness.

That is the reproductive organ of the male of the human species.

In a state of arousal.

I mean, it takes a bit of work for a place to look this bad.

Do you feel animosity towards him, Carole?

I don't. You know, I hate what these people do to the animals,

but I don't hold that against them.

Jeff Lowe has denied vandalising Joe's park.

Either way, the sight of the desolation and the graffiti

had put me in mind of the allegation

that Carole had murdered her husband, Don.

A millionaire businessman and amateur aviator,

he disappeared in 1997,

two months after applying for a restraining order against Carole.

Don's children continue to think she was involved.

I was aware that for both her and Howard,

it was, understandably, a sensitive subject.

I guess I want to invite you

to say what you would like to say about that.

One of the things that was most charming about Don

was that he was this charismatic daredevil,

and he was always doing crazy things.

But by 1997, it seemed like things were getting crazier.

The things that he was doing were crazier.

I mean, he was somebody who was flying without a licence,

and crashed three planes.

The psychiatrist diagnosed him as being bipolar

and having altered mental status,

and he was getting extremely paranoid,

and it was at that time that he filed the restraining order.

A restraining order against you. Against me.

Let me ask you a question, Louis.

If you sincerely believed that your spouse was out to kill you

and you went downtown to get a restraining order,

and they said, "No, this isn't good enough," you have two choices.

You can go home and sleep in the same bed with the person

who you think is going to kill you,

or you can go to a hotel, call your lawyer and say, "I want a divorce."

What's your pick?

So, you're making the point that Don continued to live with Carole.

Correct? Was it a happy marriage?

I adored Don.

We had been together from the time that I was 19 years old.

So, I mean, for 11 years, he was the centre of my universe.

He was crazy, even at his best,

but it was part of what I loved about him.

When you first met him,

you were wandering the streets in Tampa, right,

having had a really bad... Let me just ask...

I mean, we talked about doing a little of this, giving an example.

You could do a whole hour documentary

on all the stuff about Don,

and I don't want to sit here and talk for an hour about Don.

Can we go to what else you want to do?

Sure. I appreciate it.

You feel like you've said what you wanted to say?

I think... People often ask me, "What do you think happened to him?"

And I had so many theories at the time,

but I think the thing that makes the most sense

is that he crashed an experimental or an ultralight out over the Gulf,

because if it was anything else,

I think we would have found him by now.

You OK, Howard?

Yep. He's protective.

He is. He's got his steely side.

So, what else would you like to accomplish today?

Well, there's a greater story here, which is to do with, I suppose,

the way in which you were caught up in a kind of media tsunami,

which was this phenomenon of this TV series. Right?

I mean, are there any reflections you could make about that?

In every other case where we had worked with documentary-makers,

they were truthful and were trying to do something for animals,

so when they said they wanted to expose the bad guys,

we believed them.

In the days...or a couple of weeks before the release,

when I realised Don was going to be a subject of the thing,

I asked Rebecca, "Well, how do you think people are going to view

"what you've done with Don? How is it portrayed?"

And her answer was, "I think they'll be scratching their heads."

Well, nobody's scratching their heads.

Most people came away convinced that Carole killed Don.

But, you know, in my view, what they did wasn't just unethical,

it was outright cruel.

RECORDING: You're a fuckin' murderer, Carole.

Ship out or we will shut you down.

RECORDING: I want you to shove it up your fucking ass

and go to jail for killing your husband.

I want to go to your house and murder you.

RECORDING: Just getting started, bitch.

Just getting started.

RECORDING: Fuck you, Carole Baskin.

When I catch you, I'm going to put a bullet between your fucking eyes.

RECORDING: I hope you fucking die... How much of this do we need?

..you fucking filthy bitch.

I think maybe we've got enough.

I mean, you get the idea from that couple of minutes.

When we got through watching Tiger King,

my phone rang every two minutes for the next three months,

around the clock, and it was people screaming obscenities

and death threats and all kinds of things.

