‘Tiger King’ Fever: ‘Vanderpump Rules’ Stars Dissect the Drama

No one will ever fully understand the mind of Joseph Maldonado-Passage, the zoo owner at the heart of the addictive and perplexing Netflix docuseries Tiger King. But what is clear is that “Joe Exotic” is obsessed with fame. After all, the part-time country warbler, would-be politician and slinger of questionable pizzas went so far as to enlist a producer to film his own reality show, throne included.

So it makes sense that the leads from another head-scratching unscripted series would know just how to process all the confounding moments that ended with Exotic landing in prison for a murder plot and animal abuse. Married pair Jax Taylor and Brittany Cartwright, who star on Bravo’s restaurant-focused reality series Vanderpump Rules, are just as fascinated as the rest of us with the sordid saga of Joe, Carole Baskin and the motley lot at the G.W. Zoo in Oklahoma.

The couple sat down with Playboy to talk about Tiger King and—well, pretty much only Tiger King. Here, Taylor and Cartwright, who have both visited the Playboy Mansion—Cartwright even worked at a few Mansion events when she was new to Los Angeles—debate the sex appeal of tigers, analyze the hangers-on who flock to fame and offer casting suggestions for the inevitable movie adaptation. They also share details of their life amid the COVID-19 quarantine and provide clarity on Taylor’s tweet from last week in which he referred to the pandemic as “a punishment from the man upstairs.”

PLAYBOY: What do you love about Tiger King?

TAYLOR: You watch an episode and you’re like, “It cannot get worse than this.” So then it gets worse. I can’t believe people like this exist in our world. I’m sorry—I’m not trying to be mean, but only in Florida. When they said it was in Florida, I was like, “Yeah, that sounds about right.”

CARTWRIGHT: Jax, don’t say that. You’ll upset a ton of Florida people.

TAYLOR: Stuff like this is always people in Florida. Florida gets such a bad rap. I feel like it’s a hidden place where people go to hide.

CARTWRIGHT: They were from all over.

PLAYBOY: Who did you find yourselves rooting for?

CARTWRIGHT: We love Joe Exotic because of his personality. Obviously, if anybody was hurt by him, he deserves to be punished for that, but Joe Exotic is definitely made for a reality show.

TAYLOR: I don’t like any of them, because I don’t think any of them treat animals well. I honestly don’t think any of those people deserve to have animals at all. Even Carole—for somebody who’s funded by the government, her cages were actually worse than Joe’s. The only person who has any credibility at all is the guy in the beginning, the first five minutes: the drug dealer from Miami who has the tigers.

PLAYBOY: What’s your take on Joe’s prison sentence? Do you think he was set up?

TAYLOR: They’re all guilty. They all belong in jail, if you ask me.

CARTWRIGHT: Yeah, they all had a part in it. Joe definitely talks about killing Carole a million times, but I think more people were involved. Jeff Lowe should have been in just as much trouble as Joe was, for sure.

PLAYBOY: What are your thoughts on the sheriff reopening the case involving Don Lewis’s disappearance and getting a bunch of leads?

TAYLOR: I was so happy about that. I hope they bust Carole and throw away the key. It’s like she has a cult, with all those women working for free. That’s just so bizarre.

CARTWRIGHT: If she was actually just doing it to save the animals and stuff—do you know Black Jaguar–White Tiger? I feel like they actually do good work and try to save all the animals. But she was doing the same thing everybody else was doing, like people had to pay to hold the tiger babies. How is that any better?

TAYLOR: Constantly talking about money. I don’t know much about those animals, but I know they need to eat a lot. They weren’t eating nearly enough.

CARTWRIGHT: They had old meat from Walmart, and then they made pizza out of it. That was just insane to me. That should have been only for the animals.

PLAYBOY: You mention cults. The show features a lot of people who seem desperate to associate with the key figures. As TV personalities yourselves, do you find that your power and prominence make people gravitate toward you?

CARTWRIGHT: I would never do a cult or anything.

PLAYBOY: Right, I’m just curious what it is that makes people want to be around those who are famous and seemingly have cool lives.

CARTWRIGHT: Yeah, I feel like everybody does that. It’s insane. It’s not a good reason by any means, but people do definitely gravitate toward people they think could help them in some kind of way or make their lives better. But Doc Antle, definitely—cult.

TAYLOR: He’s Charles Manson, but with tigers.

CARTWRIGHT: [Laughs] But he’s not trying to kill people.

PLAYBOY: It’s not something I’ve ever thought about before, but having a tiger apparently makes people want to have sex with you.

TAYLOR: That’s weird.

CARTWRIGHT: That was just so crazy. Just because they have a tiger, all these hot girls are coming over and posing and trying to get pictures. I don’t really understand it, but if you think about it, if someone has a little baby tiger, you’re going to want to go over there to see it.

TAYLOR: I get it that they’re rescuing tigers that can’t feed themselves, but they’re breeding tigers. That’s not right.

