Tiger King’s Carole Baskin criticises SNL parody: ‘I could just slap that woman’
Chloe Fineman played the animal rights activist in the ‘Saturday Night Live’ skit
Your support helps us to tell the story
From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.
At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.
The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.
Your support makes all the difference.Carole Baskin, one of the subjects of Netflix's hit docuseries Tiger King: Murder, Mayhem and Madness, has criticised the Saturday Night Live parody of her.
The popular US sketch show featured an impression of Baskin by comedian Chloe Fineman.
Fineman's SNL co-star Kate McKinnon is also set to portray Baskin in a forthcoming TV drama adapted from the events of Tiger King, which has just been given a straight-to-series order at NBC.
Speaking on The Pet Show podcast with Dennis Quaid and Jimmy Jellinek, Baskin said of Fineman: "I could just slap that woman!"
"This whole, 'My kitty, meow, meow, kitty, meow,' and then she would just say these really weird words all in a row. That all became popular, I guess, in popular culture and people wanted me to talk like that on the Cameos. And I’m like, ‘I have no idea how to talk like that. That is not how I speak.'”
Baskin currently offers personalised video messages for a fee on Cameo, a scheme which has seen her run afoul of pranksters in the past.
Tiger King followed the story of felonious zoo owner Joe Exotic, and his feud with Big Cat Rescue owner and animal rights activist Baskin, which eventually led to a murder conspiracy and Exotic's incarceration.
Baskin also offered advice to McKinnon, ahead of the new TV series. “[McKinnon] has not reached out to me," she said, "and I really hope that she does before she gets too far down the line with it."
"I’d love to know what her take is on it and what she’s thinking to do and see if there was any way we could advise her. We reached out to her through the media — because I don’t have any way of contacting Kate McKinnon — but we had posted publicly that we really hope that her or anybody that does any kind of follow-up programming doesn’t end up doing what Cardi B did and hiring people that are exploiting and abusing cats."
Baskin was recently involved in a public spat with Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion over the use of big cats in their music video for the hit single "WAP".
A second season of Tiger King is also reportedly in the works, although Baskin's potential involvement in the follow-up remains unclear.
Join our commenting forum
Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies
Comments