Of the various protagonists in the Tiger King drama,

the ones I knew least about were its directors,

Eric Goode and Rebecca Chaiklin.

We wanted to do a piece that looked at the efficacy

of keeping wild animals in cages. We never...

Interviewed from their homes for a YouTube show,

they gave an insight into their approach when making the series.

You know, we were always very honest about our intentions,

and, of course, who would have guessed that the story

would have, you know, gone where it had gone?

It took a life of its own.

So, the closest that Eric Goode and Rebecca Chaiklin have come

to addressing any of the questions around Tiger King

comes in this article in Hollywood Reporter.

Eric Goode says, "We knew we didn't want to make a film

"that was strictly advocacy, and that was depressing.

"I think the most important thing

"is that we wanted people to see this series."

"Slate ran an opinion piece which argued that you gave

"Carole the 'villain edit'

"while being more sympathetic to the male figures in Tiger King,

"that essentially the series had a misogynistic take on its subjects.

"How do you respond to that?"

Chaiklin: "It's categorically untrue.

"I think what we did was we allowed people to speak for themselves

"and, unfortunately, the court of public opinion is not always kind."

In the background to the debate around Tiger King

was the latest twist that its follow-up was being made

with its star now world famous but behind bars.

As part of their legal correspondence with me,

the lawyers for the Tiger King producers

had sent a copy of the contract they've drawn up with Joe.

"Two cases have been redacted

"to remove access to confidential financial terms.

"Owners shall be entitled to receive..." Redacted.

"Owner's services..." That's Joe.

"..all of which shall be a work made for hire for producer..."

That's Eric Goode and co.

Now, what is this? So, that's an excerpt from a letter

from a legal team retained by the Tiger King production.

They refer to him as more or less an employee,

or that they're retaining his services for hire.

Do you know how much Joe's making on all of this?

I have an idea.

I'm not at liberty to disclose it. Six figures?

Seven figures? I can't. I can't.

I can't disclose anything related to that.

In theory, it could be more than a million?

I... I-I-I can't even... I can't comment.

I can't comment whether even higher or lower, or even warm. I cannot.

Would it be unethical to receive that money?

To receive money from him signing the rights to his story?

No. Why would it be unethical?

You know, they're securing their footage.

They're securing the rights.

You know, they got a tiger by the tail.

How do they control the tiger now,

except being overly aggressive and trying to elbow everybody out?

You have to. You'd be doing the same thing, too, wouldn't you?

What's your biggest hit, BBC's biggest hit?

Do you mean drama or a documentary?

You know, I don't know. Let's say drama. Either one.

I mean, Doctor Who? OK, Doctor Who.

Somebody starts doing a documentary or anything Doctor Who,

are you going to try to protect your rights?

Yeah, but Joe's not Doctor Who.

He's... Doctor Who's... He might be bigger than Doctor Who.

He might be, but he's not a fictional character.

That's the bizarre nature of this,

because when you first start watching it,

you can't believe that this is actually true.

So, is it a documentary?

Is it a docu-drama, is it fiction?

Is it reality TV?

I think it's a mixture.

As vast and confusing as the Tiger King phenomenon had now become,

it was also true that its producers

were just the latest and biggest of a long line of film-makers

who had passed through Joe's park, amplifying his voice,

of whom I had been one.

OK. One to Zac.

All the big cats in lockdown?

Joe's life played out in public in a series of media collaborations.

Get back!

Ripping a day-old cub from its mother for Korean TV...

Hey, I got it. I got it.

..undercover footage shot by an animal welfare group...

Sit down.

TIGER SNARLS

..Joe showboating as he prepares to shoot a sick horse

on camera in 2013.

I am perfectly sane,

but do not cross me.

GUNSHOT

This footage, which we have chosen to obscure, Joe ran unedited.

Watching it all back, there appears to be a growing indifference

to the suffering of animals,

but it's just as possible that Joe was always Joe...

..just with more cameras around.

Oh, my word.

I wondered whether the wreckage of Joe's house

might contain clues to his life and story.

