Joe Exotic is married! Tiger King star ties the knot with fellow inmate in prison

• Have YOU got a story? Email tips@dailymail.com 

By MADISON BURGESS

Published: 08:22 BST, 22 April 2025 | Updated: 08:22 BST, 22 April 2025

Joe Exotic has announced that he’s tied the knot despite being in the midst of a 21-year federal prison sentence.

The Tiger King star, 62, revealed on Tuesday he got married to fellow inmate Jorge Flores Maldonado.

Sharing a photoshopped snap of the couple wearing suits for the big day, he quipped: ‘Never been more proud of someone. Meet my husband Jorge Flores Maldonado.’

Joe shared the news of their engagement back in October, as he told fans: ‘Meet Jorge Marquez he is 33. He is so amazing and is from Mexico.’

While being incarcerated at the Federal Medical Center, Fort Worth, he added: ‘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.’

Joe Exotic has announced that he’s tied the knot despite being in the midst of a 21-year federal prison sentence 

Joe Exotic has announced that he’s tied the knot despite being in the midst of a 21-year federal prison sentence

The Tiger King star, 62, revealed on Tuesday he got married to fellow inmate Jorge Flores Maldonado 

The Tiger King star, also known Joseph Maldonado-Passage, submitted a marriage application to the federal prison to wed Marquez.

His now-husband is serving time for immigration-related issues, according to a report from CBS News.

Both men were not only optimistic the prison would approve their wedding application, but also still have ‘high hopes’ that Exotic’s appeal of his entire case, including his conviction for hiring hitmen to kill animal activist Carole Baskin, will succeed.

He claims to have evidence such as ‘video confessions under oath’ and ‘700 phone recordings of federal agents.’

In his news release at the time, Joe requested a presidential pardon for himself and his fiancé, as well as asylum for Marquez.

‘I wish someone that is President or wins the Presidency would do the right thing and pardon me so I could move past this nightmare that my own country has caused for the last 7 years of my life,’ Maldonado shared. 

‘All I did was build a zoo and some people were very jealous. Then I was put into prison by my own country.’

In a phone interview with Entertainment Tonight last year Maldonado-Passage disclosed the details about where the process stood.

‘We filed our official papers for the marriage license from the prison yesterday, so we’re just waiting for an approval,’ Exotic explained. ‘He has picked out December 12 as the date we’re hoping to get this approved by.’

He claimed their marriage application ‘had to be approved by the warden and psychiatry and the chaplain’ before their license could be approved.

‘We love each other very much, spend every minute of the day together,’ the star of Tiger King: Murder, Mayhem and Madness revealed.

:
Joe Exotic is married! Tiger King star ties the knot with fellow inmate in prison

***
Read more at DailyMail.co.uk