Crime Stories with Nancy Grace - Tiger King: Ex-park employee spills horrors from inside Joe Exotic's zoo.

Episode Date: May 2, 2020

Listen as former Joe Exotic employee Gaylynn Eastwood tells Nancy Grace that park employees knew that animals were being killed. She also says she was aware that fraud was a regular occurrence. According to Eastwood, Joe Exotic is exactly where he needs to be. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an iHeart Podcast. now making it even easier to get crime stories while so many of us are doing our part to stay home and stay safe. If you don't have a subscription to SiriusXM, here's your chance to listen for free. That's right, free. Just go to SiriusXM.com slash stream free. SiriusXM.com slash stream free. Go now. You can listen through your phone, your computer, your laptop, or any of your connected devices.

Don't miss Crime Stories every weekday at high noon Eastern. It's on SiriusXM channel 111, the Triumph channel. Free listening runs till May 15. SiriusXM, thank you for being our partner. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. Joining me right now is a very special guest that worked for a really long time with Joe Exotic. With me, Gaylene Eastwood. Ms. Eastwood, thank you for being with us.

Thank you for having me, Nancy. Ms. Eastwood, what prompted you to go work with Joe Exotic? exotic. Well in 1999, late 99, early 2000 when the park first opened they actually had a kitchen inside the gift shop that cooked for whatever guests would come through and some of the workers and I had a friend that had worked in the kitchen and she called me one night and she said hey you know I'm gonna have to quit this job I got another job. Would you be interested? So I went up there the next day and I interviewed with Joe and he told me what my duties would be. And, you know, it was a sanctuary that was taken in, rescued and rehomed animals.

I totally could get on board with that message and that purpose, and so I took the job. And then within a week of doing that, he put his mom in the kitchen cooking and had me out in the park helping with the animals and building cages and such. I stayed with him almost a full year that time. The money was not great, even though my love of the animals was great. I had kids to feed, so I had to go get a better paying job. But I stayed in touch with Joe throughout the years and even went back a few times to volunteer or to donate items. And then in 2014, when I went back, it was totally different. I mean, they were doing the mass breeding.

There were cameras everywhere recording his every move. back it was totally different I mean they were they were doing the mass breeding there were cameras everywhere recording his every move and you know in my head it didn't take me long being back in 2014 that I was still looking for Joe Shrivogel who I had met in 1999 and 2000 as opposed to the Joe Exotic that I met in 2014. So in my head, I kind of got it like they're two separate people. One I was okay with, even though he had his little quirks and stuff, but the other one, you know, I just can't get on board with anything that he turned into. You know, it does sound almost like two different people, but it wasn't.

So you're saying Joe Schreivogel really cared about the animals, and then Joe Exotic was the exact opposite? I can't say that Joe Exotic didn't care about the animals. I think he cared about what the animals could do for him. The popularity and the notoriety and all the people coming to the park and listening to him so he cared in the sense of what they could do for him but in the beginning Joe Schweibogel I mean it was we would flip a coin on who would have to do an interview like he was totally in it for saving the animals he was not breeding them we were advocating against the cub petting and people being able to go take their income tax returns to a exotic animal auction and just buy whatever animal they thought was cute and

cuddly uh people that do not have the knowledge or the means to care for these animals. I mean, Joe was, Shrive Ogle was actually advocating against that. And then somewhere it flipped and he became this, I'm standing up for all the animal owners. I'm the only one standing up for your rights. And I mean, it was a shock to me. So, yes, I think just in my head that I kind of had to just see him as two separate people. When you went back and you knew him over all these years, how did his persona change? What did you notice about the new Joe Exotic? The word narcissistic, like full-spectrum narcissism, comes to mind.

Everything was about him. I remember even one argument between he and I that he was, I don't even remember what we were arguing about, but his parting statement to me was that people came to the zoo to see him not the animals i i totally couldn't grasp that because you know if i go to take my family to a zoo we're going to see the animals but he had to have complete and utter control i mean you did not make a move on that park without running it through him or him telling you what to do And he wasn't it didn't seem like he was like that I don't remember him being like that when I first met him

Galen, how were the animals being treated for the most part? I Mean they were being fed. Well, we did have the Walmart truck Although it was kind of portrayed a little wacky in the documentary. It wasn't anything like that. You had your animal handlers that actually loved the animals and they were taking good care. We were cleaning cages.

