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Doc Antle Trashes 'Tiger King' As ‘More Focused On Shock Value’ Than Truth
Doc Antle, who, along with Joe Exotic and other big cat personalities, appeared in "Tiger King," insists he never kills cubs.
Bhagavan "Doc" Antle, one of the many memorable big cat personalities of the Netflix hit “Tiger King: Murder, Mayhem and Madness,” has spoken out against the docuseries and denied one of its most salacious claims about him.
Antle runs The Institute for Greatly Endangered and Rare Species (T.I.G.E.R.S.), a 50-acre wildlife preserve located in South Myrtle Beach as well as Myrtle Beach Safari, a tour that runs through the preserve. The docuseries also portrays the preserve as a big cat cub breeding facility as well as the breeding ground for an alleged sex cult headed by Antle.
Antle has adamantly denied running a cult to Oxygen.com. He has said he’s not married and that most of the women featured in the docuseries are girlfriends to his son and grandchildren.
Now, Antle has taken to social media to denounce another accusation made in “Tiger King”: that he allegedly euthanizes tiger cubs once they stop being profitable. He wrote in a Tuesday Instagram post that his organization “has never euthanized any tiger cubs or adult tigers — nor any other animal."
He added that "the insinuation is as foul as it is without foundation.”
While he admits to cub breeding, he said they are done so “to create a genetic backup” for tigers out in the wild.
“They remain our babies for their entire lives — either here on site at TIGERS, or they are transferred to an accredited zoological facility that is a partner in our breeding program,” he wrote.
Antle called euthanizing "illegal” and “immoral” in an interview with WAVE 104.1, a Myrtle Beach, South Carolina radio station, of which he included a clip in his Instagram post. In that interview, he said the filmmakers’ claim that he didn’t address allegations that he euthanized cubs was untrue; he said he spoke to them about it for hours.
While he denounced the allegations made against him and called the docuseries “a quasi fictional drama, more focused on shock value and titillation than fact” in his Instagram post, he did note in his radio interview that he thinks Carole Baskin killed her husband.
“Tiger King: Murder, Mayhem and Madness" mostly documents the downfall of Joe Exotic, an eccentric Oklahoma zookeeper who was sentenced to prison for hiring a hitman to kill his longtime rival and big cat sanctuary owner Baskin.
The docuseries also dives into rumors that Baskin had something to do with her husband Don Lewis’ disappearance. Just this week, Florida investigators announced they are seeking new leads in his case. Officials told Oxygen.com that his disappearance is not considered a homicide. Baskin has denied having anything to do with his vanishing.
"Tiger King" is available to stream on Netflix.
