Bill Maher has not jumped on the “Tiger King” bandwagon nor does he plan to. Calling out the popular Netflix show and its subject, tiger breeder and convicted animal abuser Joe Exotic, Maher said that “torturing animals is what got us into this mess.”
The host of HBO’s “Real Time” wants people to stop trying to get him to watch the true-crime documentary miniseries about former zookeeper Exotic. “It’s not going to happen,” Maher said. “I’m not watching ‘Tiger King’ while sequestering because torturing animals is what got us into this mess. That’s the lesson we keep refusing to learn, that you can’t trash the environment, including the animals, and not have it come back and kill you.”
Watch the video above.
Both sides of the aisle applauded Maher after he bashed China for reopening its wet markets — National Geographic recently wrote, “Wet markets likely launched the coronavirus” — but he said that America’s factory farming is “just as despicable as a wet market and just as problematic for our health.”
“Let me put it as basically as I can,” he said. “If we keep producing food the way we do, you’re going to get sick with something medicine cannot fix. You don’t have to care for the sake of the animals; I wouldn’t want to mess with anyone’s reputation as a heartless a–hole. But do it because animal cruelty leads to human catastrophe.”
He went on. “And get the f— away from me with ‘Tiger King.’ I don’t care that he sees the light at the end; so did Darth Vader. … Joe Exotic is in prison partly for killing five endangered tigers, which are endangered because of people like him. I don’t get why the woke left loves this show so much and isn’t on this guy like pink sequins.”