We were watching. Most of where the abuse that I seen came in was with the whole mass breeding. You know, breeding these breeder pairs out, these moms out, and then immediately taking their babies by whatever means necessary, whether they had to poke, prod the mom out, separate her from her cubs to get the cubs. I did witness, not so much him,

actually the killing of two healthy wolves, but I had two wolves that I had taken care of that morning. And I was in the commissary doing diets, and one of the other crew members came to me and said that Joe had just put down two wolves in the back of the park cages. And I immediately left what I was doing to go see what was going on and I came up on them actually loading the carcasses into what we called the bone collector it was an osteo college in Oklahoma City that would come down and pick up carcasses I did witness them putting the two wolves into the pickup and him leaving with them.

And like I said, I had tended to those wolves. I had cleaned their cages and fed them that morning. There was nothing wrong with them, no reason at all to put them down. But as far as the day-to-day care of the animals. Why, Galen? His answer was he needed to take those set of cages out and he didn't have anywhere to put the wolves. So he killed the wolves to take the cages out, to put in a gift shop. And from all pictures that I'm seeing of the park, the way it stands today,

the cages are still there. Would he make money off selling the dead carcasses? I never witnessed it. It was just a rumor that he did make money off of it, but I cannot give that to you firsthand. What about all the baby cubs that were born from the forced breeding? What happened to them? Oh, that's a very good question. That's the question people should be answering. As they're turning out, Joe even did one interview that he said he's doing 40 to 50 cubs a year. And that being said, as long as he's been breeding, there should be over 400 tigers at that facility and the last USDA inventory sheet that I saw listed 106 big cats and that was from July of 2019. As a worker at the park you're not always involved in where the cubs go. I mean you know that this day John Finley

is transporting two cubs to this Walmart parking lot and meeting someone but you wouldn't really know who he was meeting or even Mark Thompson. He had several people that would actually do the transporting of the cubs and then there were some that just as soon as they were pulled from their mom, you know, they're like any other baby. They can't regulate their body temperature. They're totally dependent. So if you don't care for them just properly, they die within the first couple of weeks. So you have a mom that has a litter of four, two of them may make it to the juvenile stage to where you could actually do the cub petting with them. And then after the cub petting, they, you know, they're four months old by this

point. Usually their whole purpose for being born is complete. They're, you know, they're not making money anymore. So they're shoved off into cages. You have other roadside facilities that are like the one Joe was running that will come and pick up the cubs because, say, they're low on tigers and they need tigers. There's a lot of switching and handling and a lot of paperwork that doesn't get done or gets documented the wrong way just to cover where these tigers are going. Galen, how much could you sell a baby tiger for? I never sold one, but I know Joe, I mean, depending on what it was, if it was a white tiger, you know, he would get more for it.

Some of his hybrids, like his ligers and his love ligers he would sell for more because they're fairly not a new species but they're not you know as well known a couple of thousand dollars was what he would usually ask for one of his cubs galen you mentioned the netflix uh series What did you make of it? I know you watched it. What did you think? I was very disappointed in how it was presented to me and the end result. You know, Eric Good presented it to me that it was going to expose the underbelly of the exotic animal world. And I don't feel like it did that. I feel like, yes, there might have been a hint of animals.

I mean, you had to really read between the lines to get the animal message because it was so full of these crazy, larger-than-life characters that people are more focused on what they're actually seeing on their screen that you know Alan Glover is sitting in a bathtub taking a bath doing an interview or John Finley sitting there with his shirt off people are more focused on that than um than the animal part and I also some of the things that the documentary touched on such as you know Joe singing you have some people the things that the documentary touched on, such as, you know, Joe singing. You have some people that watch that, and still to this day, believe that Joe was singing his own songs.

I believe that the people that put it out could have at least done some type of disclaimer at the end, saying, you know, well, even though you've seen this, we have found this to not be true or that to not be true. But it's just like they just loaded it with all this sensationalism. They barely touched on anything and kind of left it open to the public just to fill in the blanks. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. Galen, when you were working at the gift shop or during any of your times when you would go back and help out,

do you believe that credit card fraud was going on? Yes, ma'am. I know of one particular incident that happened. There was a black leopard. His name was Mystic. He had been at the park for many, many years. He was actually a rescue from like 2000 when the park first opened. And he had got a new sponsor, and part of the sponsorship, Joe would allow new sponsors to rename the animal. So this animal, I don't know why he got transferred, but there was a couple of people from Dade City, Florida. Their last name's Stearns.

