Tiger King

[Bruinsfan]

Possibly, though no longer going down to Costa Rica herself, being a public figure of some note, and living surrounded by over a hundred volunteers and scores of big cats would all probably cut down on the risk to her considerably as compared to Don back in the 90s.

Like, I'm pretty sure fear of home invasions isn't something that keeps Siegfried & Roy awake at night... 😹😹😹

[wanderingstar]

Finished watching this today, and I don't get the hype. Once the check-out-these-weirdos novelty wears off, it's fairly repetitive and dull. Joe is not that interesting. Neither is Carole. 

I wish the filmmakers had had a point of view that went beyond "Aren't these freaks and rednecks ridiculous." Like why couldn't they spend more time on the terrible treatment of the animals or the rampant labor exploitation? I think the directors fell in love with their subject a little too much.

[ElectricBoogaloo]

Hosted by Joel McHale, the Tiger King bonus episode will feature interviews with Jeff Lowe and his wife, Lauren; zoo staffers Saff, Erik Cowie, and John Reinke; Joe Exotic's ex-husband John Finlay; and journalist/TV producer Rick Kirkham. It will premiere on Sunday, April 12.

https://mobile.twitter.com/netflix/status/1248355014570999808

 

 

 

[Pickles Aplenty]

10 minutes ago, ElectricBoogaloo said:

Hosted by Joel McHale, the Tiger King bonus episode will feature interviews with Jeff Lowe and his wife, Lauren; zoo staffers Saff, Erik Cowie, and John Reinke; Joe Exotic's ex-husband John Finlay; and journalist/TV producer Rick Kirkham. It will premiere on Sunday, April 12.

https://mobile.twitter.com/netflix/status/1248355014570999808

 

 

 

Well, I'm embarrassingly obsessed with this shit, so I will be watching. 😛

[ravencroft]

I dont know what makes me facepalm more, the fact that so many actually stan the likes of Joe Exotic or myself for watching this series. Can anyone recommened a good penance for this?

[candle96]

On 4/9/2020 at 12:41 PM, Rosenrot said:

I'm not going to watch this as animal cruelty is not my idea of entertainment, but could some kind soul fill me in as to what happened to the cats after the main redneck scumbag went to prison? Are they all dead? Is the park still operating? Were they transferred to somewhere else?

I don't give a shit about any human being in that show, but the fate of the animals bothers me. 

Unfortunately, they don't really give that much information about what happened to all the animals. I was wanting more. It looks like maybe some were sold, but there were people still trying to operate the park, under a new name and management. But they're all scumbags, too, so who knows. One of them is likely to go to prison as well.

We did find out at the end that Joe had 2 chimps that he gave to a chimp/great ape sanctuary, so at least two of them got out to a better life. Honestly, I'm glad I didn't know about the chimps until the end. Big cats and the others were sad enough, but chimps are on another level when it comes to understanding their circumstances. 

[Rosenrot]

2 hours ago, candle96 said:

Unfortunately, they don't really give that much information about what happened to all the animals. I was wanting more. It looks like maybe some were sold, but there were people still trying to operate the park, under a new name and management. But they're all scumbags, too, so who knows. One of them is likely to go to prison as well.

We did find out at the end that Joe had 2 chimps that he gave to a chimp/great ape sanctuary, so at least two of them got out to a better life. Honestly, I'm glad I didn't know about the chimps until the end. Big cats and the others were sad enough, but chimps are on another level when it comes to understanding their circumstances. 

Thanks for that. ❤️ Ugh, it's so messed up. I'm trying to maintain a feeble hope that since the show is now out and there's clear evidence of animal cruelty of some level, some authority could do something and close the park and get the animals out. But it's probably not that simple. 

Another thing that baffles me is the comment section of virtually every article written about the show. It's as though I've suddenly entered Topsy-Turvy Land or something. People are seeing Joe as some kind of a saint and slanting the hell out of that Carole lady. Like... what show were they watching, 'cause it clearly wasn't this one?? I'm understanding - by reading this topic, mainly - that Carole is not exactly an angel, but she at least seems to be doing something to help the animals. 

Also, somebody mentioned homophoby earlier. I don't think anybody here is a homophobe. To me personally, it doesn't matter if you're gay, straight, bi, trans, black, white, Chinese, from Mars or jesus himself - if you're cruel to animals, then you're a scumbag. Period. 

