You’d think that with Joe Exotic in prison and the world having finally moved on from attempting to solve the mystery of who killed Carole Baskin’s husband, the drama of Tiger King would finally be at an end.
But if you’ve ever met anyone like the …
We learned this week that there’s a lot more Tiger King on the way.
In addition to a scripted drama series starring Nicolas Cage, the Netflix docu-drama has inspired a sequel created by the same filmmakers.
And fortunately, the king himself, …
Back in January of 2019, Joe Exotic was sentenced to 23 years in prison on murder for hire and animal cruelty charges.
Of course, it was only about six weeks ago that Joe became an international celebrity thanks to the breakout success of Tiger King, the Netflix documentary about his wild life and times.
So it should come as no surprise that Joe is attempting to capitalize on his newfound fame by requesting a presidential pardon from Donald Trump.
That may sound like a long shot, but it’s important to bear in mind that sucking up to celebrities and handing out presidential pardons to people who are clearly guilty are two of Trump’s favorite things.
During an April press conference, Trump suggested that he would consider pardoning Exotic.
While administration insiders later said it would never happen, it seems that mention was all the encouragement Joe and his supporters needed.
According to a new report from TMZ, Joe’s Fort Worth, Texas-based legal team has prepared a case file for Trump to review.
The lawyers are reportedly arguing that Joe is completely innocent of the allegation that he hired a hitman to kill Carole Baskin, his longtime professional rival.
They claim the animal cruelty charges were tacked on in order to make the jury hate Joe so that they would be more likely to convict him on the unrelated charge of trying to kill Carole.
Well aware that the president is a fan of pageantry and excess, the lawyers are not simply sending Trump the file via certified mail.
No, they’ve wrapped a bus with pro-Joe messages, and it seems they’re planning to drive it to the White House and make a public announcement on Mr. Exotic’s behalf.
“President Trump, please pardon Joe Exotic,” one sign reads.
Another decal reads simply, “Team Tiger.”
Their timing might be a little off, as pardoning a reality star during an election year in the midst of a public health crisis would be pretty bonkers even by Trump standards.
Then again, this might be exactly the sort of distraction the president needs right now.
Exotic will no doubt be mocked for this move, but when you’re facing a couple more decades behind bars, and you’ve got a potential sympathizer in the White House, you might as well swing for the fences!
Well, we all knew this was coming.
As unnecessary as it might be, given the fact what made Tiger King so great is that it’s the sort of story you just can’t make up, the saga of Joe Exotic will now be given the Hollywood treatment.
Accordi…
Ya gotta give Joe Exotic some credit — the guy started social-distancing long before it was the fashionable thing to do!
Yes, the Tiger King star is currently serving 22 years in prison on animal abuse and murder for hire charges.
But before…
Last week, Tiger King star Joe Exotic was accused of bestiality. There were also claims that he fathered a child with a woman and is now a grandfather.
His current husband, Dillon Passage, is speaking out … and admitting that Joe may have kept some things a secret, even from him.
Dillon was only married to Joe for a matter of months before Joe was carted off to prison. They only met a couple of weeks before that.
But he has become aware of the accusations — beyond monstrous animal cruelty and attempted murder — against his incarcerated husband.
Jeff Lowe has accused Joe of having video of engaging in sex acts with the animals in his park, and also of murder.
And it was claimed that Brandon, who appeared briefly in Tiger King, is actually Joe’s son.
Dillon Passage sat down for a remote interview with Channel Q’s The Morning Beat to address these claims.
“Joe does not have any kids, okay?” Dillon clarifies
“I recently heard the same rumor,” he admits, “and I was like, are you trying to tell me that I’m a stepdad to a 38-year-old and I have grandkids?”
Dillon, who was born in 1997, is 22 years old. That would be surreal for him, to say the least.
“Joe used to be with this girl,” Dillon acknowledges, “her name was Kim.”
“But when him and Kim split up,” he explains, “Joe’s brother actually got with Kim and they had a son and that is Brandon Chappell.”
Some gay men have relationships with women due to cultural pressures and societal expectations.
Other men are bi. This is why we let people — even disgraced criminals like Joe — determine their own sexuality labels.
The interviewers were very polite in that they didn’t blurt out hey Dillon, did your husband ever bone a tiger?
