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Tiger King: Joe Exotic's niece says he was '100 times worse' in real life

‘I want people to know who the real Joe Exotic is, not the one you’ve seen on TV’, said his relative and former employee

Louis Chilton
Wednesday 08 April 2020 05:51 EDT
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Tiger King, Murder, Mayhem and Madness, Official Trailer

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Louise Thomas

Louise Thomas

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The niece of Joe Exotic, the subject of Netflix's sensational True Crime series Tiger King: Murder, Mayhem and Madness, has claimed that her uncle is "a hundred times worse" than how he was presented in the documentary.

Tiger King follows the tumultuous life of Exotic, who ran the Greater Wynnewood Exotic Animal Park in Oklahoma. He is currently serving a 22-year prison sentence for animal cruelty and conspiracy to murder animal activist Carole Baskin.

In an interview with Mail Online, Chealsi Putman made a number of damning allegations about Exotic, which have not been proven.

Putman worked for Exotic, completing odd jobs around the animal park from 1999 to 2017.

In the interview, she said: "In the Tiger King Netflix series, you can see glimpses of his evil persona but in real life, Joe is 100 times worse. I want people to know who the real Joe Exotic is, not the one you've seen on TV."

Among the unproven allegations published in the Mail Online is the suggestion that Exotic froze dead tiger cubs. "Over the years there must have been at least 10 tiger cubs that he froze. I have no idea what happened to them, they would just disappear," said Putman.

She also alleged that Exotic would sell baby tigers illegally.

Tiger King is available to watch on Netflix.

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