A mausoleum of Joe's dreams,

it contained documents and newspaper cuttings

stretching back to the earliest years of his life...

..his brief stint as a police chief of Eastvale, Texas...

..of our wedding...

..first marriage to a man named Brian Rhyne, who had died...

..mementos of his brother and business partner, Garold Wayne,

who was killed at 36 after a car crash

and in whose memory the park was founded.

If Tiger King is the most widely known version of Joe's life story,

a more intimate account emerges in a handwritten letter

sent by Joe from prison to a journalist

and passed on to me by his lawyer, Francisco.

In it, he attempts to reclaim his family history.

June 5th 2020.

So, he's in jail -

and right at the top, the first sentence...

"While growing up with my family, I spent most of my childhood

"on a farm in Garden City, Kansas.

"To watch your dad, mum, oldest brother

"fist-fighting and hitting each other with chairs.

"Growing up, Dad was a very mean man,

"and anything that went wrong was your fault.

"Now, I ain't saying I never done nothing wrong,

"but the physical and mental abuse

"was something that I carry with me to this day."

They moved to Wyoming.

"Me and Garold spent most of our teenage years

"riding horses in the mountains.

"That's where my love for weird animals came in."

They moved down to Texas. Dad was raising race horses.

Garold got married.

Then he moves to Arlington, Texas. "Me and Garold went into business

"and I met and married Brian Rhyne."

Then...Garold has a car crash.

"My brother was my hero.

"When we had the pet store, people gave me a hard time,

"so he painted the pole of the sign the colour of the gay flag

"and said, 'Fuck 'em. You're my brother,

" 'and if they don't like it, they can deal with me.'

"Not very many memories worth keeping as a child,

"because most are horrible but ingrained in my memory for ever,

"like being molested by my oldest brother

"at about five years old in the bathroom of our old farmhouse."

Joe's relationships with his two brothers

lies at the heart of his personal story.

It was after the beloved Garold's car crash

that his parents had received a $250,000 insurance pay-out,

giving the money to Joe to buy the land for his zoo.

Yari is Joe's estranged oldest brother.

He has stayed far away from anything to do with Joe's park

or the Tiger King phenomenon.

He lives with his wife Wendy in a remote corner of Texas

close to the Louisiana border.

They've never spoken about Joe on TV before,

but they had agreed to meet.

BIRDS HONK

Did I?

How are you doing?

WOMAN: I'm OK. How are you?

Good. How do you pronounce your name?

You want the first name or the last name?

Why don't we do both?

I'm Yari. Yari. Yari Schreibvogel.

Unfortunately.

That's an embarrassing name right now.

HE CHUCKLES

Shall we go in? What do you think? We can go in.

Oh, it's nice in here.

Is that Joe?

That's Garold. That's Garold!

And that's you. Yeah.

That's you - that's Joe.

No, that's Garold.

There's no pictures of Joe in here.

Oh, really? They're burnt. I got rid of them all.

So, that's your little area for Garold.

Yeah. You were really close.

That's just what I had left of him.

How about you ask me what you want to know,

and I'll tell you what I know?

Why don't we start at the beginning?

So, you are Joe's oldest brother.

Oldest brother.

But he comes through that gate, I'm planting him.

What is that in plain English?

That means taking the pair of you in the woods.

You mean if Joe came on this property?

I hate that little son of a bitch.

Do you? Yes.

It was a tough upbringing.

Your parents were quite hard, from what I hear. Yeah.

He said that if you misbehaved, you have to kneel with your arms out...

With your arms out like that. Like that? Yes.

On concrete. On concrete. Stress positions.

And if your arms dipped, you were hit with...a slat? Yeah.

I guess that's the way my dad got brought up,

so that's the way we got brought up.

Was there love? I guess.

HE CHUCKLES

I gave his mom a hug one time. Told her I loved her -

but she didn't know what to do. But that ain't what made Joe Joe.

Greed make Joe what Joe is.

Have you read much of the coverage of what Joe's upbringing was like,

how he's described his childhood?

