Joe Exotic just got engaged to a fellow prison inmate half his age: ‘I wish I’d met him long ago’
Tiger King’s Joe Exotic has announced his engagement to a fellow prison inmate.
Joe Exotic, who is gay, is serving a 21-year jail sentence after being convicted on numerous charges in 2019, including conspiracy to commit murder, having tried to hire hit men to kill bisexual wildlife activist Carole Baskin.
He has always denied the accusations, and his lawyers said he was not being serious after he was caught in an FBI sting.
He was previously married to Dillon Passage, who filed for divorce in March 2021, having already announced that the two had split up following Exotic’s imprisonment. The divorce was finalised in January 2023.
But now, Exotic, who announced his presidential bid in May, having shared a transphobia-riddled campaign on social media in 2023, has found love again.
@pinknews Joe Exotic, otherwise known as the ‘Tiger King’, has announced his engagement to a fellow prison inmate. On Monday 28 October, Joe took to X to share a picture of his new fiance, 33 year old prison inmate Jorge Marquez from Mexico. However, Joe explained that the wedding might prove difficult for the pair. He wrote: ‘Now, the quest of getting married in prison and getting him asylum or we be leaving America when we both get out.’ The Tiger King signed off the post with ‘Either way, I wish I would have met him long ago.’ #joeexotic #tigerking #carolebaskin #prison #samesexmarriage🏳️🌈🏳️🌈 ♬ vlog, chill out, calm daily life(1370843) – SUNNY HOOD STUDIO
Exotic took to X/Twitter on Tuesday (29 October) to share a photo of him and new fiancé, 33-year-old Jorge Marquez, who is from Mexico.
Sixty-one-year-old Exotic, whose real name is Joseph Maldonado, admitted that a wedding might prove difficult for the pair. “Now, the quest of getting married in prison and getting him asylum or we [will] be leaving American when we both get out” he wrote. “Either way, I wish I would have met him long ago.”
He shot to fame in the Netflix documentary which followed the rivalry between his zoo and a big-cat sanctuary run by Baskin. In 2021, he was diagnosed with prostate cancer, but is now in remission.
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