Carole Baskin made her Dancing With The Stars debut on Monday night and the family of her missing husband Don Lewis decided to take that opportunity to call for information on his disappearance.
News of Don’s disappearance came to light during Netflix series Tiger King, that stars Carole and follows her rivalry with zoo owner Joe Exotic.
Joe accused Carole of being behind her former husband going missing and claims he thinks she ‘fed him to the tigers’, but Carole has repeatedly denied any involvement in Don’s disappearance.
He went missing in 1997 and was declared legally dead five years later in 2002.
She is now facing a lawsuit from Don’s family, who are offering a $100,000 (£76k) reward for information on what happened to him, as they want Carole to give evidence on the record.
And proving that they are still searching for answers, Don’s family paid to air a commercial, calling for any information on his disappearance, during Carole’s first appearance on Dancing With The Stars over in the US.
Variety reports that the ad went out to viewers watching in both Tampa and Jacksonville in Florida and saw Don’s daughter, his family attorney and former assistant pleading with those who know anything about what happened to him or Carole’s alleged involvement to come forward.
Carole released a statement referring to Don going missing on her Big Cats Rescue website, earlier this year, denying any involvement.
It read: ‘Don was not easy to live with and like most couples we had our moments.
‘But I never threatened him and I certainly had nothing to do with his disappearance. When he disappeared, I did everything I could to assist the police.’
The commercial couldn’t have been more aptly timed, as viewers watched Big Cat Rescue owner make her debut on season 29 of Dancing With The Stars on Monday night.
She performed the paso doble to Eye Of The Tiger and was seen releasing her professional partner Pasha Pashkov from a cage with a huge fake tiger in it.
Despite Carole throwing everything she had at her first performance, it fell flat with the judges and she received just 11 points in total, leaving her bottom of the leaderboard ahead of next week’s first elimination.
She joins a slew of stars on the show for its latest season, including the likes of Selling Sunset’s Chrishelle Stause, Catfish presenter Nev Schulman, rapper Nelly and Jesse Metcalfe.
Carole is best known for appearing on Tiger King, released on Netflix earlier this year, that follows her very public feud with Exotic – real name Joseph Allen Maldonado-Passage.
Exotic is currently serving 22 years behind bars for animal abuse charges and conspiring to kill Baskin.
Metro.co.uk has reached out to Carole’s rep for comment.
Dancing With The Stars is currently airing on ABC over in the US.
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