Before he was an investor and frenemy to "Tiger King" Joe Exotic, Jeff Lowe lived for years in the Lansing area, where he was mauled by a cougar and clashed with local officials over his pet lion.

Lowe is a prominent figure in the documentary "Tiger King," currently the most-watched show on Netflix, but he began stirring controversy decades prior.

In 1988, for instance, Lowe's cougar, Rambo, escaped and killed a neighbor's collie near St. Johns. The Clinton County Sheriff's Office ended up shooting and killing the 150-pound cougar with Lowe's permission, according to a newspaper article.

"He could have been let out or he could have busted out," Lowe said at the time. "He had always been very content to stay in that cage."

Records: Jeff Lowe grew up in Lansing area

The purported multimillionaire, now in his mid-50s, was born to Janice and Jerry Lee Lowe in the 1960s and grew up just southeast of DeWitt, according to public records and newspaper archives.

Lowe now oversees the Greater Wynnewood Exotic Animal Park in Oklahoma with his wife, Lauren, and his brushes with claws and fangs have been frequent.

But, as a baby in Lansing, it appears he had a different sort of near miss involving office supplies.

Another Lansing celebrity: Burt Reynolds lived in Lansing as a child. In 1987, he came back for an MSU football game.

Baby Lowe survives near miss with staple

His mother called 911 after she thought Lowe, while crawling on the floor, might have picked up a staple and put it his mouth. An address in a 1966 Lansing State Journal article about the incident matches an address listed in public records for Lowe's parents.

X-rays later revealed the 19-month-old Lowe hadn't swallowed the staple after all.

The Lansing State Journal greeted the news with a bold-text headline: "Safe!"

Lowe seems to have attended high school in Lansing and appears in a 1981 yearbook photo for the junior class at Eastern High School available through classmates.com.

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Mauled by another cougar, Sadie, while cat sitting

Less than a year after his cougar killed the dog, Lowe, then 24 years old, was mauled by another cougar while cat sitting and got 40 stitches in August 1989.

The Lowes said the 70-pound cougar, named Sadie, belonged to a friend who had recently moved into an apartment.

Lowe's now-ex-wife Kathy told the Lansing State Journal they let Sadie roam freely in their basement, describing the 3-year-old cat as "friendly and calm."

But after the mauling, Kathy asked the friend to come get the animal, saying she "didn't care" what the owner did to the big cat.

Lowe complained neighbors were hostile to his lion

Lowe made the local news once more in January 1990 when he requested a permit to keep his lion, a female named Rajah, at his home in rural Greenbush Township.

After Lowe's cougar killed the collie, Clinton County had created a policy requiring people to obtain special permits in order to keep exotic animals as pets.

At the time, Lowe told a reporter he didn't have a permanent cage for the 325-pound lion, which he described as gentle. He blamed area residents for objecting to his choice of pet.

"We thought we had moved far enough into the country to avoid neighbor problems, but St. Johns people are too set in their ways," Lowe said prior to a planning commission hearing.

Neighbors told the State Journal they didn't have a problem with him owning the lion until the feline got out of its cage, which apparently happened in December 1989.

Charles Sherman, a longtime Clinton County prosecutor, did not recall interacting with Lowe, although he did remember the lion escaping.

“The lion got loose and everybody was like, 'Are you kidding me, you can just have a lion?”' Sherman remembered.

Clinton County denied request to keep lion as pet

County commissioners ultimately denied Lowe's request for a permit.

Lowe pledged to appeal to Clinton County Circuit Court, vowing to keep the lion while the case went on. There's nothing in online court records to indicate he followed through with the appeal.

Lowe moved to a house on Lansing's southwest side in the early 1990s, which he sold for $120,000 in April 1998, property records show. The sale coincided with his move to South Carolina, records indicate.

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Contact reporter Megan Banta at mbanta@lsj.com. Follow her on Twitter @MeganBanta_1. Contact reporter Sarah Lehr at slehr@lsj.com. Follow her on Twitter @SarahGLehr. Phil Friend contributed reporting.