Actually, I ain't even seen any of the shows or nothing.

Or articles? No. No.

So, one of the things he said is that he was sexually assaulted

when he was five. Oh, he made that up. Oh, here we go again.

We didn't even know where kids came from

till we were in high school. Someone in his home, he said.

First he said it was Dad,

then he blamed Yari. He's a liar.

And then he blamed some other person that we don't know who.

It's just another deal to make everybody feel sorry for Joe.

Let's see, if he was five, I would have been ten.

I mean, you don't even know that kind of stuff

when you're living in the country at ten years old.

So, you were estranged from your parents, right?

Where did that come from?

How far back...? I hadn't talked to my mom...

When she died, I hadn't talked to her in five or six years. Yeah.

Joe used Garold's death to get what he wanted.

Joe told his mom, "Well, Garold wanted to open up an exotic park,"

which is bull.

Joe convinced your parents

that the best way of honouring Garold's memory...? Yeah.

See, we were going to build a soccer field.

He was the coach of one of the boys' teams and they played soccer.

I mean, they played sports.

And so we all decided that that would be a really good thing to do,

but then the next thing we know,

Joe's got this dang park,

and the soccer field is thrown out the window.

So, Joe was able to manipulate Mom and Dad...after Garold passed away.

He was really good at manipulating them.

Really good.

He said this a few times,

he was the one who turned off the life-support machine.

Oh, bullshit! Yeah, I don't think he done that either.

I think that's all bullshit, too,

because it's actually... Garold was married to Lois.

His wife. Actually, she's the one that has to sign the paperwork,

you know, and then he comes in with these psychics

and they were just doing stuff with their hands over his body.

Of course, my parents, they're vulnerable,

so they believed it.

They were grabbing at everything they could grab at,

and Joe had them believing

that them two girls was going to make him better.

Joe told his mom and dad that the psychics could not heal Garold

because of Yari and his bad vibes.

So they told him he had to leave the hospital,

so he wasn't even allowed to be with his brother when he passed away.

And if that's not something to show the real Joe,

I don't know what is. No.

He done some ugly stuff to get what he wanted.

How do you explain the fact of his appeal?

He's a damn... Like a cult leader.

He can make you believe anything.

He said that one time, when we all wouldn't back him up on that park,

that if he ever went down, he was going to take everybody with him.

A narcissist. I mean, he fits the category to a T.

They can say something to you and then ten minutes later,

"What are you talking about? I never said that."

And you're like, "Yes. You..." And then they make you think

that you're just dreaming that they said it.

It's not really that he had a control over you,

but it was more like a mind game that he played with people.

Maybe we should talk a little bit about GW, as well.

OK. You were brothers, but also good friends.

He was probably my best friend.

Died at the age of 32.

But I made my brother a promise that we would do this in his memory.

So I can't stop...or I'm a failure.

And I'm not a failure.

Are you getting sad, thinking about your brother?

I get chills every time I think about my brother.

But my brother's here.

He watches out over us.

When I look back at this footage now,

even with everything I've learned,

Joe's emotion still strikes me as sincere,

and it may be that his apparent belief in his own myths

helps to explain Joe's power to persuade others.

If I ever went broke...

..I think I would euthanise everything

rather than put them in another facility

with the same financial stress.

Do you really mean that?

Yeah.

1,400 animals? Yeah.

I don't think you're being serious.

I don't think you know me very well.

That's kind of a Jim Jones.

If I go out,

I'm going to go out blaming the people that caused us to go out.

Do you think... I was thinking...

My last encounter with Joe came on the final day

of our third filming trip at the park.

By now, he'd grown tired of my questioning

and had been avoiding me for several days.

In re-watching the unaired material,

I noticed a strange tension and nervousness

in how I behaved at the time.

OK, clock's running, guys. It's hot out here.

I'm not honestly sure and I don't want...

I'm not honestly sure that you're correct

about the wild completely disappearing.

I mean, it may be that through the efforts

of environmental groups, these habitats...

