‘Tiger King’s’ Carole Baskin does interview with YouTubers posing as Jimmy Fallon’s producers

It was sheer madness, but it worked for a pair of YouTubers.

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Josh Pieters and Archie Manners, who have more than 1.3 million subscribers on their YouTube channel, landed one of the most elusive interviews around -- Carole Baskin, of Netflix’s “Tiger King: Murder, Mayhem and Madness" -- by pretending to be producers of “The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon,” Variety reported.

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Because of the coronavirus pandemic, entertainers have been doing shows remotely on platforms such as Zoom. Baskin, who was not pleased with the way she was presented in the Netflix docuseries, has been reluctant to do interviews, nevertheless agreed to do the interview, believing she was going to chat with the late-night host.

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Pieters and Manners managed to persuade Baskin into giving her first post-“Tiger King” interview over Zoom.

“So, we took the longest of long shots and asked her to be a guest on ‘The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon,’" the YouTubers explain in their YouTube segment.

Baskin initially refused, but relented when Pieters and Manners said they would not discuss “Tiger King.”

In the video, Pieters and Manners show the emails they exchanged with Baskin, who set guidelines that she would only talk about her animals and not about “Tiger King,” according to Variety.

The two YouTubers saved audio clips from Fallon on an iPad and played them to simulate a conversation with the host. Pieters and Manners also told Baskin they would not be able to see Fallon on video and pretended to chat with off-camera crew members, Variety reported.

The bogus interview actually went well, with Baskin talking about caring for the zoo’s big cats while in quarantine and urging people to support the Big Cat Public Safety Act, Variety reported.

“So there you have it,” Pieters and Manners said as their segment ended. "Two cool cats managed to trick the world’s biggest kitten into giving her first ever interview since ‘Tiger King.’

“Hopefully she won’t be too angry,” the video ends, with a tiger roar in the background.

Cox Media Group