DoctorOz: The Unheard Story of Tiger King and its Controversial Stars

There's always more from the wild world of Tiger King, the Netflix series that captured the world's attention with its fierce rivalry between Big Cat owners Joe Exotic and Carole Baskin. But today, the story you haven't heard, with more twists and turns. And it's not the one you think. He was one of the most eccentric and controversial characters from the Tiger King series, Doc Antle. And now, breaking news and indictments on this Tiger King star. He's here today to tell you his truth. It was an international sensation. Binge-watched in 64 million households, Tiger King sparked armchair sleuths around the world to ponder the mysterious disappearance of Don Lewis. Flashy Oklahoma Zoo owner Joe Exotic thinks he knows what happened. Over the years, he has repeatedly accused Tampa-based Big Cat Rescue CEO Carole Baskin of killing her husband Don and feeding him to her big cats, a claim she has always vehemently denied. But recently, cadaver dogs reportedly detected the scent of human remains just feet from Don Lewis' lake house in Brandon, Florida. There's something in that lake. Meanwhile, Joe is serving a 22-year sentence for hiring a hitman to kill Carole, and his zoo has been shuttered for good. Carole's living her best life, including a brief stint on Dancing with the Stars this season. But her Big Cat Rescue has been closed down due to COVID-19. It seems that Bhagavad Doc Antle is the last one standing from the Netflix series, and he has no intention of closing his Myrtle Beach Safari. For decades, Doc was a Hollywood mainstay as the wildlife persona for late-night TV and as a consultant on films like Ace Ventura. But Tiger King pulled back the curtain on Doc's eccentric private life, exposing an alleged cult-like atmosphere. And despite serious allegations of abuse towards his animals and employees, Doc promises that an explosive new documentary series will tell his side of the story. In just a few minutes, Tiger King co-star Doc Antle will be here to respond to those allegations. But first, Dr. Astro's Senior Investigative Correspondent Marce Gavacampo joins us here in the studio. Tell us a bit about Doc Antle. And why did he get such notoriety from this series? He became a superstar over this event. Yeah, he definitely is a star of the series. You know, he's a very big personality. So first of all, he's always surrounded by exotic animals, by elephants and big cats and chimpanzees. He walks around in his full safari getup. He has this long white hair that's often in a ponytail, so he's very hard to miss. But one of the big reasons that he's gotten so much attention is because he is also always surrounded by beautiful half-naked women who he's rumored to be in ongoing simultaneous relationships with. So walk us through some of these allegations, specifically the ones that have been made against Doc in this Netflix series. Yeah, there are three main allegations that were leveled against Doc in the Tiger King documentary. The first is that he's killing his tigers. The accusation is that he euthanizes the tigers when they outgrow that adorable tiger-cub-petting-zoo kind of stage because reportedly that's the stage that makes him the most money. People come to pet them, they take pictures, they make a lot of money off that. The second is that he is reportedly a polygamist. The claim is that he is married to multiple women who work at his facility. And the third is that he is abusive to his employees. A former employee saying that she felt pressure to get breast implants, that she felt pressure not to seek medical care after being bitten by one of the animals, that she was paid $100 a week for full-time work, and that the facility had cockroach-infested food. So these are not great allegations. Well, thank you very much for digging under this always. Joining us now with this story, his side of the story for sure, is co-star of the Netflix series, Doc Antle. Doc, you were featured in a new documentary coming out, but first let's talk about Tiger King. How has that series affected you? Tiger King created a lot of drama just in these wild accusations that somehow our incredible pristine facility wasn't being operated properly or that there was something not good for the cubs or animals or staff. And just that they laid down this foundation never gave us a chance to answer it, never gave us a chance to even talk about it. You know, we didn't make Tiger King. We made another series years before the Joe meltdown, and they just co-opted footage from other shows I'd been involved in and put me on to Tiger King. I'm in Tiger King to make the show look good. Our Ritz-Carlton facility is so much bigger, bolder, and more beautiful than any place else that adding pieces in there made it happen. 