I mean, they do still exist, and they could be saved. Very little.

In the last three years, we went from 5,000 tigers

to 3,000 tigers.

Where do you see "saved" out of that?

Are you OK?

What are you getting upset about?

You're.. Every question in the last day-and-a-half

has been back to animal rights bullshit.

It's nothing to do with the GW Exotic Animal Park.

We are breeding animals. Do I feel comfortable with it?

Fuck, yes, I do.

Are my animals happy?

Hell, yes, they are.

End of story.

Good enough?

That was great.

So...I'm done.

My animals are happy, I love them all.

I don't make shit off of them.

Actually, I paid $120,000 last year to be here.

So...

You, PETA, Tippi Hedren, Carole Baskin,

the Humane Society of the United States, can all go fuck yourselves.

Good enough?

Can we talk about this? Huh?

Not on camera. I'm done.

Anything else, Gavin?

Talk to me, Joe.

You know, the fact that these questions are getting asked,

it doesn't mean... It just means that they get aired.

You wouldn't ask them on camera

if they didn't have the intention of putting them on air.

Can we be buds again? We can be, you know?

If you're going to do an animal rights story,

do an animal rights story.

Don't come in and pretend

to do a "we care about the GW Animal Park"

and then turn that around and put me on TV

asking me about, "Do my animals really like being in cages?"

Isn't that all part of it?

No, it's not. Isn't that... That's a part of the whole thing.

It has nothing to do with GW, or why we're here.

Providing the animals with a good life.

Yeah, but, you know, how many of your questions

have went from providing animals a good life,

to do I feel guilty about breeding more animals

and putting them in cages for the rest of their life?

I think we got it. Got it?!

Can I have a hug?

You can have a hug!

You know, and I don't even care about the questions you ask,

but don't edit it down, you know?

"Can I have a hug?"

I don't often do that.

It's quite weird.

I think I was like...

I felt like there was a part of me that liked him

and was inclined to need to feel reassured that he was OK.

Does that make sense?

Before they run me out of business, I'll guarantee you these animals

aren't going to be the only thing euthanised.

Yeah!

You got that on camera.

This is still America. We're still allowed to bear arms.

By God, I ain't scared easy.

Anybody that come in here want to disrupt...

..what's going on here - you betcha.

I don't think you really want to put that out there.

I don't really care.

HE LAUGHS

Clear enough?

I don't really know what conclusion you draw from that.

I mean...

Except that part of his MO was...

It's not even an MO.

Part of his ability to influence people and to recruit people

was through his own unpredictability,

but more than that, a kind of fragility

that meant that if you were in his orbit,

you were constantly tiptoeing around

and attempting to placate him or, in different ways,

keep him together.

And all the stuff where he's like,

"I'm going to euthanise more than just the animals,"

and, "I'm going to euthanise my animals

"because I'm not going to let anyone else do it," and...

I mean, we've heard it quite a bit while we've been out here,

but that's a cult-like... It's quite explicitly a cult-like attitude.

But it is odd to see...

...how much I seemed to... kind of somewhat like him.

Towards the end of Trump's term,

the idea that Joe might receive a pardon from the President

became something like an international obsession.

On Trump's last day, a limo was on standby

to whisk Joe away when his pardon came through.

It never came.

Joe's failure to secure his release

led to a fresh round of trolling of Carole Baskin.

From inside his prison cell,

Joe was showing signs of disillusionment

with the people who'd done so much for his fame -

the Tiger King producers -

complaining that his contracts were preventing him

from telling his story and being freed.

Joe's sentence of 22 years is, by coincidence,

around the life expectancy of a tiger in a cage...

..but, in being confined, Joe appears to have secured his legacy

in a way he might never have imagined.

The young man who dreamed of fame has been transfigured by captivity

and now, on streaming platforms and social media,

he travels the digital ether.

As for his surviving animals, they, too, are confined -

at sanctuaries and roadside zoos around the US,

utterly oblivious to their new-found fame.