Carole Baskin drops lawsuit over Tiger King season 2, rips show's 'poor reviews'

Carole Baskin's claws are retracting… at least a little bit.

Baskin, the owner of a big-cat sanctuary that was one of the main subjects of the hit 2020 docuseries Tiger King, dismissed her lawsuit against Netflix and Royal Goode Productions on Wednesday. She and her husband, Howard Baskin, had filed a complaint in Florida federal court Nov. 1 and sought a temporary restraining order that would bar the companies "from any use of film footage of the Baskins and the Big Cat Rescue sanctuary in Tiger King 2 or in any related promotion or advertising." The emergency motion was denied later that day.

The Baskins' complaint came days after Netflix released a trailer for a second season of Tiger King, which hit the streamer Nov. 17. According to the complaint, the promo "prominently depicts the Baskins as a central element of the sequel through the use of the film footage acquired by Royal Goode Productions." The Baskins asserted that the footage breached the appearance release they signed for the show's first season and asked that Netflix and Royal Goode remove any and all footage of them from Tiger King season 2. They sought a trial by jury for the matter and argued that they would suffer "irreparable injury" if the season was allowed to air as is.

Wednesday's move to dismiss followed a series of denials related to the suit. On Nov. 19, a judge recommended that the Baskins' motion for a preliminary injunction also be denied, and on Nov. 23 Netflix and Royal Goode filed a motion to dismiss the complaint entirely. The Baskins withdrew the preliminary injunction motion on Dec. 3, and this week finally filed to dismiss the suit.

Netflix declined to comment.

In a statement posted to their website Wednesday, the Baskins took a swipe at Tiger King season 2 and asserted that the lawsuit wasn't about money. They only sought to remove footage of themselves from the second season, they said, not to keep the sequel from airing at all.

"We believe they could easily have removed the footage, which we feel would have been the ethical thing to do," the statement said. "This lawsuit was never about money damages. With the injunction declined Season 2 was aired. It received generally poor reviews and dropped out of the Netflix top 10 rapidly."

The statement added: "We feel we were denied the only meaningful remedy available to us and that pursuing money damages is not the best use of our time because it reduces the time we can spend on our mission of stopping the abuse [of big cats]."

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