Former friend and employee of Joe “Tiger King” Exotic, Erik Cowie, was found dead at the age of 52 in his Brooklyn, New York City apartment.
Tiger King zookeeper found dead.The body of Cowie was discovered at an apartment in Brooklyn on Friday, according to NBC News 4 New York. When first responders got on the scene, he was unconscious, and the cause of his death has not yet been determined.
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Cowie worked as a zookeeper at the Greater Wynnewood Exotic Animal Park in Oklahoma, which was once owned by “Joe Exotic,” alias Joe Maldonado-Passage. He was responsible for the care of the park’s exotic animals.
During the production of the seven-episode Netflix documentary Tiger King, which premiered in March 2020 and quickly became a pop-culture sensation, Cowie was interviewed extensively about the zoo and Joe Exotic.
In the first ten days after Tiger King’s release, 34.3 million people tuned in to watch the movie, according to Nielsen.
After working for five years as Joe Exotic’s chief tiger breeder, Cowie, the principal tiger breeder, eventually testified against his former boss, claiming he shot older tigers in the zoo. Cowie appeared on the Tiger King reunion special presented by Joel McHale, which was a massive ratings success.
Following the show’s frenzy, there was an extraordinary influx of television adaptations, but they have began to diminish in popularity.
The cancellation of a planned Amazon series starring Nicolas Cage in the role of Joe Exotic has resulted in widespread disappointment. The Peacock Network is currently developing a scripted series featuring John Cameron Mitchell in the role of Joe Exotic and Kate McKinnon in the role of his loathed competitor Carole Baskin.