Carole Baskin is an American big-catrights activist and CEO of Big Cat Rescue, a non-profit animal sanctuary based near Tampa, Florida. Baskin drew public attention when she was featured in the 2020 Netflix documentary series Tiger King about Oklahoma-based private zoo operator Joe Exotic. The Netflix series follows both Baskin and Joe Exotic, filming their ongoing and escalating feuds over exotic animals in private zoos. Following the series's release, Baskin has been the subject of internet memes and conspiracy theories related to the disappearance of Don Lewis, her second husband.
At the age of 17, Lewis worked at a Tampadepartment store. To make money, she began breeding show cats; she also began rescuing bobcats, and used llamas for a lawn trimming business. In January 1981, she married her second husband and joined his real estate business. As Carole Lewis, she and her husband Don founded Wildlife on Easy Street, an animal sanctuary near Tampa for big cats, in 1992. She is the current chief executive officer of the sanctuary, which she renamed to Big Cat Rescue sometime after Lewis's disappearance in 1997. She has used social media such as Facebook and YouTube and her "The Cat Chat" podcast to promote activism against private zoos. The New York Times and The Hollywood Reporter have described her as an animal rights activist.
Personal life
Marriages
She moved in with Michael Murdock, her boss at the department store where she worked, when she was 17. The couple married on April 7, 1979. Baskin has said that she never loved him and only married him because her parents were disappointed that they had been living together outside of marriage. She became pregnant soon after, and daughter Jamie Veronica Murdock was born on July 16, 1980. According to Baskin, in 1981, when she was 19, she threw a potato at Murdock as he attempted to attack her. She ran out of their home barefoot and met her next husband, Don Lewis, on Nebraska Avenue in Tampa. She and Lewis engaged in an affair while both were still married. She became one of Lewis's many girlfriends and substantially grew his wealth by helping him buy and sell real estate in 1984. The pair divorced their respective spouses and subsequently married in 1991. According to Baskin, Lewis was obsessed with sex and would frequently fly to Costa Rica, where he had substantial real estate holdings, to have affairstiming the trips for whenever she was menstruating. In July 1997, Lewis filed a restraining order against her, claiming that she had threatened to kill him; the restraining order was rejected. Baskin claims that he filed the restraining order because she would haul off some of his "junk" property whenever he visited Costa Rica. Lewis continued to live with Baskin afterwards. Lewis told her multiple times that he wanted a divorce, but she did not think he was ever serious about it. Lewis disappeared in August 1997 and was declared legally dead in 2002. A dispute ensued between Baskin and Lewis's children over the estate, with Baskin prevailing as the primary inheritor. The case of his disappearance is still open as of 2020. She met Howard Baskin in November 2002 at a kick-off party for the newly formed No More Homeless Pets organization. He joined Big Cat Rescue soon after as chairman of the advisory board. He proposed to her in November 2003, and they married in November 2004.
Joe Exotic feud and ''Tiger King''
Baskin has a long-running feud with Joseph Allen Maldonado-Passage, the former owner of the Greater Wynnewood Exotic Animal Park in Wynnewood, Oklahoma, who goes by the nickname Joe Exotic. Joe Exotic claimed that Baskin was involved in the disappearance of Lewis. Exotic engaged in a pattern of harassment against Baskin, including trademark infringement. In 2013, a court ordered him to pay Baskin $1 million in damages, leading to his bankruptcy. In 2020, he was convicted of attempting to hire a hitman to kill her. In June 2020, a federal judge granted Joe Exotic's former zoo property to Baskin and Big Cat Rescue on the basis that Joe Exotic fraudulently transferred the zoo's real estate to his mother to avoid creditors, particularly Baskin's judgment against him. Jeff Lowe's current zoo operation on the property was given 120 days to vacate the property with their animals. In November 2019, Universal Content Productions announced that they were adapting a Joe Exotic podcast for television, with Kate McKinnon portraying Baskin. In March 2020, Baskin was featured in the Netflix documentary Tiger King. She later spoke out against the series, calling it "salacious and sensational", and criticized directors Eric Goode and Rebecca Chaiklin. Baskin said that the filmmakers lied about the nature of the series when they approached her about it, claiming that they told her that they were going to be making "the big cat version of Blackfish". After Tiger King was released, several Internet memes targeted Baskin and her speculated involvement in Lewis's disappearance.