Dillon brought up the rumors, though.
“Obviously,” he acknowledges, “Joe was not secretive about his sex life.”
Dillon admits: “He may have done some weird things.”
“He’s obviously had multiple sex partners at once,” Dillon points out. “That’s not a secret.”
Polyamory isn’t especially strange and, more importantly, doesn’t cross any boundaries of consent like bestiality would.
“But I heard allegations that Jeff saying that Joe and [husband John Finlay] were having sex with animals on the zoo,” he recalls.
“And,” Dillon declares, “I thought that was completely ridiculous.”
“I never heard anything like that from Joe,” Dillon insists.
“But,” he confesses, “I also wouldn’t admit that if I was him.”
As many have pointed out, it may be that some of these rumors were an attempt to deflect from Jeff Lowe’s own shady history.
In making the bestiality accusation, Lowe also claimed to possess the video — which some fans pointed out could be a crime all by itself, if true.
On a much lighter note, Dillon says that his social media has been absolutely bombarded with dong pics from thirsty suitors.
“Going through my message requests on Instagram, my DM requests, is insane,” he shares. “There’s so many dicks.”
“A lot of them are not worth looking at, let me tell you that,” Dillon expresses.
“They’re either super, itty bitty or, like, deformed looking,” he characterizes. “It’s a lot.” We don’t doubt it.
While Tiger King star Joe Exotic remains behind bars, Jeff Lowe has remained free to continue to smear him.
On top of all of the horror stories that we have all heard about Joe’s treatment of animals under his “care,” he is now accused of bestiality.
Jeff Lowe was featured on Tiger King.
He is the Las Vegas playboy to whom, for legal reasons, Joe turned over ownership of his zoo.
Since the documentary aired on Netflix to unprecedented ratings, Jeff has made a number of claims about Joe.
While animal cruelty charges are a huge part of why Joe is behind bars, Jeff says that the killing and neglect are only part of the abuse.
Jeff Lowe held an AMA (Ask Me Anything) session on Reddit recently, where horrified Tiger King viewers took him at his word.
“I was wondering what (if any) weird S*IT have you found out about Joe Exotic since he’s been incarcerated randomly around the park?” asks one redditor.
“I think the weirdest thing we found is that it found was a flash drive of Joe and [John Finlay],” Jeff responds.
“And,” he claims, “they were having sexual relations with animals in the park.”
“That would probably be the weirdest thing about Joe,” Jeff’s reply continues.
He concludes his reply with: “Thanks for the disturbing question.”
Well, we suppose that we should thank Jeff for the disturbing answer.
If and only if we believe him.
First and foremost, the syntax of Jeff Lowe’s comment makes his claim a little unclear.
Joe is believed to be afraid of tigers, though since Jeff was not very specific, it’s not clear if the claim refers to tigers (or only to tigers).
“Sexual relations with animals in the park” seems to imply bestiality — which is, by the way, illegal in Florida due to a recent law.
Some wondered if Jeff was playing word games, and if Joe and John Finlay had simply had sex in proximity to the captive animals.
A lot of Reddit comments that followed were telling Jeff exactly what they thought of him.
Reddit may be a cesspool, but plenty of people had enough sense to see that pretty much everyone in Tiger King was a villain of some kind.
Some noted that he had implied that other people had engaged in bestiality.
In fact, a lot of the replies suggested that maybe Jeff is trying to deflect accusations of “playtime with the animals” from himself onto others.
Some of the accusations that Jeff has lobbied against Joe are innocuous.
For example, he described finding gear related to BDSM on the property. That’s a normal, if certainly not universal, kink.
He has also accused Joe of hiring male sex workers. That’s only scandalous because it’s illegal, and that illegality is pretty unjust.
Most people aren’t too worked up over the idea of Joe using the zoo as his personal piggy bank to fund his lifestyle, either.
On the other hand, he has accused Joe Exotic of straight-up murder.
He has claimed that he was approached separately by four different people who do not know each other.
They informed him, allegedly, that Joe had shot two protestors who tried to climb his fence.
Joe allegedly instructed employees to bury them somewhere on the property. What a horror.
If you’ve been anywhere near social media in the past six weeks, then you’re probably familiar with the gun-toting, meth-fueled feline enthusiast known as Joe Exotic.
