Baskin talked Joe Exotic and telling her own story in her new Discovery+ series, 'Carole Baskin's Cage Fight.'
Carole Baskin isn't messing around when it comes to Joe Exotic. ET's Nischelle Turner spoke with Baskin about her Discovery+ series, Carole Baskin's Cage Fight, and the precautions she's taking in case the Tiger King: Murder, Mayhem and Madness star is released from prison early.
"The public only knows about the murder-for-hire plot that happened in Tiger King. But these people have been threatening to kill me for years," Baskin revealed. "I have been physically attacked when I go to speak at Florida Wildlife Commission hearings, or when I go speak before Congress or at state legislation. They don't want me to talk about why these cats don't belong in private hands, and they will do anything to stop me."
While Baskin says she trusts that the judge will give Exotic the ultimate sentencing, she's ready for whatever happens.
"We have taken all kinds of precautions to protect me and my family and the sanctuary, and so, we may have to step those up even further, but right now we've done about all that we can to ensure our safety," she said.
Baskin has since gained control of Exotic's cat property, where she discovered what he was really doing to the tigers and big cats he housed there, something she dives deeper into on the Discovery+ docuseries.
"I had seen Joe Exotic on some of his little internet videos talking at a fundraiser where he would say, 'If you pay a thousand dollars to dance with me, I'll give you this tiger tooth.' Well, that's illegal, to sell tiger parts," Baskin shared. "And what we find in Carole Baskin's Cage Fight, with the help of his family members, is yeah, he cut the teeth out of all of those cats and was making jewelry out of them, which is illegal. But I believed it was true, but now we can prove that it was true."
With the help of Exotic's niece and other family members who have turned against him since his mistreatment of wild animals came to light, Baskin hopes she can tell the story Netflix's Tiger King didn't show.
"It's not so much trying to rip up Tiger King as it's being a show about what we are all about and what we have been doing for 30 years," the cat conservationist explained. "So, it's just the cameras coming along with us, doing the investigations that we do, finding who these bad guys are, and then bringing them to justice, that's why they hate us, that's why they say the things against me that they do."
For Baskin and her team, it's about saving big cats from becoming extinct in the wild, something she said is likely in the next five years.
"We will lose the tiger in the wild in the next five years if we don't stop the captive breeding of big cats, and the reason is, all of those cubs that end up being used until they are 12 weeks old, and then they can take a finger off of a child, they end up being dumped into private hands, killed for their parts, creating all of this legal, currently legal smokescreen, for illegal activities like poaching, so we have to stop the cub petting, and the private ownership to save the tiger in the wild," Baskin maintained.
Earlier this month, Baskin filed a lawsuit against Netflix for their upcoming Tiger King 2 special, which she says she wants no part of.
"They had been going around to people who were in Tiger King, asking them to sign new release forms, so as soon as they contacted me, they said, 'Hey, we just wanna clear the air,' and I said, 'Lose my number,' and that was the end of it," she said.
But, she will be watching.
"I'll have to, because no matter what ends up being in it, you know they're gonna trash talk me again, and so I have to be prepared to do what I did last time and say, 'No, here's all of the evidence that proves these lies are lies,' and so I'll have to be able to do that," Baskin explained.
Carole Baskin's Cage Fight streams Nov. 13 on Discovery+.
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