Tiger King star Carole Baskin was forced to hire bodyguards for protection after receiving death threats over a number of “decades”.
The 61 year old animal rights activist and CEO of Big Cat Rescue has recently scored a huge win with the passage of a bill that aims to put the exploiters of tigers and lions out of business once and for all.
Carole’s activism was explored further in the popular the 2020 Netflix series, where she tried to stop zookeeper Joe Exotic from illegally breeding big cats, which led him to concoct a murder-for-hire plot on her life.
READ MORE: Where is Joe Exotic now as Tiger King files for divorce from estranged husband
But while talking exclusively to Daily Star, Carole explained that Joe wasn’t the only person that wanted to cause her harm.
(Image: Getty Images for NightFly Entertainment, Ltd.)
She said: “What people saw in Tiger King was just one of the death threats from Joe Exotic. People who have been abusing big cats have been threatening me for decades.
“And every time I go somewhere, I would have to take a body guard with me or I would have to conceal that I was even at that location for public speaking at an event where they were talking about these issues.
“I would have to stay hidden until I went out and did my little bit then went back into hiding. That had been my life for like 30 years or 25 years at least.”
(Image: Broadimage/REX/Shutterstock)
The star explained that although Joe is now behind bars, there were still people who wanted to put a stop to her campaigning work.
“So after Joe went to jail, it was like ‘that’s great he’s in jail’ but there is still all these other really bad people out there who are exploiting cubs that want to keep me from getting this bill passed.
“And the only way I think they thought they could do that was to kill me.
(Image: Netflix US/AFP via Getty Images)
“Even though my husband was really the driving force behind getting this bill passed but I think they thought that if they could kill me he would just be like unable to continue.
“But now that the bill has been passed, there is no reason to want to kill me.”
Earlier this year, Tiger King star Joe was resentenced to 21 years in prison after a judge rejected his plea to be freed.
Sharing his plea to US federal judge at the time, Joe said: “Please don’t make me die in prison waiting for a chance to be free.”
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Source: Celebrities - dailystar.co.uk
