The star of NetflixsTiger Kingis a modern Barnum who found an equally extraordinary nemesis.
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ThisNew YorkMagazine storywas originally published on September 3, 2019.
It is being republished here following the release of NetflixsTiger King: Murder, Mayhem and Madness.
Joe was bornwith an unusual last name, rough on the tongue: Schreibvogel.
He recalls that no one in his family ever said I love you to each other.
This happened in his own home.
He vividly recalls how a drawer in the bathroom could be opened to prop the door shut.
Joe chose to give his love to animals.
He became the president of his local 4-H chapter, where he raised show pigeons.
(She put her foot down when he started bringing home snakes.)
Joe dreamed of being a veterinarian.
Joes mother likes to say that Joes father, whom people called Francie, had itchy feet.
In high school, he got bullied by the jocks because he preferred to hang around with girls.
I had to get a job and pay for them all, he later recalled.
But they never fucked with me again.
He lived with a girlfriend named Kim but also explored Dallass gay nightlife.
In Joes mind, at least, the crash was the beginning of Joe Schreibvogels rebirth.
In the drear of his life up to that point, these animals fluoresced.
Joe liked to say he was broken and those little critters helped put him back together.
On Saturdays, they would snort pink-tinged meth and go out to the bars.
Sundays, they lazed around at home and watched Westerns on TV.
Joe and Brian eventually got married at the Round-up.
This was the late 80s.
Gay marriage wasnt even close to being legal, but they didnt give a fuck.
Down the street from the trailer park where Joe and Brian lived was a pet store called Pet Safari.
Joe got a job there, and later he and his brother Garold Wayne decided to purchase it.
To attract a gay clientele, Joe hung rainbow banners outside and stocked the shelves with rainbow doggy T-shirts.
Garold died soon after.
Garolds wife and kids wanted to build a soccer field in his honor, but Joe had another idea.
He named it after his brother: the Garold Wayne Exotic Animal Memorial Park.
Everyone called it the G.W.
There was already a little ranch house on the property.
Joe and Brian moved in.
When new animals were born at the zoo, the babies lived in the house with him and Brian.
Carole Stairs was a wild girl,fond of wild things.
She dreamed of being a veterinarian.
But she dreaded the dullness of adulthood, of rules and routine.
For a time, she hitchhiked up and down the coast, from Florida to Bangor, Maine.
Later she got an orange Datsun truck and slept in the back with her pet cat.
For fun, she began taking in injured bobcats, which she would rehabilitate and release.
She preferred them to the house cats.
They were just so unpredictable, so wicked.
She ducked between houses to evade him.
While she was walking down the road, a car pulled up alongside her and rolled down the window.
Inside was a tan older man with happy eyes who was dressed in shabby clothes.
He asked if she needed a ride.
Carole said, No thanks, and he drove off.
A few minutes later, he pulled up again.
This time, he had a revolver lying on the passenger seat.
Carole got in and picked up the gun.
The man drove a little while, then pulled the car over.
He reached over and wrapped his hands around her neck.
He said he could choke her to death if he wanted.
I know, she said coldly, without a trace of fear.
He relaxed his hands and began to massage her shoulders.
He drove her to a cheap motel.
She was nervous, but he assured her that he just wanted to spend the night in her company.
He never pressed himself on her.
I fell in love with him then and there, she later wrote in her diary.
The man told her his name was Bob Martin.
She thought they were hiding from his boss, a rich businessman named Don Lewis.
Whenever she called him at work, she would ask his secretary if she could speak with Bob Martin.
Carole described him middle-aged, blond hair, blue eyes and the secretary laughed.
Youre describing Don Lewis, the secretary said.
Carole realized she was having an affair with a millionaire.
Carole and Don eventually left their spouses and married each other in 1991.
Soon after, they bought their first bobcat, Windsong, at an auction.Windsong was a terror.
She would lie on top of the refrigerator until Don opened it, then pounce on his head.
She chased Caroles daughter through the house and bullied their pet German shepherd.
