American big rights cat activist Carole Baskin recently revealed that she will not be back for the second season of the popular Netflix show 'Tiger King: Murder, Mayhem and Madness.'
According to Page Six, the 59-year-old star Baskin said she was asked to participate in a follow-up to the smash-hit Netflix show but turned the producers down.
"I told them to lose my number. Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me," the owner of Big Cat Rescue told the outlet.
Baskin claimed after it had aired the producers had made her believe that she'd be the heroine of the show, then delved into rumours that she had murdered her first husband, Don Lewis, and fed his body to her tigers. Allegations she strenuously denies.
As reported by Page Six, Baskin- who channelled her controversial story on the show into an appearance on 'Dancing with the Stars' and various projects like a cellphone game and novelty cryptocurrency, will next be speaking at a 'Virtual Influencer Summit' to talk about cyberbullying.
"The first three months [after 'Tiger King' aired] my phone rang incessantly with people screaming obscenities. After that, it slowed down. I didn't take it personally. But, it really affected my husband [Howard Baskin] and daughter. If someone said something about someone you love, you would want to protect them," she told Page Six.
Lewis and Baskin were married in 1991. He mysteriously disappeared in 1997. According to TMZ, his family has hired famed attorney Alex Spiro to investigate. The family also ran an ad during Baskin's 'Dancing With the Stars' debut asking for tips about his disappearance.
Baskin has been reading from her journals on YouTube in order to "prove" she did not kill her first husband. She told Page Six, it's all a rumour used by her competition in the big cat business to let her down.
"Once they tell the media, 'She killed her husband and fed him to the tigers,' it worked for these animal abusers to say these things publicly. But it's not true and all you have to do is look into it and know it's not true," she claims.
Baskin also thinks timing had a lot to do with skyrocketing her to infamy.
She shared,"'Tiger King' came out when lockdown happened, you had Joe Exotic saying 'Carole Baskin was responsible for everything wrong.' People needed someone to blame. It was a perfect storm."
Baskin added, "Had it aired right now, it would have been a different experience. . . it was still cleverly edited and had things that weren't true, but I don't think there would have been a global vitriol and outpouring because people were so scared at the time."
( With inputs from ANI )
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