Edited April 10, 2020 by Rosenrot

[redpencil]

Quote

Thanks for that. ❤️ Ugh, it's so messed up. I'm trying to maintain a feeble hope that since the show is now out and there's clear evidence of animal cruelty of some level, some authority could do something and close the park and get the animals out. But it's probably not that simple. 

I don't know details for all the animals, but there are a total of I think 37 tigers and 3 black bears that were transferred to The Wild Animal Sanctuary in Colorado in 2017. I'm not clear how long those tigers were actually in Oklahoma though, as the court order for at least 19 of them was connected to a different lawsuit against another zoo in Florida. Apparently they transferred their tigers to the Oklahoma zoo to get around a court order. I'm not sure if the rest of the tigers were due to the same court order (the sanctuary picked them up in two different trips a month apart). So all of these tigers were at the Oklahoma zoo, but I'm not sure how long the ones from Florida had been there. Here's an article from CNN with more.

The Oklahoma zoo is still operating, though.

Sidenote, but the Colorado sanctuary looks amazing. They actually have two facilities, the sanctuary near Denver which is 789 acres, and a natural refuge in southern Colorado that is almost 10,000 acres. Only the sanctuary near Denver is open to the public.

Edited April 11, 2020 by redpencil

[methodwriter85]

On 4/9/2020 at 10:19 PM, Gillian Rosh said:

Finished watching this today, and I don't get the hype. Once the check-out-these-weirdos novelty wears off, it's fairly repetitive and dull. Joe is not that interesting. Neither is Carole. 

I wish the filmmakers had had a point of view that went beyond "Aren't these freaks and rednecks ridiculous." Like why couldn't they spend more time on the terrible treatment of the animals or the rampant labor exploitation? I think the directors fell in love with their subject a little too much.

Well, according to Carole and Howard, they were falsely led to believe that this documentary would precisely be a muckraking piece about the cruelty of the big cat trade. I feel like they did hints of that, but it veered away from that focus a lot.

[Pickles Aplenty]

4 hours ago, Rosenrot said:

Another thing that baffles me is the comment section of virtually every article written about the show. It's as though I've suddenly entered Topsy-Turvy Land or something. People are seeing Joe as some kind of a saint and slanting the hell out of that Carole lady. Like... what show were they watching, 'cause it clearly wasn't this one?? I'm understanding - by reading this topic, mainly - that Carole is not exactly an angel, but she at least seems to be doing something to help the animals. 

I read a comment on a different site where someone explained their like of Joe and their dislike of Carole by saying that Carole seems fake, while Joe seems honest about who he is.  How anyone can watch the same doc I watched and think Joe is in any way honest is beyond me.  Every word out of his mouth is a lie. 

[Zella]

16 minutes ago, Billina said:

I read a comment on a different site where someone explained their like of Joe and their dislike of Carole by saying that Carole seems fake, while Joe seems honest about who he is.  How anyone can watch the same doc I watched and think Joe is in any way honest is beyond me.  Every word out of his mouth is a lie. 

I think Joe has carefully crafted a persona that on the surface is definitely geared to make people think he's "authentic"--not really relatable because he's not--but definitely somebody who has the appearance of being "what you see is what you get."

I don't think Joe is very bright, but I think he does have some instinctive cunning, and that's part of why he leans so hard on the outrageous good ol' boy redneck persona. The whole goal being to seem so off the wall and upfront about it that nobody questions your sincerity since you seem incapable of hiding anything.

The polygamy angle is something I think he deployed in a sly way to seem like he was an open book, especially compared to Carole "I don't even hide the fact I have multiple husbands, though I live in the fucking middle of Bible Belt Oklahoma--but what is Carole hiding about her missing husband?"

Of course if you look beyond what you see with Joe and actually listen to what he is saying, you realize pretty quickly that he's full of shit. And if anything, the final episodes and the reporting after the series also shows that Joe had a lot of skeletons he was hiding--literally. But I think he banked on people taking him at face value, and it seems like a lot of people still do. 

[Pickles Aplenty]

10 hours ago, Zella said:

Of course if you look beyond what you see with Joe and actually listen to what he is saying, you realize pretty quickly that he's full of shit. And if anything, the final episodes and the reporting after the series also shows that Joe had a lot of skeletons he was hiding--literally. But I think he banked on people taking him at face value, and it seems like a lot of people still do. 