Don decided that she needed a playmate, so they drove up to meet a bobcat breeder in Minnesota.
The breeder had rows of cages filled with bobcat kittens, 56 of them in total.
Is there really this big of a market for bobcats as pets?
Oh, no, he said.
Were a fur farm.
Well just raise them until theyre a year old and then slaughter them.
She burst into tears.
How much for every cat here?
Every culture tellsa different story about why it cages animals, which nearly all of them do.
The stories evolve, and the cages do too.
Steel bars were replaced with open enclosures separated from the public by moats or thick glass.
Visitors who were accustomed to these big-city zoos were sometimes shocked, upon entering the G.W.
Zoo in Wynnewood, Oklahoma, to find row upon row of steel cages.
But the naked-steel cages at the G.W.
Zoo struck other visitors as refreshingly honest.
Joe just made the ugly truth visible.
And as he would point out, unlike glass, steel cages are porous.
People can smell the animals, hear them breathe and chuff and roar.
Visitors to the G.W.
Today there are hundreds of roadside zoos like Joes in America probably more than there are accredited ones.
But the term roadside zoo is considered something of a slur in the exotic-animal world.
But roadside zoos, as the name implies, have none.
They are motivated purely by profit, like freak shows.
Joe made it very clear that his park was a sanctuary, not a zoo.
(I keep all the retards, was how he liked to put it.)
The laws on big-cat ownership were, and remain, lax.
All that is needed to buy a tiger cub is a USDA exhibitors license, which costs $40.
Within two years, Joe had already amassed more than a dozen.
He persuaded the local Walmart to donate its expired meat, which he would feed to the cats.
But it was never enough.
Joe borrowed more and more money from his parents to cover the bills.
Others instinctively lean closer.
Why not let those people inside the cage?
By the mid-1990s,Carole and Don had acquired more than 100 cats.
They also opened a small bed-and-breakfast, where guests could spend the night with bobcats and cougars.
Guests would emerge sleep-deprived and frazzled but radiant with the experience of seeing wildness up close.
Don and Carole began to clash over how the facility should be run.
Don enjoyed breeding cats and selling cats and making money.
But Carole came to believe the breeding of big cats was a gross moral injustice.
Breeding more wildcats simply meant more wildcats that would spend their lives in cages.
The thought of it sometimes brought her to tears.
Don could be a cruel man.
The word Carole used in her diary wasvenomous.Their fiercest fights were about money.
(He could often be found dumpster diving behind the local grocery for day-old bread.)
He bought Carole a cubic-zirconia wedding ring and refused to pay her daughters cable bill.
He was also notoriously promiscuous, and Carole knew it.
In June 1997, their fighting escalated, and Don filed a petition for a restraining order against Carole.
He told police she had threatened to shoot him if he didnt leave the house.
A few weeks later, Don abruptly disappeared.
Carole says he got up before her that morning and said he was going to Miami.
He was never seen again.
These claims were never substantiated, and police say Carole was never named as a suspect.
After Dons disappearance, Carole and Dons kids became embroiled in a fierce battle over his sizable estate.
But the land on Easy Street, and all the cats, now belonged solely to Carole.
For Joe, therewas never enough money; the cats just ate it up.
To make more, he began traveling to local flea markets with a full-grown tiger named Clint Black.
For $5, people could pose for a Polaroid with him.
Then, when that became too dangerous, he switched to using baby tigers, which were cuter anyway.
(The USDA recommends that only cubs between four and 12 weeks are safe to handle.)
He began taking his petting zoo to shopping malls and flea markets in ever-widening orbits.
In one of their most popular tricks, a baby tiger was magically transformed into a full-grown one.
As the scale of his operation grew, he upgraded to a Winnebago, then a proper tour bus.
And he gave himself a new name.
Thats when Joe Schreibvogel finally became Joe Exotic.
He was caught in a vicious circle.
In 2002, while ata cocktail party at a local aquarium, Carole met Howard Baskin.
At the last minute, Howard surprised her by showing up in a novelty caveman costume.
She found it hilarious.
