Joe Rogan - Melanie Griffith Had a Pet Lion

Melanie Griffith, like her mom Tippi Hendren was into wild animals, lions, yeah. And I think Melanie Griffith got bit or scratched as a child. Yeah, in her early teens or something like that. Oh, it was terrifying. She had to have facial reconstructive surgery. No, really? I believe so. Whoa, I never heard that. There's a movie that they shot. I knew that you lived with them. I forget the name of the movie, but they shot the movie of them interacting with the documentary about them living with big cats. Yeah, when you watch the video online, it doesn't even look real. Like, wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute. Is that real? That's really Melanie Griffith with lions and tigers and shit? Yeah. How many different cats did they have? There was a lot, right? I want to say there was five. That's the other kind of thing you just ask people. How many cats? How many big cats did Tippi Hendren and the Griffith said? Yeah, I'm looking at the article right now. Jamie's a wizard with that Google. Pull it up so we can see the photos. It's so preposterous. Look at that. Look at that. That's crazy. That's crazy. She's seeing... But look how fun that looks. Shouldn't that be the way life is? You imagine if you're a burglar and you're broken at that fucking house? Holy shit, what a mistake. Imagine you break into a house and you see a 600-pound African male lion just looking at you with that gigantic head of death. Fuck, man. The bizarre tale of Melanie Griffith and her pet lion. Do they talk about the attack? That's what I was looking for. But look at her spitting water into the big cat's mouth. She says no one in the family was ever injured by the lion. No one? By that lion? By that one. Oh. My... Neil. But Neil certainly could have killed any of them at a moment's notice. At one point, he did attack Ron Oxley, his owner, during a dinner party at his home. Fuck all of that. After Neil, the family went on to adopt numerous big cats, which resulted in a series of serious injuries. Oh! Now, 57 years old, Melanie has learned from the experience and runs a sanctuary. She runs a sanctuary for 32 big cats. Oh my God, look at that thing on the desk. That is so insane. First of all, doesn't that thing need exercise just to keep it shit together? Look at the size of that fucker. How much do you think you got to feed that guy? A lot, dude, and only meat. They're obligate carnivores. You know, they're not like a dog. Look at how tall he is in the fridge. That's a huge animal, man. That's the point where I'm like, I'm not working here anymore. It's just laying around their house. Look at the fucking muscles on that thing. And do you think they're like cats? Like, will they only shit where they're supposed to shit? Do you imagine that? They shit where they want. Like that shit's where they want, yeah. The thing about the size of this cat, I mean, this is... That's crazy. It's so big. It must be a thrill to be around something that could just kill you at any moment. And apparently, lions in particular are pretty cool with people. Yeah, that's nuts. They're playing. The lion has her by the leg. She's jumping into the pool and it's fake biting her. Fuck all of that. Fuck everything about that picture. Put that on a T-shirt with those words. Fuck all of this. Look at her right there. Look at her. They were friends, dude. They were buddies. Look how young she looked. She's a kid. She's in her teens at this point. She has a giant lion in her yard. Find the thing. They're cooler with people, apparently, than tigers. Tigers are a little sketchier. Tigers are a little sketchier. So, like, you'd have an easier time... Tonia lion. Than you would have done. Yeah. This is... I'm talking way out of school. But what I believe is the case is that male lions are mostly there to protect the pride. They're mostly there to... Yeah, they're not the hunters, right? Right. They're the bigger ones. The females do all the hunting. Look at the size of that female! Oh my God! What's going on there? It's attacking her in the movie. It's attacking her in the movie? It's in the movie, yeah. I mean, that's what the link is. Watch this close call below. So, it's biting her? I mean, it's got her mouth around the ribs. Is it actually hurting her? She doesn't look happy. I'm not showing it on the line. Whoa, this is crazy. Alright, this is fucked up. So, this was in the movie. They were freaking out that the lion was biting somebody. Yeah, it says the father refused to yell cut. Are you... This is real? Yeah. Oh my God. No blood was drawn and the lion grabbed her hair and pulled her back. So, the lion was just fucking with her. But he... But it's dangerous. She was once clawed to the face during the filming that required reconstructive surgery. That's the story that I'd heard. She was clawed to the face. Jesus. Fuck, they're so irresponsible. And, you know, there's several lions in this house. It's not just one. So, the lions are just... In their house. Yeah, the lions are just running shit. And I think they picked them. They were lions that came from