They run another roadside scum zoo, and they're in a lot of trouble. They had come up to pick up some tigers, and at the very last moment, like I said, I wasn't there for the conversation of why, but this black leopard, he was put into a medium-sized kennel cage that he couldn't even turn around in, loaded in the back of a truck and shipped to Florida with the Stearns. A couple of months after that, or maybe a month or two after that, I actually had some issues with my back and began, Joe moved me to the gift shop so I wouldn't have to do any heavy lifting. And part of our job of working the front desk was we were to bill the credit cards monthly for the sponsorships.

We had a list, and we would just go through there and bill them. And, you know, it would say tiger or whatever species, and then it would give the name, and then it would give the amount and the credit card number. And I was going through billing and not really thinking because I wasn't real familiar with every name of every animal on the park, but Mystic, I knew. And when I got to him, I would not bill the credit card because I knew Mystic was no longer at our facility. And I approached Joe about it.

And I said, well, don't you think we should, you know, send this guy a letter and let him know that Mystic has been rehomed, but we have other animals. Would he like to sponsor another animal or possibly just end his sponsorship? And Joe told me, he said, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, you know, type it up and type it up. So I typed up a letter and I left it on his sponsorship. And Joe told me, he said, oh yeah, yeah, yeah, you know, type it up and type it up. So I typed up a letter and I left it on his desk. And the next morning, when I went in to take out his trash in the office, I found the letter crumpled up in the trash can. And then when I left the park at the end of October 2014 this gentleman was still being billed for sponsorship of an animal that was no longer at the park I wonder if that

happened with other animals as well that just happens to be the one you know of because you knew mystic yes you know and I'm just thinking about all that money, because he's getting money for sponsorships, as you said, where people have regular billing on their credit card to support an animal. He's selling baby tiger cubs for thousands of dollars each. People pay when they come there. He's got the gift shop going. What did he do with all that money?

Because the Netflix series was clear that the animals were not getting fed enough. Right. Well, you have to understand that Joe had all his flashy clothes, so there was a lot of money going there. He had a full studio. They bought drones. He was paying at one point in 2014 i think the studio crew was actually like five to six people and they had some pretty good equipment

and they had drones to do all his other stuff he was paying for his country music songs someone else was singing them and writing them and he was paying for those i don't know how much he paid for them uh when he just lip-synced them yes ma'am okay yes ma'am go ahead and then um you know you had um his husbands um he provided them with everything they needed, clothing, drugs, tattoos, guns, you know, what have you. So, yes, a large portion of the money being made was going to support their lifestyle. Well, didn't the husbands work? Not outside the park, and they didn't get a paycheck. Like John, yes he worked in

the park. He helped feed. He did do transporting animals for Joe, but he didn't receive a weekly paycheck like the rest of the animal handlers. Travis, no he didn't work. He kept the house clean for the most part. He did, if there was some cubs in the house, he would take care of the cubs and stuff like that. And occasionally if we needed extra muscle to build a new tiger house or whatever. But Travis, he wasn't really out on the park every day working. Hi guys, Nancy Grace here. At a time when we are all pulling together to fight coronavirus, COVID-19, I have something for you. An all-free e-chapter on coronavirus crimes and how to fight them. Don't be a coronavirus crime

victim from door-to-door sales of fake cures and tests, vaccines. That's not real. To robocalls that are trying to scam you, to fake ads, to phishing you online, to fake cures that are being sold on the internet and on infomercials right now. You've got to arm yourself against these crimes. Please download our free e-chapter, Coronavirus Crimes, Don't Be a Victim. Go to crimeonline.com. You'll see it there. Hit the link and download it for free. Arm yourself against criminals and scam artists, cons that will not only take advantage of you, but take advantage of you, your parents, your grandparents,

the people you love at a time where we are all fighting the virus. I hope you go to crimeonline.com and download this. It's been highly researched and presented for you for free. Goodbye, friend. Keep the faith. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. Hey, Lynn, did you ever hear Exotic talking about how much he hated Carole Baskin?

Every day. Every day. Yes, that was... why was he so obsessed with her um he he's like that with pretty much anyone that doesn't agree with what he agrees with uh kind of that narcissistic personality coming out again that if you're not on my side, then you're against me. And, you know, when I started back in 2014, that's every day, multiple times a day, I heard about that Carole Baskin, that Carole Baskin. So, you know, I decided why not go home and Google,

and I actually pulled up the lawsuit and the story behind it. And, you know, on Joe's part of the Carol Baskin story, I'm not a Baskin supporter. I don't know her well enough to say yes or no about anything about her. But just on Joe's part of the story, he brought every bit of that on himself. He walked around saying how obsessed she was with him when all the woman started out doing in the beginning was writing letters to malls to advocate against something

that she did not believe in. A normal response, if Joe truly believed that he was doing this for educational purposes and he was doing this for educational purposes and he was educating the public about the plight of the tiger and trying to save the species why would he not start his own letter-writing campaign he had the followers you know he could say no this is what we're doing this is our message but he didn't he immediately changed the name of his road show to where people would confuse it and use the logo

so people would confuse him with Carole Baskin. And then he started this online slaughter of videos and stuff to try to shut her down, or at least get people to think she's a hypocrite. So other than just her going against him and basically dipping in his money-making pot, I don't know why he hated her so much. Did you ever hear him talking about wanting her dead?

