Loose Women extend appeal to Carole Baskin after interview no-show

Loose Women have told Carole Baskin “the door is always open” after she failed to appear for a pre-recorded interview.

Hosts Andrea McLean, Linda Robson and Denise Welch waited for 45 minutes to tape a conversation with the Tiger King star.

She was due to appear on the ITV daytime show shortly after the family of her missing ex-husband aired an appeal advert during her debut appearance on Dancing With The Stars on Monday night.

Lewis went missing six years after the couple married in 1991 and he was legally declared dead in 2002.

Baskin has repeatedly denied she had any involvement in his disappearance but during one ad break on the dancing show, his family made an appeal for anyone with information about his disappearance to come forward.

Loose Women showed footage of McLean, Robson and Welch sitting at the desk waiting for Baskin to come on the line, with Robson suggesting: “Maybe she’s been eaten by one of the cats.”

Speaking down the camera, McLean said: “We were supposed to be doing a pre-recorded interview with Carole Baskin and Denise has come all the way down from Cheshire.

“We do completely understand that obviously last night while doing Dancing With The Stars it must have been quite an unnerving experience for you and then the following day to have to come on to British television knowing that we were going to be asking you those questions but we want to say to you that the door is always open here and you are always welcome to come on Loose Women and just have a conversation.”

She added: “She is obviously in America and the team were trying and trying and trying to get through to her and we just couldn’t make contact so I was making reference there to the fact she had done Dancing With The Stars and we know how nerve-wracking that is but it wasn’t just Dancing With The Stars that may have spooked her a little bit, there was an advert shown during Dancing With The Stars which basically involved the family of her former husband.”

She added: “So that explained to us in theory why she perhaps didn’t show up for our exclusive UK interview with her but we did manage to track her down.

“It caused a transatlantic search but eventually Carole got in touch with us, she emailed us last night and said ‘I’m so sorry, I screwed up my ever changing schedule, my phone is ringing off the hook with people being supportive or wanting interviews but I just don’t know where, hour to hour, Dancing With The Stars is going to want me and that has to be my priority.'”

The show then attempted to contact Baskin again, but with no luck and McLean repeated her appeal, saying: “The door is always open to have a chat with us.”