Documentary maker Louis Theroux has weighed in on Netflix’s Tiger King documentary, which came out almost ten years after he released his own doco about exotic pet owners in the USA.
Tiger King: Murder, Mayhem and Madness dropped at just the right time given social isolation measures continue to drive people towards occupying themselves online, and has absolutely captivated viewers.
Now, in a piece published in The Weekend Australian, Therox gives his own unique view on the show and its protagonist Joe Exotic.
“Altogether, though, Joe struck me as likeable and friendly. I warmed to him, and his ridiculousness was endearing rather than annoying,” says Theroux of his first impression of Joe Exotic in 2011.
Exotic was notorious among animal rights activists even back in 2011, reveals Theroux. “He seemed to lurch from crisis to crisis, constantly on the verge of financial ruin, handling low-level bites and maulings, and being hounded by “animal rights people”, as he put it.”
QUIZ: Which Tiger King character are you? That bitch Carole Baskin?
Theroux goes on to say that one of Exotic’s ultimate issues was his failed business model, which required baby tigers to make money both at the zoo and as part of his road show. When those tigers grew up they contributed to the Tiger King’s “high overheads”.
“Those tiger cubs were money-makers for a matter of months. There then followed another 20 years of life, during which they would become aggressive to the point of potentially killing any human within pouncing distance,” the documentary maker says.
When Theroux was spending time with Joe Exotic, he was in a three-way relationship, which included John Findlay who will be familiar to Tiger King viewers, as well as a man named ‘Paul’.
“In the film we made only a brief mention of Joe’s love life, in a scene in Joe’s kitchen in which he explained, regarding jealousy, that love-making only happened with all three involved. “It works awesome,” he said, then laughed and added: “Because we’re all too tired to have sex.”
Check out when Louis Theroux met Joe Exotic:
