Tiger King’s Doc Antle calls Britney Spears the ‘sweetest young girl’ while working on VMAs

Social media went wild this week after eagle-eyed fans spotted Tiger King star Doc Bhagavan Antle appearing as a tiger handler in Britney Spears’ epic performance of I’m a Slave 4 U at the 2001 MTV Video Music Awards.

Antle reflected fondly on working with the 38-year-old, who he called ‘such a darling’ during an interview with Entertainment Tonight on Thursday, which he did via webcam due to COVID-19 self-quarantining. 

Following the meteoric success of Netflix’s Tiger King, vintage photos began resurfacing showing exotic animal handler tending to an enormous chained tiger as a scantily clad Britney prepared to take the stage nearly 20 years ago. 

‘She was such a darling, totally just a fanatic person wanting a perfect performance,’ Doc told ET’s Lauren Zima. ‘

We were there for several days rehearsing so that the tigers would be relaxed and happy to be out there and that everything could be smooth and taken care of as best as possible. 

He added: ‘She was there rehearsing and working — just the hardest working, sweetest young girl, out there making all the pieces click together.’

Doc said that Spears hadn’t be east to visit The Institute for Greatly Endangered and Rare Species (T.I.G.E.R.S.) or his Myrtle Beach Safari – but she has an open invitation and is welcome at anytime.

Viewers who sat riveted to Tiger King over the last few weeks shouldn’t be too surprised to see Doc on stage with Spears back in the day. 

Over the years, the exotic animal guru’s work with big cats has led to production credits on a string of music videos and blockbuster films.

As well as assisting with wild animals on Ace Ventura: Pet Detective, Mighty Joe Young and The Jungle Book, he has also worked with artists such as Ashanti, P. Diddy and Janet Jackson. 

There have also been separate appearances on a host of mainstream talk shows, among them The Tonight Show with Jay Leno and Late Night with David Letterman.

When asked what was running through his head while on stage with the worlds biggest pop star at the VMAs back in the early 2000s, doc replied that he wasn’t worried. 

‘I have total confidence in that tiger. I knew him since he was a baby,’ Doc said, recalling his thinking at the time. ‘He’s about seven years old right there [and at the] peak of his game. A super macho, aggressive male tiger. 

‘That’s the tiger that you go somewhere like that with because he cares less about the fireworks, the gas explosions, the banging music. He’s totally concerned with just holding his own and being cool.’ 

Before the I’m a Slave 4 U performance, Doc recollected that the whole Spears family had spent some downtime with the tigers, adding that they had a particularly ‘grand time’ with the cubs.

As for the safety of the legendary Miss Britney Spears, Antle said that the tiger was very familiar with working with women due to the number of female trainers at his park.

‘He’d always met women in his life — because there’s so many women trainers that raised him from a cub and hung out with him — so he just thought Britney was one more friend,’ he told ET. 

Adding: ‘[Britney] petted him and was hugging on him and hanging out there with him.’ 

After the release of Tiger King, Antle caught a fair amount of backlash for all those female trainers that he mentioned, as it had been suggested they were part of his ‘harem.’ 

Bhagavan’s former employee Barbara ‘Bala’ Fisher made ‘outrageous’ claims he has multiple wives and a harem of groomed girlfriends, including herself at one point.

‘This is a girl who was a part-time babysitter here,’ Doc told TMX News.

‘She came in, watched my kids, got pregnant, moved off to marry the gentleman she got pregnant from. I only knew her for that short time. She went away. A year later, she came back, taught school for my kids a little bit, played around the edges of it. She was never a tiger trainer, never a tiger person.’

Antle never remarried after his wife, who was the mother of his son Kody and daughter, died 25 years ago.

‘I have girlfriends. I’m a single guy – just massive judgmentalness of somehow I’m not supposed to have girlfriends or something is just off my rocker here how they got to this point,’ Bhagavan explained.

‘The girls that they’re showing throughout the facility, these are the girls who are the wives of staff who live here. These are my grandchildren. These are my grandchildren’s fiancée. This is my son’s fiancée. This is a variety of ladies who devote their time here, they are part of the team.

‘And the team is half men. Did you see any men in the series? They cut them all out to make it appear this is a girl place. This is a boy place. The star is my son and my grandson. There are lovely hardworking girls here that take care of this facility and they are stars in their own right.’