Tiger King Star Warns Joe Exotic Will Be Out For Revenge If Pardoned

A star from the Netflix hit series Tiger King has warned Joe Exotic will be out for revenge if released from prison.

Exotic - whose real name is Joseph Maldonado-Passage - is now serving a 22-year prison sentence, having been convicted in 2019 of attempting to hire a hitman to kill Baskin, as well as a series of violations of the Endangered Species Act, including killing five tigers.

Netflix

However, there have been numerous petitions appealing for him to be pardoned, and US President Donald Trump even said he would 'take a look' at his case.

But Rick Kirkham, the producer who had spent a year living with Exotic shooting a reality TV show that never got made, has strongly advised against it.

Speaking to The Sun, he said: "The very fact that Trump would even possibly consider pardoning someone as evil as Joe, is beyond my belief.

"Anyone who would support Joe being let go and out of jail has no idea that this was a man who will hold the revenge. He will get revenge and he's not going to come out a better man or a whole person. This is a guy that holds a grudge and he will get his revenge.

"I think it's absolutely ludicrous to think that somebody would pardon him considering all the evil that most of us now know he did and that I know personally from having witnessed he did it."

Netflix

Rick's point of view is mirrored by a juror, who claimed the show did a 'huge injustice to the jury'.

Speaking to Nancy Grace on Fox Nation series A Tiger King Investigation, the juror - named only as Kristin - said: "Don't believe everything you see, because there was so much more to it than what they're showing you.

"They made him out to be almost a victim. It just wasn't even the same story.

"It did a huge injustice to the jury because now people think that we convicted him based on absolutely nothing."

Earlier this week, Exotic penned a letter from prison to his 'supporters, family, loved ones' in which he said he would be 'dead in two to three months'.

In the letter, which was obtained by TMZ, Joe said: "I'm loosing weight, sores wont heal, I'll be dead in 2-3 months, it's like I have been sent to death row, they stopped all of my medication expect one, this place is hell on earth [sic]."

He also urged Trump to pardon him.

He said: "The pandemic is over and now I ask you to ask President Trump to keep his word and look into making the wrong a right and grant me a miracle."

Topics: tiger king, TV and Film, Joe Exotic

Jake Massey

Jake Massey is a journalist at LADbible. He graduated from Newcastle University, where he learnt a bit about media and a lot about living without heating. After spending a few years in Australia and New Zealand, Jake secured a role at an obscure radio station in Norwich, inadvertently becoming a real-life Alan Partridge in the process. From there, Jake became a reporter at the Eastern Daily Press. Jake enjoys playing football, listening to music and writing about himself in the third person.

@jakesmassey