Tiger King’s Joe Exotic has apparently tied the knot behind bars.
The Netflix true-crime documentary subject, 62, shared a post via X on Monday, April 21, seemingly announcing the news.
“Never been more proud of someone. Meet my husband, Jorge Flores Maldonado,” Exotic, real name Joseph Maldonado-Passage, wrote alongside a digitally-altered photo of him and his new husband, né Jorge Marquez, in matching tuxedos.
Exotic is currently serving a 21-year federal prison sentence at Federal Medical Center in Fort Worth, Texas, over an alleged murder-for-hire plot involving rival Carole Baskin.
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Exotic first shared news of his engagement to his fellow prisoner in October 2024. “Meet Jorge Marquez … he is 33. He is so amazing and is from Mexico,” Exotic shared via X at the time. “Now, the quest of getting married in prison and getting him asylum or we be leaving America when we both get out. Either way, I wish I would have met him long ago.”
In a telephone interview with Entertainment Weekly that same month, Exotic confirmed the engagement. “We filed our official papers for the marriage license from the prison yesterday, so we’re just waiting for an approval. He has picked out December 12 as the date we’re hoping to get this approved by,” Exotic said, telling the outlet that their application had to be approved “by the warden and psychiatry and the chaplain” before obtaining a marriage license.
“We love each other very much, spend every minute of the day together,” Exotic added.
Exotic was previously married to Travis Maldonado, who died from an accidental self-inflicted gunshot wound in October 2017 at the age of 23. Exotic married Dillon Passage two months after Maldonado’s death.
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Exotic and Passage separated in 2020, and Passage announced his intention to divorce the following year. “To answer the main question the public wants to know, yes, Joe and I are seeking a divorce. This wasn’t an easy decision to make but Joe and I both understand that this situation isn’t fair to either of us. It’s something that neither of us were expecting but we are going to take it day by day,” Passage wrote via Instagram in March 2021.
In March 2022, Exotic’s lawyer, Autumn Beck Blackledge, confirmed to People that the incarcerated former zookeeper had filed for divorce.
In an exclusive interview with Us Weekly in November 2024, Exotic said he is still hopeful that his conviction will be overturned and he will be freed.
“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.”
