Last March, Siegfried & Roy's animal handler Chris Lawrence discussed the human error that triggered the incident and the story he believes was concocted to protect the legendary illusionists
Up close, deadly close, a tiger's scent is "piss and pheromones," says Chris Lawrence. While it's a uniquely pungent thing, it can smell a bit like burnt buttered popcorn, or maybe a whiff of a truck's muffler. You never forget it.
Yet Lawrence — a figure central to the story, now speaking for the first time — says the official narrative of the night put out by the show isn't what really happened. He contends it was a version shaped by the illusionists to protect the brand, save face and cover up for a series of onstage handling errors made by Horn.
Lawrence is speaking out now for several reasons. For one, he's anxious about the factual accuracy of a biopic the pair have announced, which will reportedly deal with the attack. For another, he long has been frustrated that the USDA neglected to secure his testimony during its investigation.
Today, the Siegfried & Roy brand's remaining link to the public is its Secret Garden complex, a small zoo on the grounds of the Mirage that opened in 1997 while the show was in its prime. Visitors can still see lions, tigers and leopards lazily sunning themselves. Lawrence worked long hours at the facility when not on performance duty.
For his 59th birthday performance that night, Horn had considered using a new cub, which he thought might be cute. But given that the evening's audience was filled with Horn's friends, Lawrence persuaded him to employ Mantacore, considered one of the most impressive cats because of his size and experience. "This moment haunts me to my core and plagues me with overwhelming guilt," says Lawrence.
At this point, by Lawrence's recollection, Horn made a crucial error — one thus far omitted from the post-tragedy narrative. "What Roy did was, instead of walking Mantacore in a circle, as is usually done, he just used his arm to steer him right back into his body, in a pirouette motion," he says. "Mantacore's face was right in [Horn's] midsection. By Roy not following the correct procedure, it fed into confusion and rebellion.
Mantacore sat, fixed on Horn. Lawrence squatted behind the cat, speaking to him while patting his hindquarters and attempting to divert his focus by emptying the entire pound of 1-inch cubed cut steak out of the treat pocket in his pants onto the stage. No luck. The cat, with his target no longer in view, calmed down almost immediately, returning to his kennel for a routine dinner. "Once the incident was over," Lawrence says, "Mantacore went right back to his normal self." Horn was taken to a local hospital for what would be extensive surgical treatment.-like view, with dozens of conflicting accounts from staffers and audience members. Various faultfinding theories were investigated.
The agency's documentation separately shows through reprinted correspondence that Horn's lawyer and the show's producer, Feld Entertainment — which also long owned Ringling Bros. — were resistant to efforts to share the Mirage's video footage of the incident. Lawrence asserts that what he believes to be a "romanticized" cover story — that Horn had a stroke onstage and Mantacore tragically attempted to save him, when in truth Horn stroked out as a result of the attack — was conjured of public-relations necessity but also of understandable mercy toward Horn, whose own actions led to personal tragedy.
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