Carole Baskin Reveals She's Taking 'Precautions' in Case Joe Exotic Gets Early Prison Release

Tiger King subject Carole Baskin has revealed that she is taking "precautions" in case her longtime rival Joe Exotic gets an early prison release. The Big Cat Rescue founder recently spoke with Entertainment Tonight about her new Discovery+ series, Carole Baskin's Cage Fight, and she explained that she is preparing for the possibility that Exotic could be free, after being convicted of attempting to have Baskin killed. "The public only knows about the murder-for-hire plot that happened in Tiger King," Baskin shared. "But these people have been threatening to kill me for years."

The former Dancing With The Stars contestant went on to share, "I have been physically attacked when I go to speak at Florida Wildlife Commission hearings, or when I go speak before Congress or at state legislation. They don't want me to talk about why these cats don't belong in private hands, and they will do anything to stop me." Baskin is confident that the Exotic will serve his time as ordered, but is choosing to be cautious nonetheless. "We have taken all kinds of precautions to protect me and my family and the sanctuary, and so, we may have to step those up even further, but right now we've done about all that we can to ensure our safety," she said.

Baskin is a fierce and vocal advocate for big cats, and has spent years working to rescue them from abusive situations. Following Exotic's imprisonment, Basking eventually gained control of Exotic's private zoo, which she had long sought to see closed down. "I had seen Joe Exotic on some of his little internet videos talking at a fundraiser where he would say, 'If you pay a thousand dollars to dance with me, I'll give you this tiger tooth.' Well, that's illegal, to sell tiger parts," she told ET. "And what we find in Carole Baskin's Cage Fight, with the help of his family members, is yeah, he cut the teeth out of all of those cats and was making jewelry out of them, which is illegal. But I believed it was true, but now we can prove that it was true."

Fans can catch Carole Baskin's Cage Fight, a new two-part docuseries, when it premieres on Discovery+ on Saturday, Nov. 13. Tiger King: Murder, Mayhem, and Madness is streaming on Netflix. A sequel to the hit docuseries, titled Tiger King 2, is set to debut in November.