joe exotic playing with tiger


If last week's extra Tiger King episode still wasn't enough for you (or you just hated it like everyone else), here's some lesser known facts about the show that you may not have heard yet.


All insights come from a writer named Robert Moor, who lived on Joe Exotic's farm while profiling the big cat and extra big mustache enthusiast for an article and podcast.


1. Joe didn't write any of his own music. All the country songs he performed were written by a group called the Clifton Johnson Band.



2. Lots of Joe's dead tigers ended up at a museum in Oklahoma City. The Museum of Osteology, which has the world's largest private skeleton collection, frequently bought the skeletons of Joe's dead tigers. Whether they went on to sell them again is anyone's guess.


tiger skeleton toy


3. Eric Goode, the guy who made Tiger King, travels the world looking for rare tortoises to protect. He also used to be an artist in New York City, working alongside Andy Warhol, Keith Haring, and Jean-Michel Basquiat, and dating supermodel Naomi Campbell.


eric goode with rare tortoise


4. Joe was previously married to another straight guy named JC Hartpence, who later went to prison for molesting a girl and is now serving life for first degree murder.


jc jeffrey hartpence


5. The Wynnewood police officer assigned to investigate Joe also worked as his personal limo driver at the same time. That officer, Bryon Gordon, later went to prison for assaulting a disabled man.


bryon gordon mug shot


6. Joe scammed people for money on Facebook, claiming he was dying from prostate and bone marrow cancer. In reality he just had an infected prostate and a bad herpes outbreak.


joe exotic in hospital


7. A warehouse seen in the background of the show is called Tiger Liquidation. It's owned by James Garretson, the former strip club owner sho became an FBI informant against Joe.


tiger liquidation storefront


8. A producer on the show, Rick Kirkham, used to smoke crack and made a documentary about his drug addiction, called TV Junkie. After the fire at Joe's zoo, Kirkham moved to Texas, where his house then burned down, almost killing him. He now lives in Norway.


rick kirkham


9. After Carole Baskin's former husband Don Lewis disappeared but before Carole remarried, she dated a guy named Jay Baykal. That guy ended up filing a restraining order against Carole in which she's quoted saying Don is dead (rather than just missing) and mentions "human bones" that she hoped wouldn't turn up on her property.


jay baykal restraining order carole baskin


10. SNL star Kate McKinnon is set to play Carole Baskin in a miniseries about the Tiger King story.


carole baskin kate mckinnon snl tiger king


11. Joe had a guy named "Mike Hit" in his phone contacts. Mike, also known as Psycho Mike, is a former hitman for a Mexican gang who denied ever being approached by Joe to kill anyone. However, Mike revealed that if he were to kill someone, he would charge way more than $4,000.


mike hit phone contact


12. Jeff Lowe, Joe's former business partner, had plans with Joe to open up a bisexual strip club/petting zoo (?) called Tigers and Dreams. Jeff later stole and then sold construction tools for that project, and when the tool owner sued Jeff, his house mysteriously burned down.


jeff lowe and white tiger


13. Joe tried to silence his employees by making them sign $1M non-disclosure agreements...that turned out to be invalid.


text from joe exotic to reporter


14. Carole may have forged her missing husband Don Lewis' signature on the forms that gave her power of attorney over him.


don lewis signatures


15. Joe used to have an alligator that lived through a fire at Michael Jackson's Neverland Ranch.


michael jackson's pet alligators burned alive in animal park fire


16. Joe claimed to have been on the cover of Hollywood Weekly twice, but he neglected to mention that he paid to appear on those covers.


joe exotic hollywood weekly magazine covers


17. In 2014, Joe's computers were not hacked by Carole, as he claimed, but by a weed-themed YouTuber named Natty (or Nattie) G.


wake & bake with nattie g