‘Tiger King’: Jeff Lowe Says He Did Not Hire a Nanny So Wife Lauren Could Get Back to the Gym — What He Really Meant
Netflix’s docuseries Tiger King: Murder, Mayhem and Madness was packed with so many scandals it was hard to focus on any one. There was Joseph Maldonado-Passage, aka Joe Exotic’s speed breeding and his arrest for hiring a hit man. How about Carole Baskin and the mystery of her husband’s death? Jeff Lowe and his wife Lauren were but one pair of factors in the whole saga.
The Lowes have been speaking to press since Tiger King premiered on Netflix to try to clear their name. On April 12, they spoke to The Morning Beat with AJ and Mikalah about many things, including suspicion that Maldonado-Passage buried protestors on zoo property and why they’re still keeping the zoo open. They also wanted to clear up some things about their marriage.
Lauren and Jeff Lowe’s marriage was not supposed to be a focus of ‘Tiger King’
Lauren Lowe was upset that Netflix included such personal details about their marriage in the documentary. She didn’t see how their trips to Las Vegas and parties with other women was relevant to the Maldonado-Passage story.
“They misled us completely on what the story was supposed to be about,” Lauren Lowe told AJ and Mikalah. “They told us it was supposed to be about Carole. No doubt, we had fun in Vegas. If we invited girls, we invited girls. That’s our personal business to begin with. But Netflix portrayed us more different than we were assuming they were going to.”
Jeff Lowe says ‘Tiger King’ faked his nanny comments
Jeff Lowe got in trouble with fans for posting photos of their new nanny, and his comments on Tiger King about picking an attractive one. He says producers took comments out of context and fed them lines.
“They told us what to say,” Jeff Lowe said. “They fed us all the linse they wanted us to say, they sensationalized a lot, they put words in my mouth. When she came to me and said she was pregnant I said, ‘Well, how are we going to do this? How are we going to be able to raise a baby and do all these things?’ I’ve been there, I’ve done that. I have three great kids but they’re grown.”
Jeff Lowe did not mean Lauren had to go back to the gym
Jeff Lowe especially wanted to set the record straight about Lauren’s fitness. In Tiger King he says they need to hire an au pair so Lauren can go back to the gym. He clarifies that he was actually repeating his wife’s joke.
“Lauren had a joke, she had to have a nanny because she wanted to get back to the gym,” Jeff Lowe said. “I bet you there’s probably 10 hours of footage of Lauren talking about getting back to the gym. We were looking for an au pair. We had five au pairs selected [and] we were going to hire two so we had full time au pair care at the park.”
Jeff Lowe said the Tiger King producers explicitly made a soundbite out of the gym joke. He merely complied.
“When the producers had me in the office that day, the producers said, ‘Jeff, show me the au pairs,’” Jeff Lowe said. “They pieced together a lot of it where I said we’re getting an au pair so Lauren can get back to the gym. I think I had to repeat that six times for them to catch it properly.”
