Dancing With The Stars: Carole Baskin calls advert about missing ex-husband a ‘publicity stunt’

Carole Baskin says she was “not surprised” after an advert about her missing ex-husband aired during her Dancing With The Stars debut.

The animal rights activist, who rose to fame on Netflix docuseries Tiger King, made her first appearance on the competition series on Monday (14 September) with a paso doble to “Eye Of The Tiger”.

However, her performance was interrupted by a paid-for advert from the family of her second husband Don Lewis, who declared their intention to reward $100,000 (£80,000) to any individual with answers about his disappearance in 1997.

Throughout Tiger King, Baskin was accused of killing Lewis and feeding his body to tigers. Baskin has always denied any involvement in Lewis’s disappearance and is not a suspect or person of interest in the ongoing case.

Speaking to Entertainment Tonight, Baskin said that she hadn’t seen the advert but was “not at all surprised” by its existence.

"It's just been a huge publicity stunt on their part so what more could they possibly do than that,” she said.

In a separate response to Metro.co.uk, Baskin revealed that she was told about the trailer running just 10 minutes before she took to the dance floor, adding: “You can see that it did not keep me from bringing the best performance of my two weeks of learning.”

The advert starred Lewis’s three daughters, Gale, Lynda and Donna, as well as Lewis’s former assistant. All four appeared in the original Tiger King documentary.

John M Phillips, the family’s attorney, says in the advert that Lewis’s family “deserves answers and they deserve justice”, asking: “Do you know who did this or whether Carole Baskin was involved?”

Earlier this month, a new witness came forward with possible information about the night Lewis went missing.