‘Tiger King’ Star Joe Exotic Accepts Prison Release Offer From Carole Baskin & Husband

Hard to believe that it’s been over a year since the days of early quarantine, where many people spent their time at home bingeing Netflix’s docu-series Tiger King. This week, Joe Exotic has once again made headlines.

Exotic, whose real name is Joseph Maldonado-Passage, recently responded to comments made by Carole Baskin and her husband Howard voicing their support of releasing him from prison. “It’s time for Carole and Howard to put up or shut the hell up because I’m accepting their offer,” Exotic told Entertainment Tonight.

The couple said that they would support Exotic’s release if he supported the Big Cat Safety Act, a law that prohibit the owning of big casts like lions and tiger.  “If he were to do that, it might position him in a positive way for a pardon,” Howard told The Mirror. “And frankly, I might be willing to go and urge at least a reduction in his sentence.”

“The way it’s written is not gonna help anybody except PETA and Carole Baskin,” Exotic said as he also set his own terms to supporting the Act. “So, I’ll testify in front of the Senate, I’ll testify in front of the House, they want to end big cats in America and they want to end the exploitation of them, I’m the man to do it. But it’s time to get an attorney general down here and listen to the evidence that I have to prove I’m innocent and get me the hell out of here. And they’re got my support. Other than that, they need to stay the hell out of the news with all their crap just to get their name in the paper because I just called their bluff.”

On April 20, Baskin tweeted the Entertainment Weekly article, with caption, “So, this just happened.”

“I wouldn’t seek a reduced sentence for Joe based upon him just saying he’d help end cub handling,” Baskin added in the article. “I think he’d say anything but not actually do it. He’d have to actually work with authorities to bring all of his buddies to justice and work with legislators to end cub handling.”

Exotic is currently serving a 22-year sentence for the 2017 murder-to-hire plot to kill Baskin as well as several wild life violations.