Tiger King: Joe Exotic loses zoo to rival Carole Baskin

Baskin has been awarded full control of the premises in a court ruling

Tiger King star Joe Exotic has been forced to hand over his zoo to his nemesis Carole Baskin.

The court ruling comes after Exotic left the GW Exotic Animal Memorial Park in Oklahoma to his former business partner Jeff Lowe and his mother, but a judge has ruled that his transfer of the zoo land to them a few years ago was fraudulent.

The judge awarded Baskin full control of the land to help satisfy a $1m judgement that Exotic was ordered to pay her for copyright infringement.

Lowe has 120 days to vacate the premises and remove all of his exotic animals from the property.

Baskin, who owns an animal sanctuary in Florida, has been a vocal critic of Exotic’s animal park for many years. Her feud with Exotic escalated into a court battle, with Exotic arguing that Baskin was trying to destroy his business with an online smear campaign. Baskin, however, argued that Exotic was abusing his animals.

Exotic is currently serving 22 years in prison after being convicted in 2019 of trying to hire a hitman to kill Baskin, as well as numerous animal abuse charges.

Tiger King was a huge hit when it aired on Netflix earlier this year, and it was recently announced that Nicolas Cage will be playing Exotic in a scripted adaptation of the documentary.