Tiger King’s Joe Exotic ‘marries’ fellow prison inmate

Posted on by Samantha

Tiger King’s Joe Exotic has sparked confusion after announcing that he is now married to a fellow prison inmate using an AI-generated image.

Exotic, born Joseph Maldonado, 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.

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 vehemently denied the accusations, and his lawyers said he was not being serious after he was caught in an FBI sting.

Exotic, 62, who announced his engagement last year, has claimed to have married 33-year-old Jorge Marquez, who is from Mexico. 

“Never been more proud of someone,” he wrote on X on Monday (21 April). “Meet my husband Jorge Flores Maldonado.”

However, Exotic admitted on the social media site that the images used in the announcement were AI-generated, but has adamantly claimed via the comments on his post that the ceremony did take place in prison. 

In a statement to PinkNews, Joe Exotic claimed that while there was not a “wedding” ceremony, the pair were wed by attorneys “by proxy” five months ago.

The pair met behind bars at the Federal Medical Centre in Fort Worth, Texas. Exotic previously spoke about the difficulty of planning a wedding whilst incarcerated. 

“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.”

Exotic also told Fox News in November that they had completed the marriage paperwork, but feared that their sexuality might inhibit them from being able to tie the knot. 

“Heterosexuals get married in here all day long,” he told the outlet. “But I’m hoping that they respect our constitutional right, and we will still uphold and abide by the rules and the law.”

He also spoke about their relationship. “From the very day we met, we’ve spent every minute of every day together,” he said. 

“And it just clicked so fast and so sincere, and it’s amazing. I wished I would have met Jorge months ago or a couple of years ago, but God had a plan, I guess.”

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