After the ceremony, they took goofy photos: In one, hes clubbing her over the head.
With no more big cats being bred, sanctuaries too would eventually close as their stock died off.
But first, she needed to stop people from breeding them.
When he firstopened the animal park, Joe was vociferously opposed to breeding tigers.
He came to see himself as preserving the species.
Captivity, he liked to say, is the only hope.
The wilderness keeps shrinking, and poachers keep poaching.
So if youre not for breeding, youre for extinction.
Ligers do not exist anywhere in the wild, but they can be bred in captivity.
Some of these hybrids grew to monstrous size; Joes largest weighed over a thousand pounds.
By continuing on this trajectory, Joe believed he could re-create a prehistoric sabertooth tiger.
(Big-cat biologists universally agree that this is absurd.)
By this point, Joe Exotic had begun to mutate into a new body more befitting his name.
His mullet was dyed blond.
He dressed in spangly shirts and leather chaps.
On his left hand grew a long, carefully manicured pinkie nail.
Permanent eyeliner was tattooed around his eyes.
His ears were pierced, as was his eyebrow.
He even got his penis pierced; he claimed his barbell was the size of a Master padlock.
Employees at the zoo from that time liken the change to a snowball being pushed down a hill.
Joe screamed loud enough to make your ears ring.
Afterward, Joes taste in men seemed to change.
He began spending more time at a gay bar called the Copa, which stands just off Route 66.
The men he gravitated toward were very young and very rough, and they often professed to be heterosexual.
It was a volatile combination.
On one occasion, he threw Joe into a wall hard enough to send him to the hospital.
Paul was quiet, withdrawn, a fan of Insane Clown Posse.
He (like John and J.C.) doesnt identify as gay.
Joe, John, and Paul all slept in one bed, with Joe in the middle.
Joe eventually married Travis and John simultaneously.
(John later left Joe for a woman, with whom he had a child.)
These young men mostly came from rough circumstances, and Joe believed he was giving them a good home.
With Howards help,Carole reinvented Wildlife on Easy Street.
They renamed it Big Cat Rescue.
Carole proved to be a wizard at the latter.
She also took to social media like a natural.
She began contacting shopping malls that were hosting cub-petting zoos to voice her outrage.
She marshaled her followers to do the same.
It was a scrawny man with a blond mullet and black eyeliner.
He was a magician.
Sometimes he went by the name Aarron Alex, sometimes by Cody Ryan.
Most often, he went by Joe Exotic.
Carole began emailing malls, and she hired a part-time staff member to do the same.
Occasionally, mall managers would call her office to say their system had crashed.
Well never have cubs again, they begged.
A handful of malls agreed not to host Joe, then ten, then a hundred.
She had more online supporters, more money, and infuriatingly the moral high ground.
But was she really any better than he was?
She had cats in cages, just like him.
She charged money for tours, just like him.
In September 2010, Joe made a covert visit to Big Cat Rescue.
Joe posted many of these online, purporting that they suggested Carole had killed her late husband Don.
He began offering a $10,000 reward for any information leading to Caroles arrest.
He called them the Sagas.
He also created a slew of new websites to attack her and her allies.
The two meshed neatly: The bigger the platform he had, the more effectively he could squash Carole.
And the louder he raged against Carole, the more famous he became.
Because I am making tons of money.
Drama makes money, Carole.
You know that better than anybody in the world.
His war extended beyond the internet.
That way, her fans would come to believe that she was a hypocrite.
They printed it on business cards and fliers, along with a Florida phone number that Joe registered.
And then they began touring, as Big Cat Rescue Entertainment.
The plan worked at first.
(Joe countersued, but his suit was thrown out.)
The proceedings dragged on for years.
Eventually, Joe, wearied by the mounting legal fees, consented to a judgment.
She just out-moneyed me was how he put it.
The judge awarded the Baskins just over $1 million.
The silver lining was that the media attention resulting from the lawsuit had made Joe into a minor celebrity.
He cut a sizzle reel.
He hired a crew.
