The unbelievable yet transfixing Netflix Original series Tiger King has dominated news feeds around the world since its release, and now Joe Exotic’s niece has spoken out, claiming that the documentary didn’t show just how crazy its protagonist is in real life.
In an interview with the Daily Mail, Exotic’s niece Chealsi Putman has come out with a whole lot more about the man known as the Tiger King, including plenty of things that weren’t uncovered by the FBI when her uncle was sentenced to 22-years in prison.
For anyone who hasn’t seen Tiger King, it follows the life and times of Joe Exotic, former owner of the Greater Wynnewood Exotic Animal Park in Oklahoma. He is currently in jail after being found guilty of 17 counts of animal cruelty and for paying someone to murder his nemesis, Carole Baskin of Big Cat Rescue.
Among other revelations, she claimed that he was freezing tiger cubs to sell them to taxidermists during the time she worked for him. “Over the years there must have been at least 10 tiger cubs that he froze. I have no idea what happened to them, they would just disappear,” she said.
He also sold other animals. “A few years ago, at the zoo we had a monkey who just had a baby, Joe wanted to take the baby monkey away from it’s mother so he could sell it,” Putman said.
“The mother monkey naturally wouldn’t let Joe take the baby away from her so, he decided to ”dart” the mother monkey.”
Putman also spoke about piercing parties that Exotic would hold, where employees would get drunk and pierce each other. Additionally, she claimed that there were videos of certain people from the zoo performing sex acts on the animals.
Check out the official trailer for Tiger King:
Finally, she spoke strongly about the Netflix doco glossing over the fact that Joe Exotic has an adult son named Brandon Chappell, who he fathered with a girlfriend named Kim when he served as the chief of police in Eastvale, Texas in the ’80s.
Chappell is now 38-years-old, and was even in a few scenes of the show, but no big deal was made about it.
“Joe was in and out of Brandon’s life when he was growing up, at one point just a few years ago Brandon and his then-wife, both worked at the zoo with Joe,” said Putman.
“Joe would go around telling everyone this was his son, he made no secret about it. Brandon was even in a few scenes in the Netflix show.” Read the interview in full here.
Tiger King might not be completely finished either, with one of its stars, Jeff Lowe, claiming just days ago that another episode is in the works.
Watch Jeff Lowe announce another episode:
So our friend @christie_dish listened to the podcast, @HoldingKourt and after last weeks episode decided to send us this!!!
🚨BREAKING NEWS FOLKS🚨
There will be 1 more episode of #TigerKing on@Netflix pic.twitter.com/YeRSIlDKTJ
— Justin Turner (@redturn2) April 4, 2020