And if you watched Tiger King, then you probably feel that after spending seven h…
If you’re one of the tens of millions of viewers who recently got sucked into the bizarre world of Tiger King, you might think you know the whole story of Joe Exotic and his menagerie of rivals and co-conspirators.
But you can’t sum up such a stran…
By now, you’ve almost certainly heard about the Netflix phenomenon that is Tiger King.
And unless you’re one of those weirdos who’s spending their quarantine pursuing a new hobby or re-connecting with family, there’s a good chance you’ve watched th…
We don’t need to tell you that we’re living through one of the most bonkers times in American history.
After all, just a few short months ago, you’d probably never heard of Tiger King or the coronavirus, and now those two things are the subjects of…
Those fascinated by Tiger King have already heard from Joe Exotic’s current husband, Dillon Passage. But Joe has been married before.
For the first time, the full video of his polyamorous wedding to both John Finlay and Travis Maldonado.
“This video contains images that are graphic in nature,” the video’s opening graphic teases.
“Some scenes may also contain recreations,” the gag continues. “Viewer discretion is advised.”
Music — specifically Joe Exotic’s single, “I Saw A Tiger,” begins to play over the video.
What we’re seeing is the buildup to Joe’s wedding to John Finlay and Travis Maldonado.
The full Joe Exotic video is 23 minutes long.
A lot of it is just Joe picking out the outfits, including flamingo pink dress shirts.
Joe’s own outfit includes a cowboy hat and a holstered pistol at his hip to complete the ensemble.
The wedding itself had a rustic flair, from being set under florescent lights to the deliberately rural decor.
Also as you can imagine, the wedding involved animals.
No tigers were harmed in the making of this video — which may be a first in Joe Exotic’s life, unfortunately.
But there was a monkey in a dress among the “guests.”
And the rings-bearer was also a monkey, though with some human help.
As for the ceremony itself, Joe, John, and Travis were married on a platform overlooking the crowd.
The officiant gives a sweet if lengthy speech, part of which acknowledges the rarity of a three-person marriage.
They have a very thoughtful candle-lighting ceremony that really ties the union together.
The grooms kiss and then the reception begins.
Of course, this wedding did not lead to a happily ever after.
Several years after this was filmed, Travis died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound that was very nearly caught on camera.
John ended up striking up a romance with one of the zoo’s receptionists.
The two of them ended up welcoming a child together. John and Joe have not spoken since 2018.
Joe would love, and marry, again, meeting Dillon Passage on Grindr and then setting up a date.
Dillon was swept off of his feet and, two weeks later, the two of them were married.
This was mere months before Joe was carted off to prison, where he is currently serving a 22-year sentence.
Joe was convicted on multiple counts of animal cruelty and for his murder-for-hire plot.
There are a lot of sketchy things about Joe, from the ages and addictions to the young men in his life to his heinous treatments of animals.
The three-man marriage itself is, with all of that aside, very sweet, and polyamorous relationships are on the rise.
It’s not so much a trend as it is that more people are realizing that they will never be happy with just one partner.
That said, it is certainly not for everyone. Especially given the sort of man who Joe is.
Allegedly, there were hours of footage showing Joe doing monstrous things to animals — footage that was lost when the building housing it mysteriously burned down.
Joe insists that he can say the n-slur and many see him as a sexual opportunist at best, quickly marrying attractive but psychologically vulnerable young men.
No matter how entertaining Tiger King may have been, it’s important to remember the sort of man that Joe really is.
Polyamorous triads can find better representation, don’t you think?
There are two questions on the minds of American these days:
Will we ever be able to go outside again — and did Carole Baskin actually feed her husband to tigers?
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If you’ve spent any time on social media in recent weeks, then you’re probably aware that there are really only two topics of conversation these days — the coronavirus and Tiger King.
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Tiger King is unique from many reality shows and documentary series, in that it filmed for several years before a single episode aired.
Actually, Tiger King is unique from other documentary series in just about every way, but let’s stick with this …
At this point in the self-isolation process, if you’re still not familiar with Joe Exotic, we’re almost impressed.
But now that you’ve basked in our praise, go and binge all seven episodes of Tiger King, because holy lord, you have no idea what you…
