Carole Baskin’s ‘DWTS’ Debut Interrupted by Commercial Made by Family of Her Missing Ex-Husband Don Lewis

Carole Baskin's highly-anticipated first appearance on “Dancing With the Stars” Monday night was interrupted with a commercial featuring the family of her missing ex-husband, millionaire Don Lewis, who vanished without a trace 23 years ago.

In the ad, which ran in Tampa and Jacksonville, Florida, Lewis’s family pleads with viewers to come forward with any information about what may have happened to Lewis, including whether Baskin was involved.

“His family deserves answers, they deserve justice,” their attorney John M. Phillips said in the commercial. “Do you know who did this, or if Carole Baskin was involved?”

Lewis’s daughters claim their former stepmother has withheld information since the day their dad went missing. They’re offering a $100,000 reward to find “who murdered” him.

“People are going to be watching, especially in the Tampa market,” Phillips told Inside Edition. “Let’s reach them, let’s let them know that, yeah, we’ve got these shenanigans going on and this dance show. But at the core there’s still a family that’s missing their dad.”

The ads cost them $6,500 total, which Phillips called “well-served.”

Baskin, the owner of "Big Cat Rescue" in Florida, made headlines when she appeared on the massively popular Netflix show "Tiger King," which profiled private zoo operator Joseph Maldonado-Passage, aka "Joe Exotic." The show featured an intense feud between the two and fueled speculation that Baskin had something to do with Lewis's vanishing.

Baskin has repeatedly denied any involvement in Lewis's disappearance and has never been named a suspect. 

As for Baskin's debut performance to the song “Eye of the Tiger,” she received the lowest scores of the night, with just 11 points out of 30.

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