Tiger King’s Carole Baskin was tricked into doing her first “live” TV interview since the Netflix show aired.
The 58-year-old animal rights activist, who runs the Florida animal sanctuary Big Cat Rescue, has been catapulted into fame after her feud with Joe Exotic arose.
Netflix’s controversial show saw Exotic accuse Carole of murdering her late husband Don Lewis, which she has strenuously denied.
The accusations left Baskin upset after the claims and reluctant to do interviews.
In the YouTube prank video, Josh Pieters and Archie Manners posed as producers for The Tonight Show, and convinced Carole to do an interview with who she thought was host Jimmy Fallon.
(Image: Josh Pieters and Archie Manners/Youtube)
The hoax was that she wasn’t on the show at all, and was just speaking to soundbites of the presenter.
The pranksters told Baskin they represented a production company called Invisible Object that is facilitating guest appearances on talk shows amid lockdown.
Carole believed she was on the US show talking to Jimmy, but it was in fact a prank video for YouTube.
The YouTubers convinced Carole she was doing an interview on The Tonight Show (Image: Josh Pieters and Archie Manners/Youtube)
During the fake interview which was mainly around big cats and wildlife, Carole revealed she had to lay off 50 percent of her workers.
She said: “My daughter and I still come into the sanctuary every day because we have to take care of all the big cats here.
“Unfortunately due to the loss of tourism revenue we’ve had to let go of about half of our staff and thankfully all of our animal care is done by volunteers.
Carole shot to fame on the hit Netflix show Tiger King (Image: Netflix)
“The animals are still getting their daily care but it means all of us are having to work double time to make sure that happens … I work seven days a week but I’m a workaholic so I really love doing this work.”
The big cat enthusiast said the lockdown might force her to stop doing tours and have an impact on her business.
She said: “After Covid-19 I just don’t know if we’re ever going to be able to do tours again.”
Source: Celebrities - dailystar.co.uk
