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Joe Exotic, famous for his Netflix show Tiger King, has announced that he has married fellow inmate Jorge Marquez. On April 22, the 62-year-old reality star uploaded his wedding picture on Instagram.
Last week, he thanked his husband for supporting him through cancer and requested that President Donald Trump pardon him and his husband.
According to The Mirror's April 22 report, Joe's husband is from Mexico and serving time due to immigration issues. Joe Exotic, whose real name is Joseph Maldonado, is serving a 21-year prison sentence for murder for hire, trafficking animals, and violating the Endangered Species Act.
According to the Daily Mail's report dated April 22, the two met at the Federal Medical Center, Fort Worth.
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More details on Joe Exotic's marriage
On October 29, 2024, Maldonado announced on X that he was engaged to his partner. He shared that they plan to leave the U.S. after being released from prison.
"Meet Jorge Marquez, he is 33. He is so amazing and is from Mexico. 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," he wrote.
The day after his engagement announcement, Maldonado spoke with Entertainment Weekly on the phone and stated that they were in love. The reality star then compared his current husband to his previous partners.
Calling Jorge an "amazing young man," Joe Exotic stated that he was different from his third husband, who allegedly ran away after taking money from Netflix.
"We love each other very much, spend every minute of the day together. I've been through some sh*t in my days. I buried two husbands, the third one ran off with 2.6 million bucks from Netflix and left my a** here, but Jorge is a very amazing young man," he said.
Joe Exotic's past relationships explored
According to Women's Health Magazine's April 3, 2020, report, Maldonado reportedly had five partners. He met Brian Rhyne in the 1980s and was with him till he passed away from human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) in 2001.
In 2002, he met producer Jeffrey Charles "J.C." Hartpence. However, they split when Hartpence was given a lifetime sentence for a murder charge. In 2003, Maldonado started dating the then-19-year-old John Finlay. According to the media outlet, the Tiger King star married Finlay and Travis Michael Maldonado in a three-way wedding in 2014.
Finlay left the marriage a few months later. Joe Exotic and Travis were together till Travis accidentally shot himself and passed away in 2017. Two months later, Maldonado married the then 22-year-old Dillon Passage.
According to People's March 26, 2021, report, the two filed for divorce in 2021. In a now-deleted Instagram post, Passage stated that they are on good terms even after separating.
"To answer the main question the public wants to know, yes, Joe and I are seeking a divorce. This wasn't an easy decision to make, but Joe and I both understand that this situation isn't fair to either of us. It's something that neither of us were expecting but we are going to take it day by day. We are on good terms still, and I hope it can stay that way," he wrote.
For the unversed, the Tiger King star was convicted of murder for hire in 2019 for trying to hire a hitman to kill his rival and animal activist Carole Baskin.
