Search icon

Television

15th Sep 2020

Family of Carole Baskin’s husband air advert during her Dancing With The Stars appearance

Wil Jones

The family of Don Lewis, Carole Baskin’s missing husband, have run a television advert asking for information about his disappearance.

The commercial ran during the Tiger King star’s debut on Dancing With The Stars, in markets including Tampa and Jacksonville.

Three of Don Lewis’ daughter and his former assistant all appear in the advert, appealing for information as to what happened to him.

“We are a real family,” says Gale Lewis, “and to us, he was daddy.”

“We need to know what happened to our father,” continues her sister Donna.

“His family deserves answers. They deserve justice. Do you know who did this, or if Carole Baskin was involved?” asks Lewis family attorney John M Phillips.

The family also revealed that a $100,000 reward has been funded for help solving the case, and offered a phone number for anyone who can offer information on what happened to Don Lewis.

Don Lewis disappeared in 1997. Several interviewees in Tiger King have alleged that Carole King was involved, and even that she feed him to tigers and disposed of the body in a meat grinder. Baskin has always denied any involvement in her husband’s disappearance.

Don Lewis vanished the day before he was due to fly to Costa Rica, and he was legally declared dead in 2002.

Carole Baskin of course became famous following her appearance in the hit Netflix documentary series earlier this year. That fame has led to her appearing on Dancing With The Stars, the American adaption of Strictly Come Dancing.

On the series’ first episode, she danced a paso doble to Survivor’s Eye of the Tiger, with her partner Pasha Pashkov coming out of a cage filled with stuffed big cats.

https://youtu.be/X5MUPfuaUok

Debuting in March, the Netflix docuseries was watched by 34 million viewers in its first 10 days on the service.

The show focused on Joseph Allen Maldonado-Passage, aka Joe Exotic, former owner and operator of the Greater Wynnewood Exotic Animal Park in Wynnewood, Oklahoma, and his feud with Carole Baskin.

Joe Exotic is now serving a 22-year sentence for 17 federal charges of animal abuse and two counts of murder for hire, including a plot to kill Baskin.