Carole Baskin Reveals What She Thinks Happened To Her Husband Who She Has Been Accused Of Killing
Joe Exotic may disagree...
YouTube Carole Baskin has taken to Reddit on Monday to answer any questions people had for her — even questions about her missing husband, Don Lewis.
For many years, there have been several theories that Baskin herself was behind the disappearance.
The CEO of Big Cat Rescue, a sanctuary for exotic cats, has been the subject of widespread scrutiny for years, especially after the release of Netflix's "Tiger King" which explored her ongoing feud with fellow tiger enthusiast Joe Exotic.
What does Carole Baskin think happened to her husband?
Baskin opened her Reddit AMA — or “Ask Me Anything” — by posting a picture of herself with a specific address to Reddit as proof that it was really her.
The image lists the date and time and her username, saying “Ask me anything, yup, even that!”
The top question, unsurprisingly, was, “What do you think happened to your missing husband?”
Baskin gave her personal theory in detail, saying that she believed her husband had gotten in a plane crash in the Gulf.
According to Baskin, Don Lewis had been an avid flier, piloting small and experimental planes despite being unlicensed to do so.
Due to the illegality of it, he had to take many measures to avoid detection, she stated.
“He couldn't file a flight plan and had to take off from closed airports to evade detection,” Baskin said, “He had to fly under 200 feet to stay off the radar which means he would typically fly out over the Gulf because the air is smoother there, whereas over land there are up and down drafts that will crash you at the height.”
She points to possible evidence that suggests it could have been a plane crash, saying, “Since phone records indicated he was planning to go to Texas, and his van was found at a small private airstrip and we have never found Don or wreckage, I think this was the most likely scenario.”
Joe Exotic believes Carole Baskin killed her husband.
Baskin’s husband Don Lewis went missing in 1997, and for a while after the disappearance, there was suspicion that Baskin had been behind it.
But the trail went cold due to not enough evidence, and the idea had fallen out of the public eye until many years later, when Baskin became enemies of Joe Exotic.
Their rivalry began in 2010, when Baskin tried to stop Exotic from taking baby tigers to shopping malls for photos.
Over the years, their rivalry has only grown more intense, with Exotic bringing the suspicions of Baskin's role in her husband's disappearance back into the public eye along with plenty of his own unsubstantiated theories.
For example, in his 2015 music video “Here Kitty Kitty” on his JoeExoticTV YouTube channel, he implies (via a Carole Baskin lookalike) that Baskin fed her husband’s remains to her tigers. The video has over 10 million views.
Baskin seemed to poke a bit of fun by debunking this idea in her AMA when a Reddit user asked, “Let’s say I wanted to feed someone to a tiger, how should I go about doing that? Any tips or advice for me?”
She responded, “We feed our tigers beef, chicken, turkey, rat and rabbits and they are purr-snickety! It's extremely difficult to get a tiger or any big cat to eat something that isn't common for them.”
Her rivalry with Joe Exotic eventually culminated in 2019, with him being convicted of, among other things, hiring hitmen to kill her. He has been sentenced to 22 years.
Carole Baskin has been distancing herself from Netflix's "Tiger King"
Currently, Carole Baskin and her current husband, Howard Baskin, are suing Netflix for using footage of her in season two.
Baskin tries to distance herself from “Tiger King” in the Reddit AMA as well, using the opportunity to promote her own series, “Carole Baskin’s Cage Fight.”
When asked by a Reddit user if doing “Tiger King” was worth it, she responded, “If everyone were saying the things about you that people are saying here, would you have considered that to have benefitted you in any way? When people watch Carole Baskin's Cage Fight on discovery+ they will see who I really am and have always been.”
RELATED: Tiger King's Carole Baskin Says She Joined A Secret Support Group For 'Traumatized' Celebrities
Amanda Hartmann is a writer and editorial intern with YourTango, writing about various topics, including news and entertainment.