“Tiger King” Star Joe Exotic Is Engaged to Fellow Prison Inmate Jorge Marquez—And They're Hoping to Get Married in Jail Next Month

Joe Exotic (né Joseph Maldonado-Passage) rose to notoriety in 2020 for starring in Netflix’s Tiger King, a true crime documentary about his life as a zookeeper, his murder conviction, and his eventual 21-year prison sentence. While serving jail time for hiring two men to murder animal welfare activist Carole Baskin (along with animal-abuse charges), Exotic managed to meet his future husband, fellow prison inmate Jorge Marquez. On October 28, 2024, the Tiger King star announced that they’re engaged.

To share the news with his fans and followers, Exotic posted a slightly blurry photo of himself and his fiancé—who’s serving his prison sentence for living in the United States illegally—on X. “Meet Jorge Marquez he is 33,” Exotic wrote in his post. “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.”

The TV personality told Entertainment Weekly that he and his fiancé have already applied for their marriage license and are now waiting for the authorities of the institution's permission. “We filed our official papers for the marriage license from the prison yesterday, so we’re waiting for approval,” he said. “He has picked out December 12 as the date we’re hoping to get this approved by.” Exotic explained that “the warden and psychiatry and the chaplain” need to give them the green light before they can tie the knot.

Exotic also told the publication that he’s eager to marry Marquez. "We love each other very much, spend every minute of the day together," Exotic said. He also noted that meeting Marquez has given him hope after several tumultuous former marriages. "I've been through some s--- in my days," Exotic admitted. "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."

Before getting engaged to Marquez, Exotic was married to Dillon Passage. They traded vows in 2017 but later separated in 2020 before filing for divorce the following year. At the time, Passage revealed that there was no bad blood between Exotic and him—they still talked “three to five times every day,” and Passage still thought of him as “genuine and a good, down-to-earth guy.” Just two months before his marriage to Passage, Exotic’s former husband, Travis Maldonado, died from accidentally shooting himself.