I think it was the very first episode, where Joe talked about breeding ligers, and how it's okay, because he's worked with "the top geneticists from New York and Washington D.C.".  Right then, I knew he was full of shit.  You think this would be evident to anyone watching, but I guess not. 

You know, this whole thing has made me want to see an actual documentary on the big cat trade, and all the animal cruelty, behind it.  I'm getting as much entertainment from the sideshow as anyone, but the animals are the real losers, here.  It's all very sad.

ETA: I just read that Cardi B is a big fan of Joe, and even wants him out of prison.  Does she have any idea how racist, he is?  I wish they had included that, in the doc.  Apparently, there is plenty of footage of Joe using the "n" word.

Edited April 11, 2020 by Billina

[BradandJanet]

On 3/31/2020 at 10:54 PM, sainte-chapelle said:

If Joe did a tell-all from jail I would watch the hell out of that.

I can't imagine how Joe would stay alive if he did that, especially if he managed to get out of jail. I'm not sure Joe knows truth from fiction anyway. 

[sainte-chapelle]

2 hours ago, BradandJanet said:

I can't imagine how Joe would stay alive if he did that, especially if he managed to get out of jail. I'm not sure Joe knows truth from fiction anyway. 

Unreliable narrators...Joe, Carol, the whole lot of them.

[Aliferously]

Episode six:

- You know what saddens me most about the whole Travis thing? That his mother has nothing left of him. I'm sure his box of ashes is still gathering dust in that shitty bedroom. And that Joe never really thinks of him anymore. 

- I'm sure "campaign manager for Joe Exotic" is going to be a hit with Brad's (I think it was Brad) future employers. Especially the part where someone blew their brains out not five feet away from him.

- Weirdest.Funeral.Ever. 

- So the game is to lure 19 year olds, seduce them with promises of tiger keeping and ply them with crystal meth?

 

 

 

Edited April 11, 2020 by Aliferously

[Zella]

6 minutes ago, Aliferously said:

 

- I'm sure "campaign manager for Joe Exotic" is going to be a hit with Brad's (I think it was Brad) future employers. Especially the part where someone blew their brains out not five feet away from him.

 

 

Do you mean Josh? 

He did have an . . . interesting resume. From the ammo counter at Wal-Mart to Joe Exotic's campaign manager. LOL

I actually felt really sorry for him about the shooting. What a horrible thing to witness. 😞 That wasn't his fault and something he had no control over.

Edited April 11, 2020 by Zella

[Aliferously]

Oh, it's not that I was downplaying it. I felt awful for him too, don't get me wrong.

I hope at some point he got some counseling for that. I only saw the footage and I feel like I can never unsee it. Let alone be in that room.

 

[ElectricBoogaloo]

11 hours ago, Aliferously said:

I hope at some point he got some counseling for that. I only saw the footage and I feel like I can never unsee it. Let alone be in that room.

I don't know if Josh ever got some counseling, but in the interview that Rick did with David Spade, he said that he lived at the zoo for a year and after he left, he was in therapy for six months (and he did in-patient for a week) because the experience messed with his head so much.

[zibnchy]

I just watched the new episode and a couple of things stood out.

1. Rick Kirkham tells a horrifying story about a horse. Really just skip it. I mean, Joe was an horrific animal abuser throughout but the horse story is just evil.

2. Comments made by Josh (the campaign manager) indicate he's gotten NO counseling help after witnessing  the shooting. I don't know why no one has helped him. Maybe Netflix could facilitate something?

3. Saff!

3. Everyone comes off pretty well with the exception of Jeff and Lauren. I am not kidding at all when I say I fear for their baby.

4. No Carole. I'd have loved to see some Carole.

[Melina22]

24 minutes ago, zibnchy said:

Rick Kirkham tells a horrifying story about a horse. Really just skip it. I mean, Joe was an horrific animal abuser throughout but the horse story is just evil.

Yes, this really convinced me that he's a bad person. That and the fact that apart from Saff's Thanksgiving story, no one had anything good to say about him. And these are the people who really knew him. 

[Bruinsfan]

Hopefully Josh will be court ordered to get some kind of psychiatric help now that this happened:

Sword-wielding Suspect Jailed in Pauls Valley

By my reckoning Barbara Fisher (the volunteer who left Doc Antle's sex cult) is the only remaining person directly involved in any of the featured zoos and sanctuaries who's not crazy in one way or another.

