Warning: Tiger King spoilers ahead.
Jeff Lowe, a prominent figure in the “Tiger King” docu-series on Netflix, held an “Ask Me Anything” (AMA) session on Reddit yesterday and it went exactly how you’d expect. The internet tried to dunk on Lowe but he sloughed it off and dropped a bombshell accusation: Joe Exotic (the titular Tiger King) and his ex-husband John Finlay allegedly committed animal sexual assault.
Jeff Lowe’s the supposedly-rich guy who took over The Greater Wynnewood Exotic Animal Park – the zoo made famous by Exotic. Lowe’s shut the zoo down since the docu-series aired (but only because they’re moving the animals to a larger facility). And apparently we just can’t get enough of this guy because, after appearing in an additional episode of Tiger King last week, he’s now doing Q&As.
For his Reddit AMA, Lowe opted to respond to questions via video using Cameo:
And it didn’t take long for things to get predictably unpredictable. Shortly after the AMA began, Reddit user “Snowbofreak” asked: “Hey Jeff! I was wondering what (if any) weird S*IT have you found out about Joe Exotic since he’s been incarcerated randomly around the park?” Lowe’s response:
I think the weirdest thing we found were the thumb drives that show Joe and John Finlay walking around, having sexual relations with some of the animals in the park.
We actually had a security guard that worked here, for Joe many, many years ago, that told us they used to pull animals in the house at about 2:30 in the morning and bring them out before sunrise.
Reddit wasn’t impressed:
However, it’s worth mentioning that this isn’t the first time the thumb-drives have come up. Another ‘Tiger King’ alum, Joe Exotic’s former political campaign manager Joshua Dial, recently appeared on the Domenick Nati Show and made similar allegations:
Joe ran away from the zoo. The very next day, Jeff and Lauren got there. I was still employed at the zoo at the time so I went to the meeting. They told us everything right then and there.
They said, ‘we’ve been working with the FBI, Joe’s going to jail for murder-for-hire’. This is months before he’s even arrested. They listed everything he ended up getting charged with before this even started and said ‘oh and by the way, we have video of someone having sex with an animal.’
Dial says he never saw the tapes, but it’s telling that both he and Lowe worked with the feds to build a case against Exotic. Especially considering they’re both speaking publicly about crimes the so-called Tiger King evidently hasn’t been charged with yet.
Exotic is currently serving 22 years for animal cruelty and orchestrating a failed murder-for-hire scheme, but if he’s brought up on new charges for animal sexual assault he could face an additional 3-7 years per count depending on exactly what he’s convicted of.
This, of course, is all speculation. Jeff Lowe wasn’t exactly portrayed as a truthful, trustworthy individual in the show. It’s quite possible the drives don’t exist, or don’t contain what Lowe’s alleging they do.
For those of us who’ve seen the show, though, this all makes perfect sense. Nothing is ever normal in the Tiger King’s universe. The only thing you can be sure of when it comes to Joe Exotic is that no matter how weird things get, they’re going to get weirder.
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