Louis Theroux’s strange encounter with Joe Exotic could have ended in a very disturbing manner.
The documentary-maker is reflecting on hours of unseen footage with the Tiger King from his 2011 film America’s Most Dangerous Pets for one-off BBC special Shooting Joe Exotic.
Almost a decade ago, Louis spent time with Joe, real name Joseph Maldonado-Passage, at the Greater Wynnewood Exotic Animal Park in Oklahoma after stumbling across his website online.
As they shook hands for the first time, Joe said it was the first film crew to shoot at his zoo and “probably the last”, unaware at the time that he would later rise to fame after being the subject of the hit Netflix series.
Joe is now behind bars for two counts of attempted murder for hire for a plot to kill Big Cat Rescue boss Carole Baskin and federal charges of animal abuse.
In previously unseen footage of their meeting, Joe gives Louis a tour around his wildlife park and the documentary-maker is left fearing for his life.
(Image: BBC)
When Louis asks Joe if he has a favourite tiger to show him, he surprisingly claims Bears are “more his thing”.
After showing off his bullet hole-shaped tattoos, Joe tells Louis that he has nothing to hide and his life is an “open book”.
“I’m gay, I’m married to a man, have been for eight years and we both have the same boyfriend who lives with us as well,” explains Joe.
But Louis gets his first shock when he asks his tour guide what would happen if he got in the cage next to them containing an adult lion and tiger.
“If he was to get you he would not kill you and eat you right away he’s going to torment you,” Joe explains, before bluntly adding: “I’d just shoot you.”
When Louis questions whether he’d shoot him in the head, giggling Joe replies: “Yeah, cause I’m not gonna get you back so why make you suffer.”
(Image: BBC)
The camera then pans to a distressed-looking Louis, who clearly wanted to make sure that scenario did not play out.
The GW Exotic Animal Park, which has now been shut down, made most of its money by allowing the public to handle tiger cubs.
They were allowed to sponsor the tigers, paid to hold them and were even shown tiny cubs that were only 24 hours old.
The most lucrative and controversial of the fundraising activities were Joe’s cub-petting roadshows where he would visit malls to see a wider range of customers.
Looking back at his original documentary while reflecting on hours of unseen footage, Louis sets out to understand who the real Joe Exotic is.
While confessing he saw things that were “at best questionable”, Louis admits it was hard not to “warm” to Joe.
(Image: MindhouseTV/Twitter)
Louis also meets up with Carole Baskin at Big Cat Rescue in Florida to find out what she thought of the level of hatred that Joe directed her way.
In one of his many concerning rants, which he broadcast online, Joe claimed he was the “most dangerous exotic animal owner in the country” and that Carole would “stop breathing” before bringing him down.
In a shocking previously unseen clip in which Joe believes he is not being filmed, he tells Louis that ‘one of us is going to die’ if law enforces do not step in.
Reflecting on the turbulent time, Carole and her husband Howard tell Louis that Joe was angry because their campaigning meant malls were not allowing him to bring tigers along anymore and had a major impact on his income.
“I think an organisation like PETA coming after him was an organisation, where as me who could blame it on a single person,” says Carole.
“But the battle was never with him, it was always to protect the big cats from people like him.”
(Image: PA)
Speaking ahead of his new show airing, Louis said: “It’s an extraordinary situation Joe is in now. He’s one of the most famous people in the world, arguably.
“He’s an internet icon. Carole is also extremely famous. I think that’s testament to the series and also lockdown and the collective madness of that period of time.”
“But it’s a mixed blessing because there’s a tendency to see them as fictional characters … whereas they are real people involved in a real crime.
“So what I’ve tried to do with this new documentary is try and present versions of people that are close to the truth and a bit less caricature-ish.”
As he tries to investigate what has happened in the intervening years, he meets old friends from his original documentary, the team trying to get him out of prison and those closest to Joe who have never spoken before.
*Louis Theroux: Shooting Joe Exotic airs Monday on BBC One at 9pm
Originally from https://www.mirror.co.uk/tv/tv-news/giggling-joe-exotic-warned-louis-23843772