In the plot twist nobody saw coming, the tiger wrangler from Britney Spears’ legendary Slave 4 U performance was none other than Doc Antle from Tiger King. (Kevin Kane/WireImage via Getty Images/Jeff Kravitz/FilmMagic via Getty Images)
Considering that he only hangs with the cool cats and kittens of the world, tiger wrangler Doc Antle from Netflix’s Tiger King: Murder, Mayhem and Madness was booked by socialist, sprinter and singer Britney Spears in 2001.
Spears has been labouring to keep herself relevant during the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, whether it’s providing financial aid for those impacted by the crisis, rallying for workers of the world to unite and break their chains or defying the speed of light and running faster than Usain Bolt.
In today’s episode, turns out that when Spear stepped out onto the VMAs stage bearing a python named Banana, she was also casually joined by Doc Antle and his tiger.
And just when you thought that 2020 could not get any more dizzyingly specific and oddly coherent.
This year has truly outdone itself, bravo, now please give us a moment’s rest. Please.
Britney Spears casually hangs out with Tiger King cast.
Anyway, New York-based writer Evan Katz did his duty in informing the world, nay, the multiverse itself, about Antle’s place in the pop culture history books.
“Call the police,” he wrote on Instagram Monday morning, showing behind-the-scenes snaps of Spears and Antle with a screen capture from the docu-series for comparison.
In fact, squint your eyes on photographs taken during the performance and you can see a blurry, low-resolution Antle with the tiger in the cage. Even after breaking out of the cage, he was doing just fine.
But Katz was forced to ring local law enforcement a second time, when he took to Twitter to not only amplify Antle, but how Spears once sat next to fellow Tiger King star, Carole Baskin.
Call the police. pic.twitter.com/RYjUl8layu
— Ξvan Ross Katz (@evanrosskatz) March 30, 2020
The animal rights advocate – wearing her signature leopard print – sat next to Spears, who well and truly was dressed to destroy the bourgeoisie, at the 2002 VMA awards.
Baskin runs the Big Cat Rescue in Tampa, Florida with her husband Howard Baskin.