The ongoing saga of Tiger King continues, and the latest development involves Carole Baskin. Baskin is being sued by the family of Don Lewis for defamation, and those who watched the documentary or have just been keeping up with all the news around this will know that Lewis is Baskins’ missing husband. She is being sued by Lewis daughters Gale, Lynda, and Donna as well as Lewis’ former executive assistant Anne McQueen (via ET). The court documents claim that Baskin was “complicit with jokes” about her former husband on Dancing With The Stars, specifically “When judges brought up TikTok videos inspired by her storyline in Tiger King.”
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The lawsuit says that Baskin didn’t condemn or correct the comments about him during her time on Dancing With The Stars, but they also say she’s been complicit with jokes regarding Lewis on Good Morning America earlier this month, where she joked that she’d “really kill it next week” on Dancing With The Stars.
The court documents also say that Baskin has been uploading an publishing new information about her relationship with Lewis, though Baskin says these videos and diary entries are from the past.
The court docs also state that Baskin has been uploading and publishing new information about her relationship with Lewis in videos and diary entries which she claims are from the past.
Here’s the statement from the Lewis family’s attorney Jon Phillips. “These exact same false statements, and additional ones, are being made again in 2020. It is malicious. Making matters worse, Howard Baskin is making these same statements publicly, as is Big Cat Rescue. As such, they have been added as Defendants.”
Phillips also addressed the commercial that aired in Florida markets which brought up the allegations regarding Lewis’ disappearance, a commercial that was made by the Lewis family and announced a $100,000 reward for information.
“Carole Baskin goes on YouTube, Facebook and does blogs every single day getting out her narrative. It’s landed her on a major TV show, Dancing with the Stars. She was the featured person in all the commercials and last to dance,” Phillips said. “All the messaging about Carole and her fame comes at their peril. There was Tiger King — and it focused on the exotic animal industry — but a lot of it was about the death and disappearance of Don Lewis. A lot of her contention with Joe Exotic was about whether she was involved in Don Lewis’ death.”
“The family never really got the chance to know and years have gone by,” Phillips said. “Since Tiger King, Carole has done daily diary entries and was going to use this show as a springboard to her message. So [Lewis’ family] wanted their message out there. They wanted, at least locally, to counter message Carole Baskin’s, in their mind, lies and fraud.”
Phillips also had words for the Dancing With The Stars producers and judges.
“Dancing with the Stars producers, you think it’s funny to say ‘she killed it’ and to use part of that TikTok rhyme that is derogatory to Carole in in the judging, but let’s stop and realize that there is an actual death involved here and be serious and maybe somebody will come forward,” Phillips said. “If not, at least people today will be talking about Don Lewis and not just Carole Baskin.”