like services and shit. Yeah, spent $17 million on the movie and it brought back two. Oh, let's get... Bar Muhr? Yeah. Well, after this podcast, get ready for another 50 bucks. And that's $17... How much? 1971. $17 million in 1971? Yeah. This is a nice way to launder cocaine money, son. That's what's going on there. What is that today? Like $80 million? That's a billion trillion dollars. What I was saying was I think what happens is that lions, the male lions don't hunt. They usually just eat the kill. The female lions hunt. They're doing all the hunting. But with tigers, the male lions hunt. Like, they all hunt. And they don't operate in packs. They're independent. They're rogue. Yeah. They don't operate the same way lions do. They don't have a pride. I think tigers are pretty much on their own. I think the females take care of the cubs as long as they can. But I don't think they have these big... I could be wrong. Find out if I'm wrong. But I don't think tigers operate in like that kind of a group. In a world where like I've got a miniature doction, that means that somebody genetically made that dog smaller, right? Well, when you say genetically, they're not doing it through a laboratory. They're doing it through selective breeding. And it's remarkably effective. Can you do that? I just needed that to get to this point. Can you do that with a tiger? Yes. A baby tiger? Yes. So could you... That's what happened. All house cats have come from some kind of wild cat that we turned into a domestic cat. And there's a bunch of different varieties of cats, right? The difference between cats and dogs is that all dogs come from wolves. All of them. Every one of them. Every dog. Every dog started as a wolf. Tigers do not live in permanent groups like lions do. For the most part, they live solitary lives except when females are raising cubs. Although rarely seen, the term for a group of tigers is a streak. Ooh, that's a dope word. That is. A streak of tigers, a murder of crows. That's pretty hot. That's dope. My mom used to call me tiger when I was a kid. Now I can tell her, mom, if there was another one, we'd be a streak of tigers. Tigers fuck things up, man. They all fuck things up. All the males hunt. And they're a fast fucking animal, man. Oh, what is this guy? It's on YouTube. He got fucked up. This is a movie. This is also Roar. This is the whole movie. It's on YouTube, if you like. Oh. I just randomly clicked to a spot where they happened to be attacked. And the movie is about how they have these big... What the fuck? This seems like a insane movie. It's called The Most Dangerous Movie I Ever Made. Oh my God, this guy's an idiot. And when you said... Jesus, look at these lions. The father didn't cut. That was Melanie Griffith's dad, was directing. Dude, this is crazy. They're all... These lions are fighting for dominance. And this guy is running around in between them while they're filming a shitty movie. So crazy. Look at it. It's like, fuck you, bitch. Stay out of my business. Oh my God. The lion just wanted him to know that that little tree branch was not going to stop him. Jesus Christ, this is so stupid. What's with the fucking club? Oh, they're caught up. They're cutting each other up, man. They're biting each other and fucking each other up. It's what they do, man. And this was a movie that was meant to show how... Stupid. The guy who made the movie is. What does it say? Roar is a 1981 American Adventure exploitation film, written and directed by Noel Marshall, producing, starring Marshall and his then-wife Tippi Hendren, co-starring Hendren's real-life daughter, Melanie Griffith, and Marshall's real-life sons, John and Jerry. Oh, they were a Brady Bunch-type family. The film follows a family who are attacked by a range of ravening jungle animals at the secluded home of their keeper. I always thought this was a documentary. They were literally making a movie with fucking real lions about how lions were attacking people. 70 members of its cast and crew being injured by the many predatory animals used in the film, including its main stars, sustaining life-threatening injuries, raining from bone fractures to scalpings and gangrene. Much of the footage capturing the injuries was included in the final cut of the film, resulting in real blood on screen. It has been considered the most dangerous film shoot in history. Wow. Okay, we need to do a fight companion. They had tigers as well? Oh, my God. They had leopards or jaguars. Were those jaguars or leopards? Do you know the difference? Dude, look at the tiger. The one lives in a different part of the world. He just jumped in the boat. Yeah, congratulations. They hit him in the fucking face. Well, they have to, I think. You have to get it to think who's boss. Is that a panther? Of course it is. Fuck all this. What are these people doing? You're in a boat with a tiger and now the boat's sinking. You fuck. You fuckity fuck. This is life of pie. Oh, my God. Look at that thing. It's so big. All right, we're going to save it for the companion. Oh, yeah. Jesus. One day we'll do a fight companion. Put that movie