235 times they put me in the show to give it some razzle-dazzle. So let's go, if it's okay with you, a little bit into these serious allegations. One of them was that you killed tigers when they got older because they weren't as cute. How do you respond to this? One, this is just being said by hearsay to someone at PETA. Joe is who they're saying said it. Joe said he's never had a meeting. I asked Joe about it again just a few days ago when he called, and he says he's never had that conversation with anybody. He and PETA never had this back-and-forth that they're claiming, and that this is all just a fantasy they've made up. Now, they need this story to say these cubs time out. Well, it's absurd. A baby tiger is an incredible character that is super nice and gentle, and that might last for 15 to 25 weeks. At that point, that tiger still is a superstar for us. We have many, many adults. We have 25 million people following us on social media. They follow us for the adult tigers. We have those big tigers playing and swimming and interacting. People watch us all around the world, and thousands of people come to watch the big tigers interact. They try to push the idea that it's about cubs. Cubs don't make up 10% of what we do. 90% is about big adult tigers and their conservation. Let me move from tigers to women. You've been accused of being married to multiple women under your employment simultaneously, which would make you a polygamist. What do you say to this claim? I am a single guy. 25 years ago, I was married. My wife died in a car crash. I have never been married since. I do have a totally honest relationship with three different ladies in my life, all of who openly know each other and have had a relationship of business and worked together over the years, and it's just entirely consensual adults who are all 40 years old plus. Finally, one of your former employees, Barbara Fisher, alleges that, in Tiger King she says this, that she was pressured into having breast implants, was only paid $100 a week during her employment. She also claimed that you tried to prevent her from seeking medical treatment after being bitten by a bear cat. These can be big injuries while in your employment. What do you say about her allegations? It's totally fantasy. It's a disgruntled employee who is really just a part-time babysitter for her real time here. She was here for a few months, left for many, many months at a time, came back a few times, mostly just to babysit my daughter, teach school with us, but she had this sneaking breast implants happen by a board-certified surgeon. She paid for them by going out and taking a loan out to have those done. To go in and have breast augmentation, you have to do numerous meetings, a psychological analysis. You have to have full pictures taken. You have to go in and bring pictures to the physician and say, this is what I hope they look like, this is what I want. You try on the new imitation breasts that are coming. This is a long process. It's very meticulously done psychologically, physically, and financially, but she personally put the pieces together. A few months after she had those breast implants, she got pregnant, and she moved away off with the father of that baby, and we didn't see her for a long time. So I don't know how I'm possibly connected to her obsession with her breast implants. All right, up next, Doc Antle reveals his heart-wrenching conversations with the imprisoned, flamboyant cowboy, Joe Exotic. We are back with big cat owner and co-star of the hit series, Tiger King, Doc Antle. Doc, that was a clip from the trailer for the new documentary series, Tiger Kingdom, More Than a King. It features Doc Antle and his Myrtle Beach Safari. Doc, your participation in this series is in direct response to Tiger King. What do you want people to know? Get it off your chest. You know, I think that a real wrong turn was taken here, giving people the impression that there is a problem with tigers in America and that something needs to be done about it. Nothing's further from the truth. There's really a very small quantity of tigers that are already held in zoological parks or held in some kind of sanctuary, scamsuaries out there. America does not have a tiger problem, but there is a world tiger problem. The tiger is disappearing at a tragic rate. There is 3,000 to 4,000 tigers left in the world today, and people need to be much more concerned about those wild tigers, caring for them, and making sure that if they have a dollar they'd like to put towards wildlife conservation, it goes to the wild. Local tiger dog pounds are raking in tens of millions of dollars a year to take care of animals that generally are being kept as pets or as just animals in some kind of a zoo situation, and that money does not need to go there. It needs to hit the wild. It needs to be saving the tigers in Sumatra, in India, in these last strongholds, saving the wild tigers paramount. If we lose the tiger, I believe we lose a piece of ourselves forever, and that the human race will change if we see these incredible megafauna disappear from our world. Let me push you on this. So Joe Exotic tried to convince everyone that his cats were well cared for, but behind the scenes, you know, it was a very different story. So why would viewers believe that your park is different, that we don't have these cat cages, as you're describing, cat pounds? Right. Our place is just a magnificent facility. Anyone that comes here, it's always open. You can see it. It's huge open habitats, beautiful forested trails that the animals are out on. There is so much enrichment that goes on