‘Tiger King’ star Joe Exotic marries fellow inmate in Texas prison

Tiger King star Joe Exotic has married his fellow inmate Jorge Marquez.

• READ MORE: Tiger King 2 review: even more mullets, mayhem and madness than before

Exotic shared a picture of the couple on X in tuxedos under a trellis of flowers, after announcing their engagement last year. It is unclear at this stage whether the image is genuine or AI-generated.

“Never been more proud of someone. Meet my husband, Jorge Flores Maldonado,” he wrote.

A representative for the Federal Bureau of Prisons Office of Public Affairs told Entertainment Weekly that “we do not comment on the conditions of confinement for any individual in our custody,” and could not verify that Exotic and Flores married in prison.

Never been more proud of someone.
Meet my husband Jorge Flores Maldonado pic.twitter.com/0Ee6lfxBSR

— Joe Exotic (@joe_exotic) April 22, 2025

The former zoo owner, who is currently serving a 21-year sentence at the Federal Medical Center in Fort Worth, Texas, struck up a relationship with Marquez in prison.

“Meet Jorge Marquez he is 33. He is so amazing and is from Mexico,” Exotic wrote 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.”

It was previously reported that Marquez is currently serving time for immigration-related issues.

In another post at the time, Exotic also asked for the pair to be pardoned from prison. “Yep. Took me 61 years to find him now I got to convince [Donald] Trump to let me keep him in America,” he wrote.

Earlier this week, Exotic, who was diagnosed with cancer back in 2021, also took to Instagram to lobby for a pardon yet again.

“He has gotten me through so much fighting cancer under these conditions. All I pray to God for is Trump woll allow me to enjoy a little life outside with him before it’s too late.
I love you Jorge you are my life,” he wrote.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Joseph A Maldonado (@joe_exotic)

This is Exotic’s third prison engagement in three years. In 2022, he began a relationship with another inmate named John Graham, but things soon ended after Graham was released from prison. In the same year, Exotic started a relationship with Seth Posey, but they also split shortly after becoming engaged.

Exotic has been married five times, most recently to Dillon Passage, who featured in Netflix‘s Tiger King. Passage requested a divorce in 2021.

Exotic was sentenced to 21 years in prison in 2019 for 19 counts of wildlife crimes and two counts of hiring hitmen to kill animal rights activist Carol Baskin.

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