[Guest]

54 minutes ago, Bruinsfan said:

Hopefully Josh will be court ordered to get some kind of psychiatric help now that this happened:

The article is dated 2017. Has he had a trial since then?

The add-on episode was mostly a waste of time. David Spade's interviews were better. Frankly, I'm shocked that the long-haired, Vince-Neil-hater chose to stay on with Jeff Lowe. There's no way he's treating those poor animals any better than Joe did.

[coops]

On 4/8/2020 at 8:31 AM, methodwriter85 said:

I mean, jesus, he talked about his husband's balls in graphic detail at his fucking memorial while his mother. He couldn't even do a funeral without making it all about himself and putting on a performance.

That was the most bizarre thing I have ever watched on TV

[Zella]

30 minutes ago, coops said:

That was the most bizarre thing I have ever watched on TV

Word. And right when I didn't think it could get any more uncomfortable, he broke into song. . . .

[coops]

1 hour ago, Zella said:

Word. And right when I didn't think it could get any more uncomfortable, he broke into song. . . .

That's when I literally had to stop saying to myself "this documentary cannot get any weirder..." every time I thought it couldn't someone would die or get murdered or plot an assassination attempt or break into song. I honestly expected the final episode to be about aliens coming down from outer space to kidnap the tigers while singing Celine Dion's greatest hits. 

[Zella]

3 minutes ago, coops said:

That's when I literally had to stop saying to myself "this documentary cannot get any weirder..." every time I thought it couldn't someone would die or get murdered or plot an assassination attempt or break into song. I honestly expected the final episode to be about aliens coming down from outer space to kidnap the tigers while singing Celine Dion's greatest hits. 

Yeah, I'd had a fair amount of it spoiled--and I grew up in a trailer park in Arkansas--so I went into it knowing a lot of information and having a pretty high bar for being shocked by unhinged redneck bullshit, but I was routinely pausing the episodes just to process what I had seen or lean in closer and verify that whatever insanity I thought I was seeing was actually on the screen. 

[Growsonwalls]

Barbara Fischer wrote more about her time working at Doc's zoo:

https://www.elle.com/culture/movies-tv/a32023648/tiger-king-barbara-fisher-doc-antle-interview/

I worry about Travis's mother. The woman looked like a wreck. I have a feeling drug and alcohol problems run in the family. 

[methodwriter85]

3 hours ago, Bruinsfan said:

Hopefully Josh will be court ordered to get some kind of psychiatric help now that this happened:

Sword-wielding Suspect Jailed in Pauls Valley

By my reckoning Barbara Fisher (the volunteer who left Doc Antle's sex cult) is the only remaining person directly involved in any of the featured zoos and sanctuaries who's not crazy in one way or another.

It looks like this actually happened about two months after Travis killed himself. I'm guessing Josh got a good lawyer because he doesn't seem like he's in trouble with the law at all.

Its funny because Josh seemed like the sanest person there. LOL.

[Zella]

3 hours ago, Giant Misfit said:

The article is dated 2017. Has he had a trial since then?

The add-on episode was mostly a waste of time. David Spade's interviews were better. Frankly, I'm shocked that the long-haired, Vince-Neil-hater chose to stay on with Jeff Lowe. There's no way he's treating those poor animals any better than Joe did.

I'm about a few minutes in, and in a way, it doesn't surprise me at all. I think Erik has a genuine fondness/affection/love for the cats that neither Jeff nor Joe has and his theory is it is better for him to be there with the cats, regardless of who the owner is, rather than letting strangers he doesn't trust take care of them. And I also get the impression that he'd sort of hit rock bottom when he wasn't with the cats, so there's probably some self-esteem issues tied into it for him of being a zookeeper rather than working as a short-order cook. 

Edited April 13, 2020 by Zella

[Zella]

So far the follow-up episode has been okay, no real revelations but interesting enough, but this just--I don't even know why I'm surprised.

Joel McHale: Did anyone talk to Joe about getting counseling after Travis's death?

Josh: No, what he did was talk to a shaman.

Joel: Did that help?

Josh: No, I felt like it actually worsened his condition. 

[SemiCharmedLife]

On 4/9/2020 at 11:28 AM, methodwriter85 said:

Oh, I hope it happens. I knew Ryan Murphy would be all over this. He should cast Mary Cherry as Carole.  