I personally never heard him say the words, she's got to die. I heard him say some very extreme things about her. I was there. Like what? Just that somebody should go down there and mess with her. He never, but I don't know that Joe would say something like that in front of me because, you know, I just, I was good about putting him in his place.

I would call him on his bull crap. And I was never approached by anybody during that 2014 time period that said, hey, you know, Joe just offered for me to go kill the woman or what have you. I never got that. I don't put it past him. Believe me, I've heard the videos and stuff. I just think he was in this spiral. So you've seen his show where he shoots the head off the Carole Baskin dummy,

says I want her head in a jar. Yes, ma'am, but that was after. Just, quote, roll the bitch into the ocean that's pretty that's pretty harsh yes ma'am it is but that was after i was already out of the park those some of those videos came up like like i said i i feel like he was in a and i'm totally not taking up for him believe me i'm not but he was in a spiral. So, you know, it started out about, you know, we're going to do this copyright infringement.

And then it was like, I'm going to start making videos. And then I'm going to start going down there and getting pictures of her facility and making her facility look bad. And then I'm going to start with the threats. So, you know, it was like a spiral. It wasn't like he just woke up one day and it popped in his head that he was going to start with the threats. So, you know, it was like a spiral. It wasn't like he just woke up one day and it popped in his head that he was going to kill her. When you heard that he was accused of hiring not one but two hitmen

to kill Carol Baskin, what did you think? I was not surprised at all. I had actually, when I walked away from the park, I had been trying to get Joe shut down. When I left, it was my parting words to him that I would see him shut down or I would see him in jail. So before he was actually arrested, I knew the investigation was going on, and so it wasn't a big surprise to me.

It really wasn't a big surprise to me it really was which investigation the one into animal mistreatment or the one where he wanted carol baskin killed the the investigation into the murder for hire how did you know about it just through different we have a whole group that we keep a very close eye well until joe went to jail we kept a very close eye on him and it wasn't anything you know you've got Jeff Lowe and and James Gerritsen before Joe was ever arrested they were posting things on Facebook so just by trying to keep up with the story we we learned a lot of what was going on. What did they post on Facebook? I don't really remember.

They would post some little something about, oh, yeah, I'll talk to the feds today. Joe, you really messed up. And then the next minute, if you didn't get it screenshotted, it would be back down. But they were really before he was actually ever arrested they were kind of throwing things out on facebook to so you were not surprised when you found out about the the plot to kill her no ma'am not at all because i had watched him spiral for you know for years so why were you trying to get him shut down the cub breeding and the different things that i saw that uh you know he was still when when guests were coming

through he was he was still uh trying to say that it was a sanctuary and he was still trying to take donations and like I said you know the Joe Shriver Joe exotic I don't like Joe exotic I don't I don't approve of what he did I don't approve of how the animals were under his care you know the mass breeding and stuff like that. So, you know, I contacted the IRS because at one time he was a 501c3, and I contacted Garvin County Sheriff's Department and tried to tell them about the drug use in Joe's house and stuff. It just seemed like nobody, everybody wanted to turn, you know, turn the other direction and not really do anything about it

I wonder why that I would have no clue about so you guys parted on bad terms yes ma'am but he did about two years after well no let's see about 2000 into 2016 first part of 2017 I actually ran into him in town, and he did get me to come try to work at his restaurant for him, even though I had already told him that I wanted to see him in jail or shut down. Galen, what about the treatment of the animals exactly was it? What did you witness that got you so upset you wanted to close them down there was one incident uh you know all this cub petting if you listen to any of these people that

are running these tiger meals they will all tell you the same thing uh the reason why they pull the babies is because you know the mom doesn't make milk or the mom rejects them or the dad will attack them. And, you know, I allowed myself to maybe not believe that, but I allowed myself to participate in that, not the first few months of 2014, not really knowing any better but a couple of months after I had been there there were some cubs that had been born and actually we didn't know about it until their eyes were open and they were already starting to push up on their front feet and they were making noise if you tried to go to touch them and stuff so these cubs had to be two to three weeks old. So in my head, I'm thinking, okay,