(Joe insists these segments were moneymakers.)
(It was later revealed that Joe was merely lip-syncing the songs.
They were written and performed by a duo in Washington State.)
In 2014, Joe hired a new producer, Rick Kirkham, to help with the reality show.
Kirkham pushed for greater theatricality.
Just look at me, Joe said.
The zoo increasingly took on the queasy, paranoiac quality of a walled kingdom run by a mad king.
At night, according to his staff, Joe locked the gates, which meant the employees couldnt leave.
(When he later opened a restaurant, Joe would be caught feeding this meat to customers.)
Employees were also caught (and filmed) acting as spies for animal-rights organizations.
Joe believed his computers had been hacked by Carole Baskin.
Joe instructed his staff, Dont trust anyone.
Even in your crew, be suspicious.
Not surprisingly, accidents were frequent.
The worst incident occurred in October 2013.
Within seconds, the tiger had bitten down on his hand, breaking his middle finger.
Saff looked up at the employee next to him and said, This is going to be bad.
The tiger flexed its claws and began raking them down his arm.
White feathers floated innocently in the cold air.Then the claws reached skin and what lies beneath.
Saff ultimately lost his arm.
But amazingly, he returned to work at the zoo soon after.
Joe claimed that Carole had paid Rick $20,000 to start it.
The case has never been solved.
Around this time, Joes never-ending supply of Insta-friendly baby tigers had begun attracting a number of high-profile fans.
The porn actress Rachel Starr and the former pro basketball player Shaquille ONeal were frequent visitors.
(Upon seeing Shaq for the first time, Joe failed to recognize him.
He claimed to be dying from prostate and bone-marrow cancer.
(He wasnt.)
On that day, Joe said, he would finally go hunt down his nemesis, Carole Baskin.
Everyone at the table laughed in an overloud, nervous way.
I used to never fantasize about somebodys brains on a wall, Joe said.
Laughter, but softer.
Joe went on to describe how he would mutilate her dead body.
Theres going to be tree branches in every orifice, dude, he said.
Seriously, after everything shes put me through, going to jail is nothing to me.
Im going to die in a couple of years.
Joe, youre getting a little crazy, Radio Raheem said.
She has drove me to that point, Joe replied.
I feel like your life is in danger, she said.
They offered to relieve some of Joes debt, provided he formally agreed to stop cub petting and breeding.
And they came close to achieving an agreement.
Were not doing this deal, the voice said.
Whos speaking, just?
Jeff Lowe, the man said.
The mediator ordered Jeff Lowe, whoever he was, to get off the call.
All I want to say, Jeff Lowe said, is fuck Howard and his cunt wife.
Jeff Lowehad eyes the color of snowmelt and a neatly trimmed gray goatee.
He wore leather jackets, fancy jeans, and a black do-rag wrapped around his balding head.
He once worked as Robbie Knievels manager and now ran a liquidation business.
He drove a red Ferrari and a white Hummer.
He was once arrested for assaulting his wife.
Lowe owned 12 big cats, which he kept in a warehouse in his hometown of Beaufort.
He had tried to open a cub-petting operation in a flea market but was shut down by county officials.
He believed Carole had been a catalyst behind the protests against him.
He referred to her as the devil incarnate.
To raise more funds, Jeff moved to Vegas.
Meanwhile, back at the zoo, Joe was going through yet another, Pokemonic evolution.
Josh Dial, who ran Joes campaign, likened him to Donald Trump on meth.)
Joe printed his name on the side of a stretch limo and on hundreds of yard signs.
He often asked, rhetorically, How do a normal person like me ever get heard in this country?
In the following weeks, Joe became untethered.
He began having visions.
Then he sensed Traviss spirit in a blue-heeler dog.
He spent a lot of time staring at the clouds.
One night soon after, Joe was sitting alone in his house, crying.
The hammer hit the bullet and dented in the primer but did not go off.
Afterward, Joe made a necklace out of it as a memento mori.
He also set out to find a new husband.
After shooting all five, Joe reportedly turned to one employee and said, perhaps in jest, Jesus.