on Save It. We'll download it. Yeah, we'll do a... This week we're doing Roar. Yeah, we'll do Roar. Do you think we need trouble for that? Could we get in trouble for a fight companion for Roar? Now there's people that do things like this. Yeah, no, totally. It's what is considered commentary. We're reviewing it. Yeah, that needs to be seen. That needs to be heard. I'm completely educated. I thought it was a documentary. Me too. They were actually trying to make a narrative, a fiction narrative. I didn't even know there was a documentary. I just knew that she had lived with lions and I'd seen it in a movie. With lions and I'd seen it in a magazine article or something. And that's not even a real dad. That's her stepdad. My stepdad was fucking crazy. Could you imagine your stepdad's like... Don't show me anything, Jamie. Get in there with the lion. Don't you do this. Would you put that evil on me, Jamie? Oh my God. What is it? More of the movie. Look at all the cats in the room with her. I don't know how many. I can't count them. Dude, fuck all that. Fuck all that. People are crazy. And I'm sure the cats are confused as fuck by the rolling cameras as well. Yeah. Like what is this all about? Yeah, they're horrible. I mean, that's the cleanup crew for the world. That's what cats are. They're out there taking out as many of those fucking zebras or water buffalo or whatever they can. And so that's what they want to do all the time. And if you're just feeding them and then you just have them in a yard and they don't even do anything, like you got to exercise the fuck out of those girls to keep them from just that kill lust that's in their body. Like they evolved over millions of years to get to this point where there's this enormous, hulking, super naturally powerful animal that kills things with its face. And you just take that away from them. It's no, you're going to be in the pool with us. You're going to be in our movie. We're going to start off in this boat. Come on, hop in the boat. Now pretend to fight. And they're like, what? Pretend. Rah. And this cat is like, when the fuck do the antelope show up so I can start jacking fools? Would you agree that since you do more outdoorsy activity than me, i.e. running, i.e. you've gone hunting and stuff like that, your chances of being eaten alive are far greater than mine? Oh yeah, 100%. I mean, it's like surfers. I'm in a 0% chance in most of my life of getting eaten by a shark. But I have friends who are surfers who surf all the time and they fucking love it and they're willing to roll that dice because they like surfing that much. And I'm like, you know, you can't get bit by a shark if you don't go in the ocean. Yeah. And they're like, we've got this shark thing figured out and defeated. Just don't go in the ocean. They say it's worth it. I got to tell you, man, like there's a bunch of bad ways to die. But I always felt like the most indignity I would ever feel in death was if I was something else's food. It's one thing if I'm like, my body goes into the earth and fucking the worms and the grass and shit like that. But to be someone's fucking meal is so it's a temporary a permanent solution to a temporary problem. Your life for their meal of the moment and they're just going to shit you out in a couple hours. And that's why I think it's hard for humans to get their head around being eaten by something because like, no, I'm too special. And then they're just going to poop me out. But that would be the indignity, man. It's like, fuck, they ate me to stay alive, I guess. But then it's not like I sustained them forever. Like I sustained them for a couple of fucking hours and they shit me out. Yeah. Well, that is how it works, right? Yeah. It's very disturbing seeing images of humans that have been eaten by animals. I've never seen any and I don't want to. You don't want to. I saw this figure starting to move toward a keyboard like, no, no, no. Classic one of a body that they found that bears had eaten. And? Oh, it was horrific. It's just crazy to look at. Does it even look human anymore? I mean, you know what it is because it was still wearing sneakers and still had like half of its pants on and it's still like, you know the one? Yeah. You could see the thigh bone. I mean, the meat from the bone had been completely stripped off and it was just nothing but the thigh bone. And it's just horrific. You got to realize like those things, man, when they get a hold of you, the amount of like the amount of power that a bear could generate, like especially a grizzly bear. My friend John saw a grizzly bear kill a moose by swatting it, swat it with its paw and broke its back. A moose. I mean. Second deadliest animal on the planet. It is a big, is it really? Yeah, right after the hippo. Second deadliest? Isn't that crazy? Nobody thinks about it because when you think about the moose, you're like, oh, hey Rocky, what people do have in your mind? Hippo is the most dangerous animal to man on the planet. In terms of like how many people get killed? Mammal. Second is the moose. Wow. That's part of the deer family. That's crazy.