well everything that Joe has been telling the handlers and the guests, in this case is not true. I mean, these cubs are fat and healthy looking and mom's been doing a good job and Joe pulled them anyway. And when I asked him why, he said, well, we just pulled them all. And that was truly when you know I I quit having anything to do with Joe as little as possible I still wanted to be there to take

care of the animals because I know I knew that by me doing their diets and cleaning their cages I knew that they were getting good care and And I love animals. And I thought I was naive enough to think that I could still be there and be there for the animals and not participate in the stuff that I didn't agree with. And then, you know, it wasn't any one thing. You know, when I went in the gift shop and I found out Joe was, you know, still billing people for sponsorship, I mean, that is just out-and-out fraud. And I won't be a part of that. And then his fake illnesses,

him trying to, you know, putting on Facebook that hinting that he had cancer and he was dying, and, I mean, it just was too much. It was a whole bunch of... I didn't know about that. What happened? Well, shortly after him and John split up in July, he started vomiting all the time,

and he had a camera in his face to record every minute of sickness that there was. He was basically making himself sick. Well, in September, I think he got a diagnosis. He either had an inflamed prostate or an enlarged prostate and he chose to have surgery. And he went and had the surgery end of September of 2014, first part of October 2014 and it was simple just go in there and remove the prostate it was not cancerous but then he takes to wanting people to come up and cook him food and come clean his house and and give him money for this and money for that because you know he starts claiming that he has cancer or he has some other rare

disease or the doctors can't figure out what was wrong with him. Well, on one trip to the hospital, I actually drew the short stick and was the one that had to drive him to the hospital. And I sat right there and heard his surgeon say that no, his prostate was not removed for cancer and then in another incident incident I seen a letter from a doctor of his that he had been saying that was basically terminating his association with Joe it was you know it kind of in a nutshell it read we've performed every test on you

we can't find anything wrong and perhaps you should seek mental health help. So you think that he was using the surgery, which was not about cancer, in order to get people to donate money? I think in the beginning he was using it as a way to try to get John back because he pulled a lot of tricks and stuff trying to get John to come back to him. And then when he got attention from it and people started donating money and some of his, I don't know if I can say this,

but he had a group of women that would come to the park and they would donate their time to get to play with the the uh the cubs and the animals and stuff and joe had dubbed them fag hags well they just flocked to the park and started cooking for him and cleaning his house so i i think because of the tension he was getting he just went ahead and went with it. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. When you say he pulled a lot of different kind of tricks to get his husband back, what kind of tricks? Okay, maybe trick was the wrong word.

There was one conversation that I just heard Joe's part of the conversation, and it was within the first week that John was gone. And Joe was on the phone, and I guess he was leaving a voicemail. And he said, if you don't contact me by 7 o'clock tonight I'm gonna start killing your animals and getting rid of all your animals which there were some there were reptiles some of their their pets that they had at the house the dogs were John Finley's there was a set of monkeys capuchin monkeys that were John Finley's. So, you know, I heard Joe say this, and I didn't live at the park, so at closing I went home.

I come back the next morning at 9 o'clock, and we had morning meetings every morning at 9 o'clock. And, you know, after hearing Joe tell John that he would kill his animals and get rid of them, at the very end of the morning meeting, he looked at Eric and Easton, who were on cat crew, and he said, oh, by the way, I've got dead dogs in my yard that need to be buried. He had shot John Finley's dogs, or put them down. I don't know if he shot them. I didn't go down there to look at the bodies, but he had gotten rid of the dogs. Galen, how would he get the babies away from the moms?

There was multiple different ways. In the big pens, the mom and the babies would be in the house in the big pens, and every large pen has a smaller pen inside it that's called a lockdown cage. Most of the time, you would try to get the mom into the lockdown cage because if you could get her in there that meant you didn't have to dart her. You could just lock the door and she couldn't get back to the cubs.

In some instances they would have to poke and prod. I did witness them using fire extinguishers one time to basically smoke the mom out of the house away from the baby. Because it's a mom's instinct to stay with her young when they're first born. So you've got sticks, you've got him firing guns up in the air for the noise. If they could get the mom out of the house with the babies, but they couldn't get her in the lockdown pen, they would dart her to put her to sleep so that you could go in there and get the cubs.

