I have no data to back up this claim, but I’d bet a so fresh and so clean (clean) $20 that probably 75 percent of the people I know have seen Netflix’s Tiger King: Murder, Mayhem and Madness.
Even if you didn’t want to watch it, the conversations around the show are non-stop. Almost daily, my social media feeds include some comment about Joe Exotic or Carole Baskin. True story, I also can’t stop singing “I saw a tiger, and tiger saw a man.” Listen, when zoos finally open up I’m positive that people will line up just to look at tigers and sing this song. Not to mention the sheer WTFness of the show is built to keep you interested.
Its premise is built around an alleged murder-for-hire scheme and it’s probably the 6th or 7th most interesting thing on the show. Just for context (and if you haven’t watched it), at the funeral for one of his husbands who committed suicide, Joe Exotic told the story about how that dead ex-husband used to rub his big balls on his face...in front of the mother of the dead young man. Again, murder-for-hire is a little anti-climatic considering.
There’s not enough time on God’s green earth to discuss all of the shenanigans. Plus, that’s not why we’re here today. We’re here today to rank the 10 people I hate the most on Tiger King. You see, if you watch this show, you almost immediately take sides. By the time the show ends, and despite the pantheon level fuckery involved, only one person is in jail: Joe Exotic.
Now, Cardi B isn’t the only person who thinks we need to free Joe Exotic. Admittedly, while I want him free, it’s not because I think he’s innocent. I’m almost sure Joe belongs in jail, but so does Carole Baskin (and like everybody else on the show), the owner of the Big Cat Rescue who somehow, hypocritically, does the same shit as the very people she has waged war against while also maybe having fed her missing, disappeared husband to a tiger. Look, I don’t know but Joe Exotic made a video about it— “Here Kitty Kitty”—and its compelling shit. Point is, there are several people on this show I hate. I’d like to share that list with you, ranked. None of these people are Joe Exotic. I do not hate Joe Exotic.
10. Allen Glover, the one who chickened out on a hit that maybe never happened?
9. Howard Baskin, Carole’s crazy ass, sociopathic-seeming husband
8. James Garretson, the feds
7. Jeff Lowe, the long conman
6. Carole Baskin said with a Tijuana, Mexico accent
5. Carole Baskin said with a mid-western, preferably Steubenville, Ohio accent
4. Carole Baskin said with a Bavarian, German accent
3. Carole Baskin said with an accent like Arnold Schwarzenegger in The Terminator
2. Carole Baskin said with a French accent, like Gerard Depardieu in Last Holiday
1. Carole Baskin, the one who probably fed her ex-husband to a tiger