Tiger King star Carole Baskin is in the headlines again. This time for performing a now-viral rendition of 50 Cent’s In Da Club for someone on Cameo.
Carole’s original claim to fame was her role in Netflix’s docu-series sensation, Tiger King. The series follows the life of Joe Exotic, whose real name is Joseph Maldonado-Passage. Joe and the other exotic animal owners featured in the show hated Carole with a passion. On two occasions Joe even tried to hire hitmen to kill Carole. The first zoo worker Joe hired ran off with the money and the second hitman was an undercover FBI agent. Joe was convicted in April 2019 of federal murder for hire charges. Carole founded Big Cat Rescue, a sanctuary for big cats with her then-husband, Don Lewis. Don disappeared in 1997 and Carole has insisted she is innocent since then. Carole still runs Big Cat Rescue with her current husband, Howard Baskin.
The Cameo went viral when 50 Cent himself shared the Cameo on Instagram, as reported by E! News. In the video, Carole starts with her signature catchphrase, “Hey all you cool cats and kittens” before going into the ear-worm hook of In Da Club: “Hey Charlotte, it’s your birthday, we’re gonna party like it’s your birthday.” Carole and Howard then dance around in what appears to be a bedroom to a segment of the track. Howard even brings in a bottle of Bacardi for the line, “we’re gonna sip Bacardi like it’s your birthday.” One noticeable difference (other than replacing Charlotte with “shawty”) was how the pair replaced the f-word with “fudge” to make their version more family-friendly.
50 Cent captioned the post, “this song wasn’t music it was magic, it went everywhere in the world then never went away every day is somebody’s birthday.” He’s certainly not wrong, In Da Club is probably one of the most popular birthday songs out there. In the comments, some expressed distaste over the rendition while others praised it— even if Carole and Howard were offbeat. 50 Cent didn’t comment on his thoughts about this specific rendition, but it’s safe to say he got a kick out of it or else he wouldn’t have shared it.
It seems Carole is trying to make the most of her Tiger King fame as she charges $299 for Cameo shout outs. With this recent endorsement, she’ll likely have no trouble bringing in the big bucks. Carole has made up to $100,000 on Cameo so far per Vanity Fair. But when it comes to any requests related to her missing husband, Carole turns them down. So, for any conspiracy theorists hoping to ask Carole for more information on her presumed late husband’s disappearance through Cameo, you’re out of luck.