I know on the documentary they showed the baby being pulled by the stick out of the house as the mom. I never witnessed that. I only witnessed them actually separating the mom from the cubs and then going in and taking the cubs. What would the mom do? Most of the time she would get very, you know, I mean, moms, us mama bears, we get kind of protective, you know. I mean, she would hit the fence at them.

She would, you know, do everything to try to protect her young. But, you know, when you're being poked and prodded and come at from, and it wasn't just like Joe, like he would have the whole crew down there participating in this. And if you smoke that house with a fire extinguisher, she's got to come outside to get air. So there wasn't a whole lot the mom could do. It's just hard for me to believe, and i know you're telling me the truth that other people would take part in it poking and hitting the mom

using a fire extinguisher on her dark gunning, and then take the baby away. Everybody took part in it. Why? Why would everybody join in? I think a lot of people, I know myself, and I did not do the poking and the prodding. I mean, I stood back and I witnessed it, but I could not bring myself to do it. I just, I couldn't but in a way I had fooled myself into still thinking that this park was a good thing

in whole that know the cub petting and the way they treated the moms to get the babies know that that was horrible but the cub petting was necessary to feed the animals. It's really hard to describe what mindset you get into and what you fool yourself into. Even when you've got the red flags in your head saying, ding, ding, ding, this isn't right, and then you try to justify it until it comes to the point that you just can't justify it anymore.

And there are some people that work there that have never come to the justification. Me, it took me about eight months and it wasn't eight whole months. A lot of it I was ready to go within the first two months when I realized what was happening. But I was so involved with the animals that I fooled myself into believing, you know, like I said before, that I could still take care of the animals and not participate in the bad stuff. Was he that charming, Galen, that people were kind of under his spell?

Believe it or not, he is. I mean, you really can't tell it from the docuseries, but Joe has this charismatic quality about him that, I mean, either when you meet him, you fall in love with him or just really like him. He's a likable guy. Or you just instantly hate him. There's usually not any in between with him. And he has this uncanny ability to meet someone and read them within seconds. Within seconds, and kind of if you have a weak spot,

he knows exactly how to use that in his favor to get what he wants from you. I mean, it's uncanny and it's indescribable. You know, Gay Lynn, he said that he was set up. He's filed about a $94 million-ish lawsuit against the government and others saying that he was entrapped, he was tricked, that he would never have ordered hits. I don't think there's a real defense to anything he did to the animals.

But what do you make of his claim that he was picked on because he is gay i think that's so much crap um i don't number one i don't think he was picked on at all and number two i have listened to him for you know the past six years try to turn everything about, oh, it's because I'm gay, it's because I'm gay. No, it's because you're not a decent human being. I mean, plain and simple, the whole free Joe Exotic he was set up is just, I mean, it's crap.

To me, I don't know, maybe I just don't understand the definition of being set up, but if you're a willing participant, if they have you on tape with an undercover agent orchestrating a hit, I don't know how that's a setup. I don't get it. You know, I just saw that his pink sequined shirt was selling for about $700. That's a heck of a lifestyle. When you've got one shirt that can be sold for $700.

You mentioned his lifestyle, that all that money was going into supporting him and his husband's lifestyle. What did you mean by that? Other than hiring somebody to film you 24-7, 365 for a reality show, I mean, what lifestyle? I'm very curious about his lifestyle. I don't mean about being gay. I don't care about that. I mean the money. Where's the money going?

What's he doing? How's he living? They did do trips you know they took skydiving trips they took trips down to Florida and and turd Carole Baskin's facility and I don't know what all they did when they were in Florida you know they had vehicles I mean pretty much anything that they wanted they had access to and if if he didn't have the ready vehicles his his trucks i mean they all had brand new trucks that they went and financed and were paying for they were always financed in someone else's name

but he would make the payments on it. John Finley, I think he wrecked a couple, so he was getting pickup trucks quite often there for a while. And they bought more animals. And, you know, like I said, the drugs, the tattoos, the clothing. When John left, Joe was bent on his reality show had to be about him and his two husbands so when John left he didn't have the third husband anymore so he an ex-boyfriend he paid this ex-boyfriend to come down to the park he paid like three months worth of the boys phone bills he was back behind on

his phone bills he made up his car payments he got his mom's Joe got his mom's credit card and went and spent $500 on a tattoo and some clothing for this guy. I mean, it was just... Did you say his third husband? Well, the reality show was supposed to be about three husbands. So when John left, there was only two of them. There was Joe and another. Sorry, I misspoke. You know, I love my husband, Galen,