CARTWRIGHT: Of course if they actually did kill the babies and stuff after they were done with them, that’s actually horrible. I would have never known this was all going on in the USA.

TAYLOR: I honestly do think a lot is going on. It brings a big awareness to tiger places, but to zoos as well, especially those boutique-type zoos.

PLAYBOY: Were you surprised by the polyamory?

CARTWRIGHT: Yeah, that’s crazy. That’s what makes it a cult-type situation, where they have all these different wives and boyfriends and girlfriends. People were just listening to whatever they say because they thought they could have this better life, and it ended up being not good for anybody involved.

PLAYBOY: Does your fame change the way you watch something like this, knowing what it’s like to be on a show and go through it all?

TAYLOR: If you would’ve asked me, if I were in his shoes, I would never have done a TV show. That will ruin his whole life. I’m glad it happened, because it brought awareness to it, but he pretty much just put himself in jail by being on TV.

PLAYBOY: Is it a relief, in a way, watching other people act like idiots on TV?

CARTWRIGHT: Oh yeah! I don’t think anybody on Vanderpump acts like Joe Exotic, so we’re doing okay. [laughs]

PLAYBOY: Are there Tiger King moments that remind you of moments from Vanderpump Rules?

CARTWRIGHT: Maybe just the parts where they party together. [laughs] But I don’t know; it’s so different from our show.

PLAYBOY: Who should play Joe Exotic in the Tiger King movie?

TAYLOR: Hands down it should be Dax Shepard. He’s perfect. The other guy is reallygood too, from Outward and Bound, don’t you think? What’s the guy from Outward and Bound? [Editor’s note: He means the HBO comedy series Eastbound & Down, which stars Danny McBride as washed-up baseball hero Kenny Powers.]

CARTWRIGHT: [Pauses] Oh, Kenny. Are you talking about the dark-haired guy?

TAYLOR: Yeah. What’s his name?

CARTWRIGHT: I don’t know.

PLAYBOY: Watching Joe sing reminds me of how so many “Bravolebrities” try to push their music careers on us. It’s definitely funny to see his music videos.

CARTWRIGHT: I wonder if that’s his real voice, because it sounds really good.

TAYLOR: It’s not his real voice. I heard it’s not.

PLAYBOY: Yeah, I’ve heard he just sings on top of it.

CARTWRIGHT: But I was shocked. I was like, “Wow, this is actually a good singer.”

TAYLOR: He auto-face-tunes a lot of his pictures.

PLAYBOY: Do you chat with anyone else from your cast about this show?

CARTWRIGHT: Yeah, we talked to Stassi [Schroeder] and Beau [Clark] about it. I’m trying to get Katie [Maloney-Schwartz] and Tom [Schwartz] to watch it. I think everybody’s pretty much watching it now, even my mom.

PLAYBOY: It hits at this moment when we’re all at home, we’re all stressed, and this was the right show for that time.

CARTWRIGHT: It gave everybody something to do, something to watch. It was perfect timing for it to come out, for sure. Definitely kept me and Jax entertained.

PLAYBOY: How is the quarantine going for you both?

CARTWRIGHT: We’re healthy, we’re doing okay, we’re at home. Of course, it’s boring and all that stuff, but at the end of the day we’re homebodies. We hate that so many people are getting sick, so many people have lost their jobs, so many people are having to stay home with their kids and homeschool. We’re just trying to stay positive and keep ourselves busy at the house. Jax has probably mowed the yard three times a day. [laughs]

TAYLOR: Everybody and their mother is a fitness influencer right now.

PLAYBOY: Do you have tips for how couples can still have sexy moments in the middle of this?

TAYLOR: I’m not going to lie to you—we’re not doing much. We’re just watching TV, cooking, bumming around the house. It’s too soon. Ask me in another couple weeks.

CARTWRIGHT: We play a lot of games and try to just have fun together.

TAYLOR: A lot of Skype, a lot of Zoom.

PLAYBOY: Jax, were you surprised by some of the reactions to your post about the coronavirus being a punishment from God? Do you think people didn’t understand what you were saying?

TAYLOR: I don’t really care if people don’t like it. That’s how I feel. You can read between the lines if you want. You can say whatever you want. You don’t like it, you don’t have to follow me.

CARTWRIGHT: People try to make a big deal out of the thing, but he wasn’t talking about the people who get it. He just means people have been so bad to each other in this world, and everything has been going crazy far before coronavirus started, so he’s not saying individually. I think people were like, “Oh my God.” People just take things far too serious.

TAYLOR: Yeah, it wasn’t about the deaths or anything like that. I just think we’ve been pushing the buttons for so long with our world, the people, the humanity—with everything. It’s just one of those things that was going to happen. People are just so bored that they want to read into anything that anybody says and critique it. If you’re that bored, and you want to critique everything that everybody says, then by all means, do it.

I don’t take it back. That’s what I believe, and sorry if you don’t believe it too. That’s it. When this is all done, everyone’s going to be recharged and focused and hopefully just a little bit more grateful on things.