Roy Of Siegfried And Roy Mauled By Tiger: Shockwaves Felt Throughout World Of Bad Taste
Can you imagine what it must’ve been like last night to be in the audience at the Mirage when that fucking white tiger attacked Roy? MAN. That’s some imagery those people aren’t going to be able to shake in this lifetime. Unbelievable stuff. The descriptions I’ve heard make it sound like the first five minutes of a “Six Feet Under” episode.
There’s still no concrete word out of Vegas as to how likely it is that Roy will survive, but this is some thought-provoking stuff, any way you look at it. On one hand, you have this guy who spent an entire career fucking with very dangerous animals to achieve fame and amuse others. A lot of people will say “he had it coming”, and from one point of view, he may have. This guy played with fire the same way Dale Earnhardt used to every time he’d fuck with someone in another car to get himself or a team member ahead in a race, and when you live by the sword…y’all know the rest.
On the other hand, I’m reasonably sure that, regardless of how mediocre their quality of life is, some of those tigers wouldn’t be alive if it weren’t for Roy and his fruitcake of a partner. Had they not taken either the animals themselves, or their relatives out of the wild, those poor things would be hanging on the wall of some poacher somewhere, more than likely. The world’s not a very safe place for any exotic animal these days, and anything as exotic as a white tiger has a bullseye target painted on it from day one. Perhaps that’s a more honorable existence, perhaps not. Not sure if it’s for any of us to judge, really.
We’re also talking about a guy (Roy) who undoubtedly has some family and friends who’ll miss him if he goes, or have to endure a long, stressful recovery process if he doesn’t. They probably had some idea of the risks involved, and some of them might not have been great fans of what he was doing with these animals, but still, he’s someone’s friend, relative, what have you. You could make that point about Hitler or Jeffrey Dahmer or Martha Stewart, though.
I’m really not quite sure of much about all this, aside from the one near-certainty here: unfortunately, because of this guy’s somewhat risky and foolhardy routine going horribly wrong, there’s going to be one less white tiger in the world very soon. I can’t see that animal being kept alive for much longer the way this world works, and that’s the real shame in this.