but I don't want another one. One is enough. Exactly. So the premise of the reality show is about three husbands. I thought the premise was supposed to have been about the animals. His reality show. His reality show, the way he put it to me over and over again was that it was gonna be about a gay zoo zookeeper that had two husbands that they were in this three

way marriage which at the time wasn't even a gay marriage was not legal in Oklahoma so you know they had had the Union ceremony but they were not legally married but the reality show was he was going to be in the forefront. His husbands were going to be in the forefront. The animals were just going to be an afterthought. You know, I'm curious why Joe Exotic thought, and maybe he wasn't wrong, that people would want to see a reality show about him. I have no clue. I i mean i really don't i mean i sit back every day and and watch how people are reacting to this and i guess from from actually

living it for a while that you you just can't go back and unsee what you've already seen and try to get like a clean perspective on it. So who knows? I mean, Joe really did have this mentality that he was all that, that everybody wanted to be him because he had this huge animal facility. And in case in point, as far as, I mean, some of the reaction from the American public has really shocked me. We have a Facebook page, and I spend most of my day deleting people off of there that just want to come on there, and that's all they want to do is support this movement to free Joe and try to argue with me about what a nice person he is because they watch something on TV,

you know, so it's really been, it's been something. Well then, let me ask you this, Galen, what people see on TV, was that the real Joe Exotic? He was large, in some ways it was. It's really hard to explain Joe because like he's, every person sees something different in him. Like you could take every bit of the stuff from 2014 and they could probably tell you different views of how I see him. That's just part of the, I guess you would call it an enigma that is Joe Exotic. There's no way to sit down and just describe him. So some people watching the documentary are going to say,

well, gosh, I feel sorry for him, and he was just really railroaded, and this, that, and the other, and they're going to get on this whole support Joe thing, and then other people are like, you know, this man is a lunatic. I mean, he... He will do anything.

Where do you stand, Gay Lynn? Where do you stand? I think that when you have someone that is, like we discussed, as charismatic as Joe and can immediately work you on your weaknesses and I think it just makes for a dangerous individual when he has it in his head that he's this king or this god and he's above the law and he's created his alter reality. And he is, I think in that one interview,

he said judge, jury, and executioner in his own world. I think that makes for a very dangerous individual. I think he's exactly where he needs to be. Do you think he actually thought he was a king? I believe so. I believe he had so complete control over that park, and just walking into that park was like walking out of regular society into this little crazy world that you know he created his own little world do you think he could have personally killed

back Carole Baskin would he have done that I never really at the park I mean I don't I don't think Joe would do his own dirty work so to speak um he you know that's just like because now he can sit back like he's screaming now that you know he he was set up or he didn't transport the cubs john finley and so and so transported i think joe is not going to dirty himself because then he wouldn't be able to blame it on anyone else. Do you think, as opposed to doing it with his own hands, he would have hired somebody?

Because that's sure what the tape recording sounded like. I believe, yes. I believe that he was very capable of hiring someone. If you could say anything to Exotic right now, what would you say? I have nothing to say to Joe Exotic. I don't know Joe Exotic. The little glimpse I got of him in 2014 and what I've watched go down since then, there's nothing for me to say.

Well, I know you may be speechless but your actions said it all to me you left you left for a lot of different reasons do you think that justice was served I don't know about so much justice being served. Honestly, you know, he had 17 wildlife charges and he only got four years for 17 wildlife charges. He shot five tigers. He didn't even get a year for each tiger that he shot. So I would have been very much okay with it had he gotten more time, but I'm okay with 22 years. Galen, did you have any idea that there were many, many animal carcasses buried on that property? Not just those five, but many other carcasses buried on that property? Not just those five, but many other carcasses.

I was aware of domestic animals such as like cattle and horses that were brought to the park to be fed out to the tigers. Yes, at one point, the zoo was considered a rendering facility, which basically means that you can bury the bones on the property. You have to do it within regulations. It has to be so many feet deep and stuff like that. But, I mean, yeah, I was aware.

I don't know exactly. It hasn't come out how many of the exotic animals were actually buried there, or not to my knowledge, other than, like, the five that he got the charges for. It wouldn't surprise me at all if they went out there and dug up and they found a lot. I know in 2014, most generally when he was putting an animal down, the carcass was taken by the bone collector. So we didn't do a whole lot of burying. The carcasses of the cats if there was

any cat that was the vet came and deemed it that it had renal failure and and you know a legitimate reason that it had to be put down then yes the cats the carcasses were shipped off to this uh college museum whatever it is but did he get money for that was he paid that i that i don't know i i really i i was not i never seen any paperwork on it when i was in the gift shop um but i i don't know i i've been told yes but that's purely speculation and rumor galen you have stated that what we saw in the Netflix series was just the tip of the underbelly of the exotic animal world. Why did you say that? It's still going on.

