TV

A YouTuber Tricked Carole Baskin Into Doing An Interview By Pretending To Be Jimmy Fallon

While Carole says she was suspicious that the questions were taped, "it gave us a very welcome good laugh."

by Michelle Rennex  4 May 2020
carole baskin prank

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Since Tiger King burst onto the scene in March, it’s all anyone’s been able to talk about.

But while some of the stars from the documentary have used their newfound fame to generate extra coin and attention, one main character has shied away from the press altogether.

Unhappy with how the makers of Tiger King portrayed her, Carole Baskin has not done any public interviews since the show.

Posting to the Big Cat Rescue website a month after Tiger King was released, Carole Baskin slammed the docu-series for its sensationalised portrayal of her and for the implication that she was in any way involved in her husband’s disappearance.

“There are not words for how disappointing it is to see that the series not only does not do any of that [expose the impacts of big cat breeding] but has had the sole goal of being as salacious and sensational as possible to draw viewers,” Carole Baskin wrote in her open letter.

“As part of that, it has a segment devoted to suggesting, with lies and innuendos from people who are not credible, that I had a role in the disappearance of my husband Don in 1997.”

As a result, Carole Baskin has avoided any public interviews — that is, until YouTuber’s Josh Pieters and Archie Manners tricked her into thinking they worked for Jimmy Fallon.

Known for their online prank videos — like the one where they tricked Katie Hopkins into accepting a ‘CUNT’ award — the duo reached out to Carole’s people to set the interview up.

At first declining the offer because of her disdain for Tiger King and its portrayal of her, Carole Baskin later accepted the offer on the condition that they would only talk about cats and not discuss the documentary at all.

From there, the boys stitched together multiple voice clips from Jimmy Fallon’s interviews with Kat Dennings, the cast of Cats the movie and Bob Irwin, when he brought actual live cats to the show.

Kicking off the interview, Archie explained to Carole that she wouldn’t be able to see Jimmy Fallon due to his special home filming set up. In reality, Josh sat in place of Jimmy with a iPad loaded full of phrases and questions he could fire off to make the interview seem real.

And in a miracle, the interview actually worked. In the faux live-cross, with no talk of Tiger King, Carole was able to share that Big Cat Rescue let go of half of their volunteer staff because of coronavirus but that the cats were still being cared for.

The boys even managed to get Carole Baskin to wear her flower crown — which she corrected to be a lei — and do her iconic “hey all you cool cats and kittens” YouTube intro for the interview. Along with rare, never before seen vision of Carole, her current (alive) husband, and the big cats, Carole used the opportunity to campaign for the The Big Cat Public Safety Act.

In the biggest twist of all, despite Carole Baskin having a history of being heavy on the lawsuits (rip Joe Exotic’s bank balance), she told Us Weekly that she was actually fine with the prank.

“I was suspicious as we were doing it because the questions appeared taped. But had no idea it would turn out to be such a fun prank,” Carole said. “It gave us a very welcome good laugh. I appreciate their cleverness and that they created their video in a way that I don’t feel was in any way mean-spirited.”

So there you have it, perhaps Carole Baskin really is a cool cat after all.  You can watch the video in full below: