‘Tiger King' Fever

‘Vanderpump Rules’ Stars Dissect the Drama

- RYAN GAJEWSKI

No one will ever fully understand the mind of Joseph Maldonado-Passage, the zoo owner at the heart of the addictive and perplexing Netflix docuseries Tiger King. But what is clear is that “Joe Exotic” is obsessed with fame. After all, the part-time country warbler, would-be politician and slinger of questionable pizzas went so far as to enlist a producer to film his own reality show, throne included.

So it makes sense that the leads from another head-scratching unscripted series would know just how to process all the confounding moments that ended with Exotic landing in prison for a murder plot and animal abuse. Married pair Jax Taylor and Brittany Cartwright, who star on Bravo’s restaurantfocused reality series Vanderpump Rules, are just as fascinated as the rest of us with the sordid saga of Joe, Carole Baskin and the motley lot at the G.W. Zoo in Oklahoma.

The couple sat down with Playboy to talk about Tiger King and — well, pretty much only Tiger King. Here, Taylor and Cartwright, who have both visited the Playboy Mansion —Cartwright even worked at a few Mansion events when she was new to Los Angeles — debate the sex appeal of tigers, analyze the hangers-on who flock to fame and offer casting suggestions for the inevitable movie adaptation. They also share details of their life amid the COVID-19 quarantine and provide clarity on Taylor’s tweet from last week in which he referred to the pandemic as “a punishment from the man upstairs.”

PLAYBOY: What do you love about Tiger King?