There are so many posts and memes about casting for a Tiger King movie, and I believe some projects are already being planned.  My question is:  why???  We already have the documentary with actual footage of the participants.  Having actors fumble through made up dialog would just muddy the story, in my opinion.  I would much rather see a continuation of the doc series, with additional interviews, investigations into different aspects of the cases and updates.  

[ElectricBoogaloo]

12 hours ago, Giant Misfit said:

The add-on episode was mostly a waste of time. David Spade's interviews were better.

I disagree that Spade's interviews were better. He barely let Saff get a word in edgewise and he spent a good part of each interview rehashing the same stuff each time, giving his opinions about Joe and  Carole, and telling the participants how genuine they seemed (and calling them "buddy" a million times). I found myself getting really frustrated during his interviews. I wanted him to let everyone except Jeff talk more.

[ElectricBoogaloo]

16 hours ago, zibnchy said:

Rick Kirkham tells a horrifying story about a horse. Really just skip it. I mean, Joe was an horrific animal abuser throughout but the horse story is just evil.

Someone told this story during the Spade interviews. I'm pretty sure it was Rick but I'm not 100% sure because I watched them all back to back.

[Pickles Aplenty]

If anyone wants more dirt on Joe, listen to the podcast on Spotify.  David Spade's interviews are okay, but he kisses too much ass.  The podcast is better, but keep in mind that they go into more detail about the animal abuse.  It ain't pretty.

Edited April 13, 2020 by Billina

[coops]

2 hours ago, Billina said:

The podcast is better, but keep in mind that they go into more detail about the animal abuse.  It ain't pretty.

Oh god, I really want to listen but I also don't, if you know what I mean. What we saw in the documentary was already bad enough.

Take the scene where someone tried to "kill" Joe by putting something on his shoes so that tiger went all crazy over them. It was pretty scary to watch him get dragged around by that tiger, but the abuse he gave that poor creature in that scene was WAY worse than anything that tiger was doing to him. Those things can rip your whole leg off if they want to. We saw someone's arm get ripped off. Nothing like that happened to Joe, the tiger was just obsessed with his shoe. He was hitting the tiger on the head with its stick and shooting his gun and screaming at them even after they backed off. Seeing as the tigers could have easily killed him if they wanted to they must have been way more afraid of him than he was of them.

[Avaleigh]

The follow up was pretty 'meh'. I didn't feel like I learned anything new. I already knew from the doc what a POS Joe is and the material covered in these interviews wasn't much different from what was in the Spade interviews. 

Hearing Josh talk about Travis was rough. To have such a tragic and traumatic scene burned into your memory sounds too horrific for me to truly contemplate. 

I wonder if Carole will eventually do an interview to get her side of the story to a wider audience. I know she's responded certain comments that have been made on the BCR site but I wonder if she'll take it further. Maybe she won't want to give any interviews until her lawsuit is settled.

10 hours ago, SemiCharmedLife said:

There are so many posts and memes about casting for a Tiger King movie, and I believe some projects are already being planned.  My question is:  why???  We already have the documentary with actual footage of the participants.  Having actors fumble through made up dialog would just muddy the story, in my opinion.  I would much rather see a continuation of the doc series, with additional interviews, investigations into different aspects of the cases and updates.  

I'm in the group that wants to see an adaptation of this story. 

One of the best documentaries I've ever seen was OJ Made in America. It was by far the best telling of the story and no fictional treatment of the OJ story is ever IMO going to be as good. That being said, I thought Ryan Murphy's American Crime Story adaptation of the OJ story was terrific stuff. Funny, entertaining, fascinating, frustrating--I felt a lot of emotions while watching it and thought RM's team did a great job.

Doing an adaptation of this story sounds like it would be a lot of fun for cast, crew and audience. Plus they'll be able to shed light on topics that the docuseries didn't include.

[Pickles Aplenty]

3 minutes ago, Avaleigh said:

I wonder if Carole will eventually do an interview to get her side of the story to a wider audience. I know she's responded certain comments that have been made on the BCR site but I wonder if she'll take it further. Maybe she won't want to give any interviews until her lawsuit is settled.

Bringing up the podcast again, but there is a 15 minute interview with Carole, where she goes into more detail about her past, and all the things she did before BCR.  I still think she's weird, but after hearing about the abuse she's suffered, I can understand why she's weird, and standoffish.  She's been through a lot.

