Sam Barnett told various media outlets he was flying in two Sumatran tigers from the private US zoo featured on the Netflix smash hit Tiger King, formerly run by "Joe Exotic", who was last year jailed for 22 years for hiring a hitman to take out his rival and killing five of the animals.

But The West Australian reported on Wednesday that Jeff Lowe, who now owns Greater Wynnewood Exotic Animal Park in Oklahoma, had never spoken to Mr Barnett, a self-proclaimed multi-millionaire property developer.

"You're being played by this guy ... he has never purchased tigers from us," Mr Lowe said in a video uploaded to the publisher's website.

"So Sam Barnett pull your head out of your ass.

"Stop lying, dude - get a life."

Mr Barnett then told AAP he had made up the tiger story as a publicity stunt to promote a three-part British pay TV documentary Wild Man about his legal woes from bitter relationship break-ups, which he says is earning him "six figures" and will be broadcast in the UK in November.

"We just jumped on the bandwagon," he said on Wednesday.

"Where the story came undone, I foolishly said the tigers were going to come in July."

Mr Barnett said plans to build a private, conservation-focused wildlife park in Kununurra were "well underway" but on hold during the pandemic due to quarantine complexities for people handling the animals.

"This might be two years away now."

He said there would be no tigers and no crocodiles.

"We're going to give up on any animal that can kill you."

Instead, he says he's seeking herbivores including Grevy's zebras, buffalo, oryx and even orangutans.

He doesn't quite regret name-dropping the Netflix show.

"The media has had it out for me for years so they're the butt of the jokes this time," Mr Barnett said.

"I've had so much bad publicity (but) I'm at least getting paid for that."

In an interview with AAP last year, which Mr Barnett says inspired the docu-series, he cited former tycoon Warren Anderson - who amassed a collection of around 2000 exotic animals at Tipperary Station in the Northern Territory over 15 years - as a major influence for the wildlife park proposal.

The fate of those animals after Mr Anderson was forced to sell the massive property due to financial problems in 2003 largely remains a mystery, although Mary River Australian Safaris in the NT confirmed it bought "quite a few".

Mr Barnett's father had similar dreams, announcing a plan to build a public "open range" zoo in Perth's Swan Valley months before the Liberal party's thumping election loss in 2017 to Labor, which immediately canned the idea.

Australian Associated Press