The family of Carole Baskin’s missing ex-husband aired an appeal advert during her debut appearance on Dancing With The Stars on Monday night.

Carole – who shot to fame earlier this year when she appeared in the hit series Tiger King – married Don Lewis in 1991, and he went missing six years later.

Don was later declared legally dead in 2002, with the big cat enthusiast repeatedly denying claims that she was involved in his disappearance or death, including on camera in the Netflix documentary.

On Monday night, Carole made her first appearance on Dancing With The Stars, and during one ad break, Don’s family made an appeal for anyone with information about his disappearance to come forward. 

After emotional messages from his daughters, Gale, Lynda and Donna, a family lawyer then said: “Don Lewis mysteriously disappeared in 1997. His family deserves answers; they deserve justice. Do you know who did this or if Carole Baskin was involved?”

A reward of $100,000 (£77,800) has also been offered.

In a statement issued to Metro, Carole later said: “Someone (a reporter I won’t name) made sure that I knew about it 10 minutes before going out on the dance floor tonight and you can see that it did not keep me from bringing the best performance of my two weeks of learning.”

Carole is one of 15 famous faces competing on the current season of Dancing With The Stars, with rapper Nelly, Desperate Housewives star Jesse Metcalfe, Selling Sunset’s Chrishell Stause and Cheer coach Monica Aldama also among the contestants.

For her first routine of the new run, Carole and partner Pasha Pashkov performed a Paso Doble to Eye Of The Tiger (obviously), but came in at the bottom of the leaderboard with just 11 points.

The UK version of the show – Strictly Come Dancing – is set to debut on BBC One in October, with the 12 celebrities taking part having now been revealed.

Watch Carole Baskin’s debut performance on Dancing With The Stars below: