Carole Baskin Biography, Husband, Age, Net Worth, Children, Family

Carole Baskin Biography, Husband, Age, Net Worth, Children, Family. Carole Baskin is the founder and CEO of Big Cat Rescue. She runs a real estate business and manages 100+ volunteers and interns from around the world and 10 staff and contractors. She has run this Tampa based non profit since 1992 and has garnered international attention to the plight of captive big cats on CNN, Animal Planet, Discovery, U.S. News & World Report, People Magazine, The Today Show, Sports Illustrated, Netflix, Wondery, all of the local media outlets and many more national and international programs. She is the host of the Cat Chat Show, a live interview with cat experts from around the world.

Carole Baskin Biography

Carole Baskin formerly known as Carole Murdock (born June 6, 1961) is an American animal rights activist and CEO of Big Cat Rescue, a non-profit animal sanctuary based near Tampa, Florida. She has attracted the attention of local, national and international media outlets to the plight of captive big cats.

Carole Baskin Early Life

Carole Stairs Jones was born on June 6, 1961, on the Lackland Air Force Base in Bexar County, Texas. She expressed an interest in saving cats when she was nine, but she decided against pursuing a career in veterinary medicine after she learned that veterinarians euthanize animals. At age 14, Baskin reports having been gang raped by three men who lived across the street from her house, claiming that she received no emotional support from her conservative Christian family. She dropped out of high school and left home with a local roller rink employee. Baskin then hitchhiked back and forth between Florida and Bangor, Maine, sleeping under parked cars. She later purchased a Datsun truck and slept in the back with her pet cat.

Carole Baskin Career

Baskin drew public attention when she was featured in the 2020 Netflix true crime documentary series Tiger King, which follows Baskin’s escalating feud with Oklahoma-based private zoo owner Joe Exotic. Following the release of the series, Baskin received abuse online due to the third episode of the series speculating that Baskin was involved in the disappearance of Don Lewis, her second husband. Baskin refuted these claims in a post on Big Cat Rescue’s website. Her catchphrase, “Hey all you cool cats and kittens!”, also became a meme as a result of Tiger King.

Baskin is also well known for her appearance on Dancing with the Stars, featuring her dancing to a cover of the song “Eye of the Tiger”. She and her husband Howard also appeared in the 2021 Louis Theroux documentary Shooting Joe Exotic.

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Carole Baskin Husband

Baskin moved in with Michael Murdock, her boss at the Tampa department store where she worked, when she was 17. The couple married on April 7, 1979. Baskin has said that she never loved Murdock and married him only because her parents were disappointed that they had been living together outside of marriage. She became pregnant in October 1979, and daughter Jamie Veronica Murdock was born on July 16, 1980.

According to Baskin, in 1981, when she was 19, she threw a potato at Murdock as he attempted to attack her. She ran out of their home barefoot and met her next husband, Don Lewis, on 50th Street in Tampa. She and Lewis engaged in an affair while both were still married. She became one of Lewis’s many girlfriends and substantially grew his wealth by helping him buy and sell real estate in 1984. The pair divorced their respective spouses and subsequently married in 1991.

Baskin claimed that Lewis was obsessed with snx and would frequently fly to Costa Rica, where he had substantial real estate holdings, to have affairs – timing the trips for whenever she was menstruating. In July 1997, Lewis filed a restraining order against Baskin, stating that she had threatened to kill him; the restraining order was rejected. Baskin claims that he filed the restraining order because she would haul off some of his “junk” property whenever he visited Costa Rica. Lewis continued to live with Baskin afterwards. Lewis told her multiple times that he wanted a divorce, but she did not think he was ever serious about it. She claimed he was diagnosed with bipolar disorder months before he vanished.

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Animal activist Carole Baskin’s missing ex-husband Don Lewis, whose vanishing in 1997 is chronicled in Netflix’s series Tiger King, is alive and well in Costa Rica, she claimed in a recently resurfaced 2021 television interview.

The theory that Lewis was alive was first floated in 2021’s Netflix sequel Tiger King 2. In the series, producers show documents, allegedly from the Department of Homeland Security, that purport to describe Lewis’ whereabouts in Costa Rica. (A screenshot from the clip in question is shown here.) It’s unclear whether the documents depicted on Tiger King 2 are legitimate.

Carole Baskin Net Worth

Carole Baskin estimated net worth is between $1 million and $10 million. Along with the money she makes as the CEO of the Big Cat Rescue, Carole also inherited a huge sum of cash from her husband, Don Lewis, who went missing 1997.

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