If you grew up in the 2000s chances are ‘I’m a Slave 4 U’ featured on your playlist. Heck, it was probably right up there with OutKast’s ‘Hey Ya’, 50 Cent’s ‘In Da Club’ and Eminem‘s ‘Lose Yourself’. Now imagine those two world’s colliding with 2020’s biggest Netflix hit Tiger King. Yup, this is 100% real news.
Way back when in 2001, Britney Spears performed her hit number ‘I’m a Slave 4 U’ at the Video Music Awards. While most remember the pop star clad in a python, gyrating away to the tunes. But little did people realise that Spears also arrived on stage in a cage with a tiger handled by non other than Bhagavan Doc Antle, the animal trainer who featured throughout the series.
Don’t believe us? Here’s proof.
While everyone remembers Spears holding and dancing with the massive Burmese python that was a beautiful summery yellow, not everyone remembers the start of the performance when she’s in a rotating cage with a tiger and Doc Antle as the handler.
Here’s a video of the two before the performance:
Britney and Doc Antle meeting in 2001 pic.twitter.com/wzl7SdEyjJ
— Rob Thee Britney Stan (@Robin_H00d) March 30, 2020
Antle discussed the experience in a 2015 video interview with Rolling Stone.
“She was a golden child for that,” he said of Spears. “She had to climb into a cage and dance with a big, adult tiger. Big adult tiger’s in there. It’s just an arms-width wide cage.”
For those who haven’t seen the show, Antle is the ponytail-wearing, elephant-riding, owner of Myrtle Beach Safari, who parades his girlfriends on the show and talks about running a real animal “sanctuary”.
“Tiger King,” a seven-episode true-crime series on Netlfic that takes a hard look at the life of Joe Exotic (Joseph Schreibvogel), a man who loved big cats, guns and explosives and his rivary with Carole Baskin who runs Big Cat Rescue in Florida.
Watch Britney Spears’ full 2001 VMA performance:
