Jailed 'Tiger King' star engaged to fellow inmate Joe Exotic: 'I wish I'd met him a long time ago'
Time to cell-abrate.
“Tiger King” star Joe Exotic – who is serving a 21-year federal prison sentence – has revealed that he is engaged to a fellow inmate who he hopes to marry behind bars in December.
“Meet Jorge Marquez he's 33. He's so amazing and from Mexico,” the Netflix star, 61, posted on his X account Monday along with a photo of him and his jailbird.
“Now, marriage in prison and search for asylum or we both leave America when we get out. Either way, I wish I had met him a long time ago.
This will be his third marriage.
The convicted felon, whose real name is Joseph Maldonado-Passage, married Dillon Passage in December 2017, just two months after Exotic's previous husband, Travis Maldonado, died in a self-inflicted, accidental shooting.
The docuseries stars separated in 2020 and filed for divorce the following year.
“We love each other so much, spend every minute of the day together,” Exotic told Entertainment Weekly about her new beau.
“I've been through some s–t in my days. I buried two husbands, the third ran off with $2.6 million from Netflix and left my ass here, but George is a very amazing young man.”
Exotic told the outlet that she has applied for their marriage license and hopes the jail warden will allow them to tie the knot on December 12.
The former zookeeper is currently incarcerated at the Federal Medical Center in Fort Worth, Texas, serving a 21-year sentence for plotting to kill hitman nemesis Carol Baskin and violating federal wildlife laws.
Exotic rose to global fame from the 2020 Netflix docuseries “Tiger King: Murder, Mayhem and Madness,” which showcased his work and personal life while caring for exotic big cats at his GW Zoo in Wynwood, Oklahoma.
He was arrested in September 2018, in the middle of filming the popular Netflix show, after federal prosecutors said he offered to pay an undercover FBI agent $10,000 in a December 2017 meeting to kill the Big Cat Rescue founder.
Exotic's sentence was reduced by one year in January 2022, bringing him to 21 years.