Thread by @robertmoor_

To anyone currently bingeing #tigerking on Netflix:

I spent four years working on a podcast and a long magazine story about Joe and Carole. I spent a week living at the zoo. I’ve spoken with almost everyone you’re seeing in the doc, and I attended the trial. Ask me anything!

Here’s the podcast: podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/joe…

And here’s the magazine story: nymag.com/intelligencer/…

@wondery @NYMag

A few pieces of trivia, for people who just watched #TigerKing on Netflix.

1. Joe did not write or sing those country songs. It was an outfit called the Clinton Johnson Band. Joe just sang softly over the top of the vocal track:

2. When Joe’s cats died, a lot of them got sold to this strange bone museum in OKC. (Whether they then got sold somewhere else is anybody’s guess.): skeletonmuseum.com

3. I see a lot of people asking about John, Joe’s ex-husband. He texted me a few months back to let me know he got a new job as a welder. And a whole new set of pearly whites!

4. Eric Goode, the documentarian, is a quirky character in his own right. newyorker.com/magazine/2012/…

5. Before Joe married John or Travis, he married another young (straight) guy named JC Hartpence. Hartpence later served time in prison for molesting a young girl, and is now serving life in prison for first degree murder.

6. At one point I was investigating the fire at the zoo, and I interviewed the case officer at the Wynnewood police dept, Brion Gordon, over the phone. The next day, I got a call from Joe, furious, saying he’d gotten a call from Brion that I was asking about him... (1/2)

6. I said, “Joe, why is the case officer—on the case in which YOU are a suspect—calling you to tell you a reporter is asking questions about you?”

Joe said, “Well, he’s also my limo driver.”

(Which was true.)

Anyway, this is where Brion Gordon ended up: kfor.com/2018/04/27/for…

7. One night in 2015 Joe & I were walking through Walmart when a portly, bespectacled young gay guy walked up, shook Joe’s hand, & thanked Joe for being the only out-and-proud gay man for many miles when he was growing up.

That kid was Josh Diall, who later ran Joe’s campaign.

8. (Not really “trivia,” but a useful piece of info for anyone discussing the show): Saff, the person who got mauled by the tiger, told me repeatedly that he is trans, prefers to be called Saff (not “Kelci”), and uses he/him pronouns. So please do likewise.

9. For a long time, Joe told everyone he was dying from prostate & bone marrow cancer. He raised $$$ from his Facebook fans for his expenses.

He showed me this horrifying photo as proof. I later learned he just had an infected prostate, dehydration, & a bad outbreak of herpes.

10. Some people are asking what that weird warehouse James Garretson was sitting in. That was a place he owned (owns?) called—wait for it—Tiger Liquidation.

You can see it on Google Maps here: google.com/maps/uv?hl=en&…

11. Two odd facts about Rick Kirkham:

-Before meeting Joe, he made a film about his addiction to crack cocaine. m.imdb.com/title/tt049249…

-After the zoo fire, Rick moved to Dallas. Then HIS house mysteriously burned down, almost killing him. He fled to Norway, where he now lives.

12. After Don Lewis vanished, but before Carole married Howard, she dated a guy named Jay Baykal.

In 2002, Jay filed a restraining order against Carole, which includes some bizarre and suspicious-sounding details regarding Don's disappearance: bcrwatch.com/jay-baykals-or…

13. It was announced back in November that the Joe Exotic: Tiger King podcast (from @WonderyMedia) will be made into a miniseries for Universal, starring Kate McKinnon as Carole Baskin. No announcement yet on who will play Joe.

variety.com/2019/tv/news/k…