Banged up Joe Exotic, the eccentric zoo keeper from the hit show Tiger King, has written to Donald Trump pleading for a pardon.
He has been doing time for nearly five years when he was found guilty of animal abuse and his role in a failed murder-for-fire plot on his nemesis Carol Baskin — something he has always denied.
Joe isn’t due to be released until 2036, but back in 2020, the last time Trump was in office, the then-president hinted he might let him out. Joe was so convinced it would happen, it was reported he had a limo waiting for him outside the prison.
However, the zookeeper was broken when he found he had been left off that year’s pardon list. (Maybe it was because old Donald felt a connection with the Tigers Joe was found guilty of abusing, being the same colour.)
(Image: Facebook)
Things got even more hopeless when Trump was booted out of the White House and replaced with a very different Joe — someone who had no plans at all to let the caged king out.
Now Trump is back, well, almost — and Joe has wasted no time in reminding him of what was suggested.
So could he soon be released? Only time will tell. For now, here is a timeline of the Tiger King’s time behind bars at FMC Fort Worth…
In 2021, Joe revealed that he had been diagnosed with prostate cancer and in 2023 doctors expected it had spread to his bladder. He told his loyal fans on the outside that he was going to refuse further treatment.
In May 2022, Joe filed for divorce with husband Dillon Passage and also revealed he has found a new man called John Graham and wanted the divorce to come through so John and he could get married.
(Image: AFP via Getty Images)
It was also revealed around that time that he was in $80m (£63m) debt.
In classic Joe Exotic fashion, things got even crazier, when in September 2023, he wrote a letter to Joe Burrow, the highest-paid player in the NFL, to complain about his nickname —Tiger King.
In the letter, he wrote: “I see the news, magazines as well as yourself calling you ‘the Tiger King’,” Everyone in the world is exploiting me and my trademarks while I sit innocent in an American Federal Prison. I have been the Tiger King since before you got out of high school.
“Tiger King is my trademark and intellectual property. My life has been destroyed, my parents have died and I continue to fight cancer and two incurable diseases while you all ride fame and attention off my life’s hard work.”
He even asked the American footballer for money to help pay his lawyer fees.
(Image: Sunday Mirror/Andy Stenning)
Throughout this time, the cancer is said to have gone into remission, but this year, sadly, doctors were worried it might have come back, this time, in his lung. There hasn’t been an update on his health for some time.
But there is happy news as well for Joe, as just last month he announced he is getting married. No. Not to John, but to a new, new man — 33-year-old Jorge Marquez.
Joe said: “He is so amazing and is from Mexico. Now, the quest of getting married in prison and getting him asylum or we (will) be leaving America when we both get out.
“Either way, I wish I would have met him long ago.”
Trump will be sworn in to office on Inauguration day on 20 January 2025 and it will then be a waiting game for the Tiger King.
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Source: Celebrities - dailystar.co.uk
