Unexpected Reappearance of Carole Baskin's 'Dead' Husband!

Chisom Ndianefo
Close-up shot of Carole Baskin's
Getty | Araya Doheny

Carole Baskin's allegedly dead husband was alive and well all along!

The breaking news of the decade is that Carole Baskin's ex-husband, who was declared legally dead in 2002 after going missing five years earlier, has been located alive and well. Even more shocking than Don Lewis' reappearance is the possibility that we all missed it.

Keep reading to find out more.

Alive And Well In Costa Rica

Don Lewis
Ny post | Don Lewis/ Ny post

The Tiger King actress claimed that her missing ex-husband, Don Lewis, had been discovered alive in Costa Rica, but more than a year later, the news is only now becoming viral.

Baskin, 61, claimed that her ex, who had been pronounced legally dead in 2002 after going missing a few years earlier, was alive and well during a rediscovered interview with ITV's This Morning discussion show in November 2021.

Unaware Of His Existence

When the sequel series was broadcast in November 2021, Baskin admitted to The Post that she was ignorant of the claimed revelation.

“I was not aware of it until TK2 aired.”

According to Baskin, there was a lot of complication and online discussion that erupted on social media. In the unearthed ITV tape, she revealed that the Department of Homeland Security had contacted her ex-husband.

Keeping In Touch With Her Former Spouse

She stated that one of the most intriguing revelations from Tiger King 2 was the production of a letter from Homeland Security stating that a special agent in charge with the FBI at Homeland Security had contacted the sheriff's detective George [Jorge] Fernandez. Since Homeland Security wasn't even in existence until 2002, this must have occurred after 2002.

Baskin Was Accused Of His Disappearance

A Letter proving Don Lewis is alive
Ny post | Baskin/ Ny post

She added, “They said my husband, Don Lewis, is alive and well in Costa Rica. And yet all of this drama has been made about me having something to do with his disappearance when Homeland Security has known where he is.”

Coming Into The Limelight

In 2020, Baskin and Lewis both became well-known thanks to their roles in the Netflix docuseries Tiger King, which chronicled the peculiar exploits of big-cat keeper Joseph Maldonado-Passage.

After her ex-husband unexpectedly vanished in 1997, only six years after they were married, Maldonado-Passage accused Baskin of being involved in his death several times during the series. In particular, Lewis' body is given to her own pack of huge cats was one of the accusations made against Baskin, which she vigorously disputed.

Baskin And Her Husband Questions The DHS

Carole Baskin and Howard Baskin
Ny post | Carole/ Ny post

Baskin and her husband-to-be Howard wrote a blog post on the Big Cats Rescue website in November 2021 in which they questioned why DHS had allegedly given Netflix his location for season 2, which she had not been a part of.

Unverified fan theories and assertions that she had killed him were addressed in Baskin's Big Cat Rescue blog post, which included screenshots of the purported DHS documents from the show's second season.

Gaining Grounds On Social

Baskin Was Traumatized From Her Experiences

Joseph Maldonado-Passage
Ny post | Baskin/ Ny post

Many people believed Baskin was involved in her ex's disappearance when she discussed her experience on the show that looked at her challenges while her ex was missing. However, Joseph Maldonado-Passage, often known as Joe Exotic the Tiger King, is a prison-based big-cat keeper. Some even got into bizarre conspiracy theories, such as the unproven assertion that she was complicit in a murder-for-hire scheme.

Additionally, Exotic alleged that she fed her ex to the tigers at Big Cat Rescue. Exotic is incarcerated for 21 years after hiring a killer to murder Baskin.

Baskin Sued Netflix

A building with the Netflix logo
Unsplash | Venti Views

Even though Baskin was not a part of Tiger King Season 2, she has expressed her anger with the Netflix plot that implicates her in Lewis' abduction. In May 2021, six months before the show's debut, Baskin told Page Six, "I told them to lose my number."

After the second season's teaser was released in November 2021, Baskin and Royal Goode Productions filed a lawsuit against Netflix due to their outrage.

She argued that the events depicted in her segments in the trailer were inaccurate in the court case. She demanded that the judge use no further videos of her from the second season and that she be taken off all promotional materials.

Though, they dropped the lawsuit.