Moments after YouTubers Josh Pieters and Archie Manners revealed they’d posed as Jimmy Fallon’s producers to lure Carol Baskins into her first interview since the premiere of Tiger King earlier this year, the overnight sensation has issued a statement on the prank. According to Baskin, she didn’t feel the prank was mean-spirited; rather, as the big cat sanctuary proprietor says, she thought the prank was clever and fun.
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“I was suspicious as we were doing it because the questions appeared taped. But had no idea it would turn out to be such a fun prank,” Baskin tells Us Weekly. “It gave us a very welcome good laugh. I appreciate their cleverness and that they created their video in a way that I don’t feel was in any way mean-spirited.”
For the interview, Pieters and Manners dug through the extensive Tonight Show catalog and picked out cat-centric clips that featured Jimmy Fallon. They then posed as Fallon’s producers in email correspondence in an attempt to set up the interview. According to the pranksters, they even had a plan in place to explain why Fallon wasn’t available to broadcast video over the Zoom chat.
Why’d they choose Baskin? The pranksters — who call themselves social experimenters, mind you — wanted to show how easy it was to spoof legitimate opportunities over the web.
“Here’s a chance where we could perhaps interview some high level talent because we are going under the guise of being a really famous show,” Pieters told Insider. “And we thought, why don’t we take a shot in the dark and go for the most exclusive, hard to reach person in the world, with absolutely no hope of it working?”
Netflix’s description for the record-breaking docuseries can be read below.
“Among the eccentrics and cult personalities in the stranger-than-fiction world of big cat owners, few stand out more than Joe Exotic, a mulleted, gun-toting polygamist and country western singer who presides over an Oklahoma roadside zoo. Charismatic but misguided, Joe and an unbelievable cast of characters including drug kingpins, conmen, and cult leaders all share a passion for big cats, and the status and attention their dangerous menageries garner. But things take a dark turn when Carole Baskin, an animal activist and owner of a big cat sanctuary, threatens to put them out of business, stoking a rivalry that eventually leads to Joe’s arrest for a murder-for-hire plot, and reveals a twisted tale where the only thing more dangerous than a big cat is its owner.”
The first seven episodes of Tiger King: Murder, Mayhem, and Madness are now streaming on Netflix.