You've got Jeff Lowe who, you know, is one minute he's saying that he set Joe up and the next minute he's saying no, that he just helped the feds. He's still down there in Winniewood, Oklahoma, mass breeding these cubs. I saw last night a video on TikTok that his little baby girl sitting in the floor and they're putting two brand new cubs barely got their eyes open right in front of her if it had not been for the coronavirus and our COVID-19 lockdown on our county in the state of Oklahoma you know he he actually stayed open for business after he was deemed unessential and we called the sheriff's department to go ahead and have him shut down because there were so many people walking to this facility to pay to meet him, to play with the tigers.

And the thing I really don't get is these places you have, you know, Jephlo with the Greater Winnie Wood, you have Dade City, the Stearns, which they're in a lot of trouble. And you've got Tim Stark, Wildlife in Need. You know, there's so many of these places. And the people, they just look at it as a place they can go take a picture with a cub. They don't stop and think that these are tiger meals. If I ask you about a puppy meal, you're not okay with it. Well, any cub petting facility that has baby cubs or baby animals available for you to interact with and you pay to interact with, they're breeding these for that purpose. They are a tiger meal or a sloth meal or a lemur meal, whatever.

It's still going on and nothing has changed. And I'm curious about if he was illegally selling these baby tigers to other dealers and, you know, lying on the papers, who bought the tigers? Who took them illegally? They weren't supposed to do that either, and I hadn't heard a word about that prosecution. I've got to ask you one more thing. Gay Lynn, the way he carried on in the Netflix documentary,

did he always dress up like that every single day? It was like a dress-up party? You know, it kind of was, and that's interesting because I had had a conversation. I didn't really notice that much about him You know, it kind of was, and that's interesting because I had had a conversation. I didn't really notice that much about him, like, in the beginning when I first met him and stuff. And then he was very good at show, but I sat down and I talked to his sister. She and I have become quite close and become really, really good friends through this because, you know, we kind of can relate.

I can't go talk to my other friends because they don't know what the heck I'm talking about because a lot of times there's no way to describe it but she said that you know yes uh even past the point most of us grow out of playing dress up and pretending to be somebody that we're not that Joe went past that point and I honestly did not see it until 2014. I mean, you know, the whole singing thing, let's put that in perspective. He had headshot pictures made.

He had CMT country recording artists put on the bottom of these pictures, which he's never been on CMT, but he had it put on these pictures. There was one song that was performed by, I believe, Christina Aguilera and A Great Big World called Say Something. And Joe lip-synced this and did a video of when one of his chimps passed away. And he swore that that was his song.

They were playing it on CMT. Well, they were, but it wasn't his version they were playing on CMT. It was someone else's. But, I mean, that's just how far he was willing to go into his make-believe. He claimed Christina Aguilera's song was his? The Great Big World and Christina Aguilera say something?

Yes, he told Guest of the Park that that was his song. Okay, I'm sure Christina Aguilera will want to hear about that. But I'm just wondering if he acted like this all the time, even day in, day out, or if it was all just for the camera. Well, he had a camera on him day in and day out. I mean, 24-7, a lot of times he would call them. He would be down at his house watching TV, and he'd have some brainstorm,

and he would call the studio people and have them come to his house and immediately start recording or start at 5 o'clock in the morning by waking him up. I mean, he literally had a camera in the bathroom while he was vomiting. He wanted it filmed. So he had a camera 24-7. Galen, I'm just a JD.

I'm not an MD with a psychiatry degree, so I can't figure that one out. But I tell you what, I know this. I think you did the right thing the day you turned your back and walked away from a cesspool. And it hurts me to know that it's still going on, not just there, but all over the country right now. Yes, ma'am. And I'd like to think that all of this will make a change,

but I don't know if it will. That's what I'm hoping. That's my whole purpose. I have been so nervous about this interview and stuff, but I cannot get my message out there if I refuse to talk about it. And I have so much regret for the part that I took in it that I just felt like that I have to set the record straight. I have to get this message out there.

Whether people believe it or listen to it or not, that's on them, but at least I tried. And you know what? That's what matters. You may not win, but at least you tried. You went down swinging. Ms. Eastwood, thank you for being with us. Thank you. This is an iHeart Podcast.