here that doesn't happen anywhere on earth in the type of arrangement we have with the 70-plus big cats that are staying here with us. We have built a place that is different because we have had a better business model, and it's been able to give us enormous financial success, which we have taken and directly returned into making this beautiful preserve that enriches the lives of the animals, not the lives of myself or the other staff. And most of us know about Joe Exotic's zoo, so that's where our baseline is. What do you feel about Joe's imprisonment for paying Alan to kill Carol? And what role did Jeff Lowe play in the situation? Did Joe really get fair treatment? I think 22 years seems extravagant. You know, it seems to me you have pedophiles that get caught red-handed that aren't doing half that much time. I think it's very strange that Joe and the craziness that happened with this murder for hire, with the gentleman who was trying to steal his zoo from him, with Carol, who has been his rival for years, who had, in theory, some pre-set relationship with Jeff Lowe about how to put these pieces together, that the way the FBI—excuse me, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife paperwork all went down, I've seen texts back and forth between Carol, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife officers, Jeff, and other players all talking about conspiring to get Joe to make this mistake and say he'll give money for Mr. Glover to do something. Mr. Glover, they have a whole excuse as to how it took place, that it was money for Social Security, he went back to South Carolina, he never went to the state of Florida. It's such a mess. I'm not an attorney and I don't know exactly. I think it's tragic how difficult the situation is now. I don't believe that Joe is an angel. I don't think he didn't do anything wrong, nor do I think he ran a facility that was upstanding and was to the best of his ability. I think the animals were having a very hard time, and I think a lot of it was financial and uneducated in nature. I think that there is change that needed to happen. I tried to help him with that a few times. It just was not in the cards for him. As it's falling apart now, Joe's in jail. He seems tragic. He's lost a ton of weight. You know, he says he's wasting away. He's had a lot of drama there in prison, as happens for being in prison, I guess. But it seems that his case is a little bit sloppy. Well, since you've had the chance to speak to Joe Exotic many times since he's in prison, give us some insights. What is the drama that he's going through right now, and how is he doing physically? You know, I think that he believes the food is unedible, in his take, and so he doesn't like it. He's not eating. He has an autoimmune disease that he's been fighting for a long time. He has some kind of shift in his gamma globulin, and he has to have transfusions made for that. He hadn't had the transfusions at the time and opportunities that he needed, and so I think his health turned on him and that his own body then creates an autoimmune response where it's dissolving his own tissue, and just that the process there has become a real nightmare for him. I think he's also being sued while he's in jail. I think he's also suing people. I think he's still at war with Joe, excuse me, with Jeff and with Carol, and is still going back and forth in some legal dramas with them that's causing more and more troubles. We'll put up more and more of these conversations on the Tiger Kingdom television series as it rolls out. Can I ask you your personal opinion about what happened to Carol Baskin's former husband, Don Lewis? You know, historically, I've been 38 years full-time a zoo guy working to save wildlife and to exhibit animals for education, and as I've seen Carol and her husband, Don, roll up, they were these collectors of animals. They had all kinds of pets, from pet snow leopards to big cats of all kinds. They had some dramas going on. All of a sudden, he's gone. She stood to inherit millions and millions of dollars, from what I hear, and in that process, everyone thought, well, he just disappeared and ran off, and Carol became incredibly wealthy. Of course, Carol fed her husband to big cats. That's always been the buzz in the zoo industry for more than 15 years. So it's a tall tale, or is it the hardcore truth? More and more evidence has come up. If you watch Tiger King, it sure looks like Carol killed her husband. Listen, thank you for coming forward, for defending yourself, and explaining some of the things you were up to. You can all watch Doc Antle in Tiger Kingdom right now with a subscription to the WAVE media streaming platform at ridethewave.com. Check him out. Just hours after this interview, there was breaking news. Doc Antle was indicted in Virginia on one felony count of conspiracy to sell or transport endangered wildlife. Doc and two of his daughters were also indicted on misdemeanor counts for conspiracy to violate the Endangered Species Act and animal cruelty. We'll be following this case closely and provide details as they arise. Be sure to subscribe to my channel so you don't miss anything, and remember to check back often to see what's new.