Tiger King: Murder, Mayhem and Madness is the biggest entertainment going right now. While Joe Exotic is not available for interviews since he is currently in prison and Carole Baskin isn’t talking to the media right now because of the accusations surrounding her husband. But Bhagavan “Doc” Antle gave an interview to comedian Andrew Schulz on his Flagrant 2 podcast where they talked about the cast of characters from Tiger King.
Antle said that Eric Goode, who directed Tiger King, tricked him as to the real reason why he was making Tiger King.
“He was a fricken amateur about the entire process,” Doc said of Goode. “He’s not a director, he’s a turtle connoisseur, the guy’s deeply into collecting turtles, and he ran some nightclubs, but he’s not a director.”
“This dude came to me and said, ‘Hey I’m making a show about wildlife education, conservation, I got Richard Branson talking about all the lemurs on his island,'” Doc said. “This is conservation education about captive wildlife, to save the wildlife in the wild.”
Rebecca Chaiklin, the co-director of Tiger King, was allegedly asking the staff at The Institute for Greatly Endangered and Rare Species (T.I.G.E.R.S.), “Who do you sleep with?”
Doc said he kicked Chaiklin off the zoo’s property after asking the staff too many personal questions.
Doc Antle met Joe Exotic on several occasions, including at one of his traveling magic shows in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, and at a couple of zoo conferences.
“I’ve got nothing against Joe,” Antle said. “Man, Joe in his 40s, was ‘How much trouble can I get in and who wants to join?”
“The greatest goal of Joe’s life was two-fold: get famous and fuck up Carole Baskin,” Antle said of Joe Exotic. “He’s more famous than The Rock is today.”
Doc called James Garretson “the fucking narc in that show” and “the rat fink.” “That show’s full of rats.” “Jeff and him both turned, and set Joe up to the max, a whole lot of set up there,” Doc said of Jeff Lowe and Garretson.
“There’s a whole other huge story of some kind of credit fraud and fake banks and all kinds of other weird shit that James Garretson and Jeff were being turned on because of Joe finding out the stories and laying all that down,” Doc said. “I think some of that animosity and insanity is what got Joe on the outs of them.”
“The whole thing is melting down, and in the process of that, they bring this hitman in, and they go, ‘Hey, I’ve got this bargain hitman he’ll go do a transcontinental hit for ya for $3,000.”
When asked what happened to Joe Exotic’s knee, Antle said that Joe Maldonado-Passage has a “degenerative bone problem going on from his hip to his knee,” and “also has some kind of an autoimmune disease.”
“I told him, ‘The first thing you need to do is say a whole lot less because god, Joe, you talk too much. All of the stuff you’re saying is going somewhere where it will not turn out positive. You’re just kind of obsessed with Carole far too much,'” Doc told Joe. “Little did we know it was that obsessed.”
“There is a magic mystery about tigers, they are the sexiest beasts in the world. They just have this power and beauty and grace that surrounds them,” Doc said. “They just entice you in.”
“And then they’re gigantic, and they’re so deadly,” Doc said. “And it just creates a mystique around them, where they just feel like power.”
Stand-up comedian Andrew Schulz asked how the Netflix documentary impacted his business. “We’re just being overwhelmed by being shut down,” Doc said of the current stay at home orders. “Myrtle Beach is a ghost town.”
“You look at Carole’s place and what a dump, it’s like a bad backyard menagerie,” Antle said of Baskin’s Big Cat Rescue. “You wouldn’t want to keep your dog in there.”
“Then you go to Joe’s, and it’s overrun and over full,” Antle said of Joseph Allen Maldonado-Passage’s Greater Wynnewood Exotic Animal Park. “He’s just at wit’s end to get enough bad bologna from Walmart to feed everything.”
Antle said he has played with over 400 big cats since he was in his 20’s and he has never been hurt in his life.
“Carole, in my opinion, is full-blown psychotic. Creepy woman in the background. She’s out of her gourd.”
“You know what happened, Carole killed her fucking husband,” Antle said.
Schulz asked Doc if there was one animal that was too dangerous to have in captivity. Antle responded by saying that big mature male elephants are too big, twice the size of female elephants, are “too much.” “And if a 20,000-pound dude gives you a punch, pieces are coming off.” He added that big bull rhinos are too dangerous and that polar and grizzly bears can also be treacherous.
Antle declared that he doesn’t have nine wives. He said that he was married once, but she died in a car accident 25 years ago. “That’s my last wife, since then I’m a single guy.”
“I live alone in my house, but I certainly have female companionship as part of my existence. And those ladies who come are all of them are in their late 30s and 40s,” Doc told Andrew. “I’ve got these lovely grown-up girls around.”
“I’ve got several girlfriends that all know each other, and all know about each other,” Doc said. “And China is one of those girls.”
When Andrew asked Doc how he has all of these girlfriends, Antle joked that “you don’t have the time.”
Antle said that no, the women who work at his wildlife preserve are not forced to get breast implants. Barbara Fisher, who worked under Antle from 1999 to 2007, claimed that all the female workers had to get breast implants.
Antle said that Fisher was the babysitter for his daughter Tawny, and she wanted to get breast implants and he gave her a financial plan to afford to get a breast augmentation. “She’s infatuated with getting her boobs done,” Doc said. “My opinion is that she lost it.”
“Lunatics are attracted to animals,” Doc said. “There are lunatics who can’t get it together, their minds are squashed, they can’t focus, they don’t know what’s happening. And they find solace in an animal it doesn’t judge them, it doesn’t have any speech as to who they are.”
He adds that there are no cockroaches on his complex and that there are 12 men who work on the preserve, but the directors edited them out of the documentary.
Antle said he doesn’t have a gas chamber or a crematorium. He added that his 50-acre wildlife preserve was not raided by federal agents. He said he had an inquiry from a veterinarian and state agents.
In another Flagrant 2 episode, Schulz and his crew determine who is the worst character in Tiger King.