If you’re one of the millions of viewers who was captivated by the insanity of Tiger King when the docu-series debuted on Netflix in March, then you’re no doubt familiar with the larger-than-life character known as Baghavad “Doc” Antle.
Joe Exotic describes Antle as a mentor, noting that he looked up to the zoo proprietor both for his skill with animals and his polyamorous lifestyle.
While Antle has distanced himself from Exotic in recent years, he shares Joe’s belief that Carole Baskin killed her second husband.
Antle has served as mentor to many a big cat enthusiast over the years, most of them young woman.
And one of his former proteges who told her story in Tiger King has now doubled down on her accusations in a shocking new interview.
Barbara Fisher began working at Antle’s Institute of Greatly Endangered and Rare Species (T.I.G.E.R.S.) at Myrtle Beach Safari in South Carolina immediately after high school, and she says she became suspicious of her new boss from the very beginning.
“It didn’t seem quite as advertised,” she tells UK tabloid The Sun.
“I remember there were beautiful women walking tigers right when we got there, which was very appealing.”
Her father accompanied her on the job interview, which was apparently an awkward ordeal that served as sign of things to come.
“A woman was sitting on Bhagavan’s lap the whole time,” she tells Sun Online.
“My dad was kind of creeped out about it all.”
Fisher says Antle allowed his female staff no freedom and worked them mercilessly from morning till night.
“It was kind of like being a child,” Barbara says.
“When he’s controlling absolutely everything — who we can see, where we are living, our money, everything — that’s problematic,” she adds.
“I knew it was going to be intense,” Fisher continues.
“On the website he’d said an average day was going to be from eight in the morning till one in the morning, and I was going to get $100.”
Barbara says she was forced to live in a “terrible, terrible travel trailer tucked behind a bunch of cages” and was later moved to a horse stall which was “crawling with cockroaches.”
She adds that despite her youth, Antle behaved in a sexually inappropriate fashion from the start of her time at the zoo.
“He never made an ultimatum like: ‘You must sleep with me or else you’re not going to get these perks,’ or anything like that,” she says.
“But he definitely was sleeping with many people that had started out as apprentices.”
Fisher alleges that it wasn’t long before Antle began pressuring her to get breast implants.
“I remember from the time he was dressing me to get in my Renaissance fair outfit, he said at that point: ‘You need bigger boobs’,” she says.
“After that, they kept bringing up the boobs until I did it.”
Fisher recalls another incident in which a bearcat nearly bit her finger off.
Antle was wary of outside attention due to the many illegal practices taking place with in his zoo.
As a result, injured staff were often discouraged from seeking medical attention.
“So we usually just soaked things in epsom salts and taped them together and took some animal antibiotics.”
“He agreed to let me go as long as I said I was too drunk to remember what happened. And that’s what I did.”
“So we usually just soaked things in epsom salts and taped them together and took some animal antibiotics.”
“I don’t think he’s intentionally hurtful most of the time, I just think he doesn’t feel empathy.
“That’s very dangerous, and it’s very important to keep him out of being in control of people, but I can’t blame him for being what he was made to be.”
Antle has spoken out against Fisher’s claims, dismissing her account of life on the zoo as “a complete fabrication.”
“She seems not satisfied with her lot in life, and therefore is looking for her 15 minutes of fame, or an atonement to a past that somehow does not fit her present,” Antle tells The Sun
“All statements she made in Netflix Tiger King about mysteriously getting her boobs done is a flat-out lie,” he adds.
Yet another series of nauseating allegations in the seemingly endless saga of Tiger King.
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