If I knew it was this easy, Id just blast them all.
Bythis point,a new employee named Alan Glover was at the zoo.
He had a teardrop tattoo under his left eye.
He had previously worked for Jeff Lowe back in South Carolina.
Lowe persuaded him to move to Oklahoma to help out with basic maintenance and yard work.
He had arrived carrying nothing but a small suitcase and a chain saw.
One night after work, Joe made Alan an offer: He would pay him to kill Carole Baskin.
Alan told Joe he couldnt carry a gun because he was a convicted felon.
(Beginning in 1985, he spent five years in prison for aggravated assault and battery.)
Instead, Alan suggested he travel to Tampa, buy a knife, and cut Caroles head off.
Joe said he was fine with that.
Alan asked James to procure him a prostitute.
James assured him he could make that happen.
(In his phone, Alan had James listed simply as Pussy.)
Then James asked Alan about the upcoming hit.
How long you gonna be vacationing down in Florida?
James asked
As long as it takes, Alan said.
see to it he pays you real good.
He is gonna be in my pocket forever.
You know that …
That Baskin definitely is fucking, trying to fuck everybody.
Im going to hell anyway.
I think were all going.
Im going straight there, Alan said.
I have no chance.
Every fucking single person.
And I mean that from the bottom of my heart.
They will be burnt the fuck alive.
Unbeknownst to Joe or Alan,James Garretson was secretly recording their conversations for the FBI.
After he left, Alan went dark.
Neither Joe nor the federal agents knew where hed disappeared to.
Talk turned to Carole.
This bitch has cost us almost three-quarter of a million dollars in lawyers already, Joe complained.
Joe showed Mark his file folder bulging with information he had collected about Carole, including her personal diary.
Shes a sick bitch, Joe said, chuckling.
He suggested that he could buy Mark a pistol at a flea market.
Mark asked for $10,000 half up front.
Joe said he could scrounge up the money.
Ill just sell a bunch of tigers, he said.
From the moment he returned, things were tense.
The final thread snapped on June 15.
Joe was attempting to euthanize ten tigers when Lowe intervened and ordered him to get off the property.
I need a break.
Thats about all I have to say.
He and Dillon drifted for a time.
In one, he took a shot of the ocean and wrote, Omg California is so amazing.
In another, he posted a photo of Dillon shirtless on the beach.
So he wants to call this home?, he wrote.
I give in #belize #Mexico #gay #gayboy #carabianbeach.
In reality, they had moved to Gulf Breeze, Florida.
Joe was nowhere near Carole; Tampa was a seven-hour drive south.
He just wanted to start over.
Joe was booked and sent to jail.
At the end of the trial, Joe took the stand to testify in his own defense.
Much of his testimony was given over to disparaging Carole and Big Cat Rescue.
My problem is shes a hypocrite, he said.
He said her sanctuary was no better than a roadside zoo.
His eyes looked happy.
This was his last stand, the moment when Carole would be exposed to all the world.
He began wiping his cheeks with the palms of his hands in an exaggerated, childlike manner.
I just didnt buy it, one juror later said.
I think it was how fast the tears came on.
The jury deliberated for only three hours, then found Joe guilty on all counts.
He is still awaiting sentencing.
From inside jail,Joe has publicly declared that he has two missions in life from this point forward.
The first is pushing for penal reform.
The second is pioneering a new kind of zoo one without cages.
He feels remorse for all those years he kept tigers in small cages.
He now understands exactly how they felt.
Sitting there all day with fucking nothing to do, he said.
On this, Joe and Carole finally agree.
She is currently lobbying to pass legislation to further tighten regulations on big-cat ownership in America.
She is not cowed.
The footer to her emails is a quote by FDR: Judge me by the enemies I have made.
She already has a prototype set up in a former retail space in the shopping mall across the street.
Thefuture,she calls it.
This story was reported in partnership with Over My Dead Body Season 2: Joe Exotic, byWondery.
you’ve got the option to find the podcasthere.
