12/4/2002
Howard: "I'm waiting for the day Siegfried & Roy get attacked by those tigers. I know they're gonna. They're gonna be mauled. And I'm gonna love it. Because they shouldn't have tigers in their house."
10/3/2003
During a show at the Mirage on October 3, 2003, on his 59th birthday, Roy Horn was attacked by a 7-year old, 400-pound, white tiger named Mantacore. After being introduced, Mantacore went to the front of the stage towards the audience, not as planned, and Horn tried to move him into place. After Mantacore bit into Horn's sleeve, Horn bopped the tiger on the nose with the microphone saying "no, no", and the tiger eventually released the grip. As Horn retreated, the tiger leapt at him, knocking him down. Mantacore then bit into Horn's neck and dragged him offstage, growling. Horn was finally released after trainers discharged a fire extinguisher to distract the tiger and jammed index fingers into its mouth. Horn barely survived; he suffered a stroke (either before or after the attack), severed his spine, lost a lot of blood and had permanent impairment to his motor and verbal abilities including partial paralysis on the left side of his body. The video of the attack taken by the theater cameras was never publicly released. While en-route to the hospital, Horn defended Mantacore, stating that he is “a great cat”, and wanted no harm to be done to the tiger; Horn claimed that Mantacore was actually trying to help him after the stroke. The show, which had a staff of 267 cast and crew members, was then shut down.
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