Tiger King: John Finlay Reveals Why He Went Shirtless in the Netflix Series

Netflix's Tiger King: Murder, Mayhem and Madness is full of interesting and somewhat colorful [...]

By Nicole Drum

Netflix's Tiger King: Murder, Mayhem and Madness is full of interesting and somewhat colorful figures and we don't just mean the controversial subject of the docuseries, Joe Exotic. Nearly everyone in the strange world of big cat breeding featured in the series can only be described as unique and that includes Exotic's ex-husband John Finlay. Featured prominently in the series, Finlay was notably shirtless in the series and now, he's revealing why that was the case. In the newly-released episode "The Tiger King and I" Finlay opened up about his wardrobe option and it turns out, the reason was very simple: his tattoos.

Speaking with host Joel McHale, Finlay described being shirtless as a way to show off his considerable ink.

"I got tattoos. Why not show off?" Finlay said. "I mean, it was a little cold but it was fun."

Finlay does have quite a few tattoos -- and he noted that one of the more significant ones seen in Tiger King had now been completed and was in the healing process -- but while showing off the tattoos was the reason he went shirtless, it may not have entirely been his idea. In an interview with Variety, Finlay said that it was the Tiger King filmmakers who encouraged him to take off his shirt for interviews.

"Throughout the show, a lot of people focused on the one scene of me being shirtless," he said. "There were quite a few scenes throughout the whole thing where I had a shirt on. They suggested that I show [the tattoos] off. They kind of made it feel like I was the sexy one of the whole thing."

Another element of Finlay's appearance also briefly came up in "The Tiger King and I" -- his teeth. In main seven episodes of the series, Finlay was shown to have very few teeth in his mouth, though he now has a full set of pearly whites. It turns out that the teeth situation is one of Finlay's complaints about Tiger King. He previously told TMZ that he had actually had his teeth redone in July 2019 while they were still film in Tiger King, but that the series didn't use any of the footage with his new smile.

Even though they didn't make it into the documentary, Finlay told Lights Out with David Spade, they're perfect.

"It took a while, but it took a good job to get it done, too," he said. "It was painful the first couple of weeks. But after I got them fixed the right way, they're perfect."

Tiger King: Murder, Mayhem, and Madness is now streaming on Netflix.

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