WILD CLAIM

No, Carole Baskin’s Ex Hasn’t Been Found Alive: Sheriff’s Office

Authorities say the ‘Tiger King’ star’s second husband is still considered missing.

The Internet got all excited on Wednesday when a report resurfaced claiming that Carole Baskin’s missing ex-husband Don Lewis was alive in Costa Rica—but law enforcement has poured cold water on the story. Twitter users breathlessly shared a 2021 interview with Tiger King star Baskin in which she discussed an alleged Department of Homeland Security report making the claim that Lewis was still alive. But the Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office in Florida—the agency responsible for Lewis’ missing person case—confirmed to TMZ that it had never been contacted by DHS to say Lewis had been found. Lewis has also been presumed dead since 2002, TMZ adds. Joe Exotic’s unfounded allegations that Baskin killed Lewis and fed him to her big cats were one of the main plotlines in the first season of Tiger King, with the purported DHS report shown to Baskin by the show’s producers in season two. Baskin says she doesn’t know if the report is real and maintains her innocence with regards to Lewis’ disappearance or possible death.