Joseph “Joe Exotic” Maldonado-Passage became a household name in 2020 when Netflix’s Tiger King was all anyone could talk about. Now, the documentary star is waiting to see what’s next.
The 61-year-old is currently incarcerated at the Federal Medical Center in Fort Worth, Texas. Come 2025, however, he might be a free man once again if the court overturns his conviction for an alleged murder-for-hire plot on rival Carole Baskin.
“My biggest goal is not only to get out of here and move on and live a life,” Maldonado-Passage told Us Weekly exclusively about his plans if released next year. “I want to testify in front of Congress about the prison and justice system [and] what really goes on in here.”
Life for Maldonado-Passage right now is “tough,” he admitted to Us.
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“I’m in a medical facility. Part of the roof is missing, and we have plastic bags above our beds taped to the ceiling to guide water out the window. In the last week, I caught 15 rats on sticky boards under my bed. Now 140 of us have scabies,” the Tiger King star shared. “I run a soup kitchen in here. That’s something Carole and nobody [else] can take away from me, that I gave back to society.”
It’s been four years since Tiger King became a sensation, but Maldonado-Passage recently watched the docuseries for the first time — and he wasn’t too thrilled.
“We’re working on a lawsuit, so the prison let my lawyers come in with it on a computer. I was disgusted with the way [director] Eric Goode portrayed [the situation],” he shared to Us. “Carole and I never had a deadly fight going on — it was blown out of proportion. I never saw Carole’s face until my trial.”
Drama aside, Maldonado-Passage is looking forward to putting anything with Baskin behind him. “I don’t want that to define [me] anymore,” he said.
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While nothing is guaranteed, Maldonado-Passage — who is dealing with a pretty serious health battle — said that he is hopeful to be released next year.
“My prostate cancer is in remission, [but] they believe I have cancer in my left lung. I have to take it as it comes,” he said. “I still have faith that I’m going to walk out of here — I just need to live for the next five or six months and hope for the best.”
As for what Maldonado-Passage misses the most?
“My music, my nonprofit stuff that I did with sick kids, and feeding the homeless on Thanksgiving and Christmas,” he admitted. “That was my life. I did that my whole life.”