[Bruinsfan]

13 hours ago, methodwriter85 said:

It looks like this actually happened about two months after Travis killed himself. I'm guessing Josh got a good lawyer because he doesn't seem like he's in trouble with the law at all.

Its funny because Josh seemed like the sanest person there. LOL.

To be honest the samurai sword attack doesn't move him too many places down the Most Sane rankings at that place, particularly when you factor in the reason for his PTSD. Like, maybe John Reinke and Erik Cowie jumped up past him. Paul Howerton went to the hospital with just a cut on his arm from the sword attack—that sheriff's department probably handles worse injuries with more of a WTF factor every Saturday night after the bars close. (Note that someone described a 15-minute ground fight in the parking lot between Jeff Lowe and Dillon Passage that apparently resulted in no charges or police intervention.)

[Zella]

Just now, Bruinsfan said:

(Note that someone described a 15-minute ground fight in the parking lot between Jeff Lowe and Dillon Passage that apparently resulted in no charges or police intervention.)

I wanted more details on that! But I love how whoever mentioned it--was it Reinke?--just casually dropped that tidbit like it was an everyday thing and moved on.

[Prower]

On 4/9/2020 at 11:03 PM, methodwriter85 said:

Okay, as a gay man myself, I'm really not okay with being called a homophobe because I didn't like how Joe eulogized Travis, and I'm just going to leave it at that. I got that Joe was trying to use that as a funny anecdote but I still thought it was highly inappropriate and TMI for a funeral.

Maybe I was just a bit over sensitive after most of episode 5 tried to build up the narrative that this evil gay super villian with his mind control turned these innocent straight boys into his sex slaves. But I still don't see how it was that bad. was it slightly inaporpriate, sure? But so bad that multiple people in here need to remark on it? I don't think so. It was supposed to be a endearing funny story about the deceased, that turned out to be a bit TMI.

On 4/9/2020 at 11:12 PM, Zella said:

It would have been just as inappropriate if he had been eulogizing his wife's tits. 

And yet I doubt multiple people would have remarked on it, if he had said "Remember how she flashed everbody her tits? She loved them, they were like gold to her".

Especially compared to everything else on this show, how is that the hangup people have?

On 4/11/2020 at 1:23 AM, Rosenrot said:

Also, somebody mentioned homophoby earlier. I don't think anybody here is a homophobe. To me personally, it doesn't matter if you're gay, straight, bi, trans, black, white, Chinese, from Mars or jesus himself - if you're cruel to animals, then you're a scumbag. Period. 

Joe is a complete scumbag independantly from being gay and I said so before.

Also you don't have to be a homophobe to have some (unconcious) homophhobic thought patterns. we live in a society and all that crap.

Edited April 13, 2020 by Prower

[Zella]

2 minutes ago, Prower said:

And yet I doubt multiple people would have remarked on it, if he had said "Remember how she flashed everbody her tits? She loved them, they were like gold to her".

Especially compared to everything else on this show, how is that the hangup people have?

Speak for yourself, but I would have been just as appalled. He was giving a eulogy at a funeral in front of the deceased's mother, not delivering an anecdote at a goddamn comedy club or a private memorial thing with other coworkers who might have seen the humor on it. It was a shitty, crass thing to do for the occasion, regardless of his gender or sexual orientation or the gender or sexual orientation of the person he was talking about. 

[Prower]

3 minutes ago, Zella said:

Speak for yourself, but I would have been just as appalled. He was giving a eulogy at a funeral in front of the deceased's mother, not delivering an anecdote at a goddamn comedy club or a private memorial thing with other coworkers who might have seen the humor on it. It was a shitty, crass thing to do for the occasion, regardless of his gender or sexual orientation or the gender or sexual orientation of the person he was talking about. 

Yes, I'm speaking for myself. I doubt as many people would have remarked on it, if any. I think it wouldn't have even shown up on people's radar with all the other horrible shit he has done. That is what I myself have to say.

[Zella]

4 minutes ago, Prower said:

Yes, I'm speaking for myself. I doubt as many people would have remarked on it, if any. I think it wouldn't have even shown up on people's radar with all the other horrible shit he has done. That is what I myself have to say.

People would have remarked on it because it shows what a truly shitty person he is, not because he talked about a guy's balls and we're all a bunch of homophobes. In a moment when someone he allegedly loves dies, what does he do? He makes the occasion all about himself and acts like an asshole and is insensitive to the mother of someone whose son just accidentally blew his own brains out. That's what people are fixating on, and I really don't think it would have been any different if he'd had a girlfriend who shot herself whom he then eulogized by rambling on about her glorious tits in front of her obviously distraught mom.  

