Carole Baskin sues Netflix for using footage of her in Tiger King 2

Carole Baskin and her husband Howard are suing Netflix for including footage of the couple in the trailer forTiger King 2.

Filing a federal lawsuit in a Florida court, the couple said they only signed appearance release forms for the first season of the Netflix docu-series that became a cultural phenomenon in March 2020.

They alleged that any subsequent use of footage of them or Baskin’s Big Cat Rescue amounted to a breach of contract by the streamer and Royal Goode Productions.

The court documents, filed on Monday (1 November) and viewed by The Independent, stated: “Understanding that the Appearance Releases limited Royal Goode Productions’ use of the footage of the Baskins and Big Cat Rescue to the single, initial documentary motion picture, the Baskins believed that any sequel – though odious – would not include any of their footage.”

The couple are now demanding that Netflix remove any and all footage of them in Tiger King 2, and want the case to be heard in court.

The Independent has reached out to Netflix for comment.

The founder and CEO of Big Cat Rescue, animal rights activist Baskin featured prominently alongside Joe Exotic on the show about big cat zoos and the people that run them.

Feeling betrayed by the way she was portrayed in season one, Baskin has previously said that co-director Rebecca Chaiklin pitched Tiger King as a “single documentary feature film that would be an exposé of the big cat breeding and cub petting trade akin to the documentary feature film Blackfish”.

Directed by Chaiklin and Eric Goode, the show played up the rivalry between Baskin and Exotic, focussing on the latter’s hatred of Baskin.

Tiger King also examined the circumstances under which Baskin’s first husband Don Lewis disappeared, alleging that the 60-year-old was responsible for Lewis’ death.

In the 1 November lawsuit, Baskin has reiterated her grievances with the show’s “particularly harsh and unfair” portrayal of the couple and Big Cat Rescue.

The documents read: “Perhaps most pernicious is the overarching implication in Tiger King that Carole Baskin was involved in the disappearance of her first husband in 1997.”

After its release, Baskin was extremely critical of the show’s first season, calling it “a reality show dumpster fire” in an interview with Variety.

She also told the show’s makers to “lose her number” when they tried clearing the air with Baskin.

“There is no explanation for such a betrayal and false portrayal,” she wrote in a statement, following Netflix’s announcement of the sequel.

The trailer for Tiger King 2, which was released on 27 October, suggests that “Carole knows something” about Lewis, who was declared dead in absentia in 2002.

Tiger King 2 will be available on Netflix on 17 November.

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