Carole Baskin Says She Could Just Slap Chloe Fineman for SNL Parody

While Carole Baskin has enjoyed the platform she’s been given thanks to the success of “Tiger King,” she’s not exactly thrilled with the public perception of her following the Netflix documentary.

In a new interview with Dennis Quaid and Jimmy Jellinek’s The Pet Show podcast, the conservationist was asked if she had a favorite parody so far — specifically pointing out Chloe Fineman’s impersonation on “Saturday Night Live.”

“I could just slap that woman,” she exclaimed with a laugh. “This whole, ‘My kitty, meow, meow, kitty, meow,’ and then she would just say these really weird words all in a row. That all became popular, I guess, in popular culture and people wanted me to talk like that on the Cameos. And I’m like, ‘I have no idea how to talk like that. That is not how I speak.'”

Another misconception that she’s noticed since joining Cameo — a platform where celebrities record video messages for paying fans — is that she’s a singer, after Joe Exotic made a number of music videos featuring a woman clearly modeled after Baskin.

“That’s been the weird thing on Cameo, every … well, I shouldn’t say everybody, but so many people want me to sing,” she explained. “And I’m like, ‘I was not the person pretending to sing in that show. That was somebody else pretending to sing. I didn’t even pretend to sing. I don’t sing.’ And yet, that became, l like, ‘she sings’ and I don’t even know how that connection was made.”

After she called “Tiger King” a “missed opportunity” to highlight just how much big cats suffer in parks like the one Exotic had, Baskin was asked whether she’s gotten offers for her own show — and it sounds like something could be in the works down the line.

“I have a list of about 175 different media outlets that we have on a waiting list and we are talking to some of them,” she said, “but I can’t talk about some of the stuff we’re talking about.”

Earlier this week, NBC ordered its “Joe Exotic” series — based on the Wondery podcast of the same name — straight to series. Kate McKinnon will portray Baskin in the show, which will air on NBC, Peacock and USA Network.

According to Baskin, she has yet to hear from McKinnon about playing her.

“She has not reached out to me and I really hope that she does before she gets too far down the line with it. I’d love to know what her take is on it and what she’s thinking to do and see if there was any way that we could advise her,” said Baskin. “We reached out to her through the media — because I don’t have any way of contacting Kate McKinnon — but we had posted publicly that we really hope that her or anybody that does any kind of follow-up programming doesn’t end up doing what Cardi B did and hiring people that are exploiting and abusing cats. The worst thing you can do is abuse cats to show other people that you shouldn’t abuse cats.”

When asked if she had a specific message she’d like to relay to McKinnon, Baskin said, for her, “it’s really all about the cats.”

“I really want their story to be told and I think it’s important to whoever’s telling the story, to get to know some of the cats,” she added. “I don’t think you can have a full appreciation of just how wicked it is to hold them in cages against their will.”