Edited April 13, 2020 by Zella

[punkypower]

On 4/9/2020 at 9:19 PM, Gillian Rosh said:

 

I'm so so sorry!! I accidentally quoted, and can't get rid of it!!

For anyone interested, check out FOX. There is a TMZ Special on Tiger King!

[Pickles Aplenty]

I just want to go on record and say yes, I would have commented on someone talking about his wife's tits during a eulogy, lol.  Either way, it's weird, IMHO.

[CrinkleCutCat]

According to producer Rick Kirkham, Joe had a wife Kim and has a son Brandon Chappell. 
 

https://nypost.com/2020/04/13/joe-exotic-has-ex-wife-adult-son-who-appeared-in-tiger-king/

[coops]

14 hours ago, Zella said:

People would have remarked on it because it shows what a truly shitty person he is, not because he talked about a guy's balls and we're all a bunch of homophobes. In a moment when someone he allegedly loves dies, what does he do? He makes the occasion all about himself and acts like an asshole and is insensitive to the mother of someone whose son just accidentally blew his own brains out. That's what people are fixating on, and I really don't think it would have been any different if he'd had a girlfriend who shot herself whom he then eulogized by rambling on about her glorious tits in front of her obviously distraught mom.  

I'd argue he would have got even more hate if that tragedy had involved a young girl instead of a young man. Older gay men with a much younger gay partner is actually quite common, people might have been more alarmed to see Joe with a young woman. If the reaction to Joe's eulogy had been "that's totally normal for gays, gay people talk about their balls, that's normal for them at a funeral. He's gay, why wouldn't he burst into song?" THAT would be homophobic/ignorant. Being disgusted with Joe for not giving Travis the respect he deserved at his funeral isn't. I can't get over how much of a tragedy it was and the person least affected by it seems to be Joe, married a few months later. 

How Joe picks these young men fresh out of school and feeds them drugs and entices them with tigers is disgusting, regardless of the fact he's gay. It's just as creepy with the other tiger man who has all the wives.

Edited April 14, 2020 by coops

[SunnyBeBe]

On 4/12/2020 at 11:19 PM, Zella said:

Yeah, I'd had a fair amount of it spoiled--and I grew up in a trailer park in Arkansas--so I went into it knowing a lot of information and having a pretty high bar for being shocked by unhinged redneck bullshit, but I was routinely pausing the episodes just to process what I had seen or lean in closer and verify that whatever insanity I thought I was seeing was actually on the screen. 

Yeah, I grew up in the south and actually have known some people who aren't that different from some of the people featured on this film. So, I don't think it's the characters that shock me as much as they do some people, but, it's the circumstances, facts, allegations, etc. that blew me away.   And, that's saying a lot because, I come from the Bible belt, but, from an area that has had more than its fair share of murders.  It's on my bucket list to write about them.  I don't think we can sell items here though or even advertise for free, but, I might seek out an ad.  lol

Edited April 14, 2020 by SunnyBeBe

[SemiCharmedLife]

On 4/13/2020 at 8:10 AM, ElectricBoogaloo said:

Someone told this story during the Spade interviews. I'm pretty sure it was Rick but I'm not 100% sure because I watched them all back to back.

It was also in an article about the Tiger King.  The author of the article interviewed Rick and got this and a few more tidbits. I looked for the original article, but now this story is everywhere- People, E! and Huffington Post, to name a few.

Edited April 15, 2020 by SemiCharmedLife
Citing a source.

[sainte-chapelle]

On 4/13/2020 at 1:21 AM, Zella said:

I'm about a few minutes in, and in a way, it doesn't surprise me at all. I think Erik has a genuine fondness/affection/love for the cats that neither Jeff nor Joe has and his theory is it is better for him to be there with the cats, regardless of who the owner is, rather than letting strangers he doesn't trust take care of them. And I also get the impression that he'd sort of hit rock bottom when he wasn't with the cats, so there's probably some self-esteem issues tied into it for him of being a zookeeper rather than working as a short-order cook. 

I agree, he is a very broken person but I do think he genuinely cares for the animals. His vodka induced breakdown over the dead animals in the last episode felt genuine.