Joe Exotic
Joseph Allen Maldonado (né Schreibvogel; born March 5, 1963), known professionally as Joe Exotic and nicknamed "The Tiger King", is an American media personality, businessman, and convicted felon who operated the Greater Wynnewood Exotic Animal Park (also known as the G.W. Zoo, Tiger King Park and formerly the Garold Wayne Exotic Animal Memorial Park) in Wynnewood, Oklahoma, from 1999 to 2018.
"The Tiger King" redirects here. For the documentary miniseries about him, see Tiger King.
Joe Exotic
Joseph Maldonado-Passage
- America's Most Dangerous Pets (2011)
- Tiger King (2020)
- Shooting Joe Exotic (2021)
Independent (2016)
Libertarian (2018–2019; membership revoked)
Democratic (2023–present)[1]
Incarcerated at Federal Medical Center, Fort Worth[2]
- Conspiracy to commit murder-for-hire (2 counts)
- Violation of the Lacey Act (8 counts)
- Violation of the Endangered Species Act (9 counts)
21 years in prison
Brian Rhyne (1986–2001; his death)
JC Hartpence (2002–2003)
John Finlay (2003–2014)
Seth Posey (2021–2023)
September 7, 2018
Born in Kansas, Exotic and his family moved to Texas, where he enrolled at Pilot Point High School.[3] After graduation, Exotic briefly served as the chief of police in Eastvale. He then opened a pet store with his brother, but after his brother's death in 1997, Exotic sold the store and founded the G.W. Zoo. During his tenure as director there, he also held magic shows and cub-petting events at venues across the U.S., hosted an online talk show, and worked with producer Rick Kirkham to create a reality television series about himself, but this latter effort ended when most footage was destroyed in a fire in 2015. In 2016, Exotic ran as an independent in the 2016 presidential election.
Exotic left the G.W. Zoo in June 2018 and was arrested three months later on suspicion of hiring two men to murder Big Cat Rescue founder Carole Baskin, with whom he had a complicated rivalry.[4] In 2019, Exotic was convicted and sentenced to 22 years in prison on 17 federal charges of animal abuse and two counts of attempted murder for hire for the plot to kill Baskin.[4] In 2021, he worked with attorney John Michael Phillips to file a motion for a new trial, and on July 15, 2021, a U.S. appeals court ruled that the convictions for the two murder attempts were wrongly treated as separate. The trial court reduced his sentence by 1 year, resentencing him to 21 years in late January 2022.[5] In 2023, Exotic announced his candidacy in the 2024 presidential election as a Democrat.[6]
Exotic has been subject to substantial criticism, especially for the controversies surrounding his feud with Baskin and the treatment of animals at the G.W. Zoo.[7] Exotic has been featured in several documentaries, including the Netflix series Tiger King (2020–2021), a documentary about Exotic's career as a zookeeper and his feud with Baskin. The success of the first season of Tiger King amid the worldwide COVID-19 lockdowns led to Exotic receiving attention on social media and inspiring several internet memes. Exotic also appeared in two Louis Theroux documentaries, America's Most Dangerous Pets (2011) and Shooting Joe Exotic (2021). A drama TV show based mainly on the relationship between Carole Baskin and Joe Exotic called Joe vs. Carole aired on Peacock on March 3, 2022.
Early life[edit]
Joe Exotic was born Joseph Allen Schreibvogel in Garden City, Kansas, on March 5, 1963,[8][9][10] to parents Francis and Shirley Schreibvogel. The Schreibvogels had four other children: Tamara, Pamela, Yarri, and Garold "G.W." Wayne.[11]
The Schreibvogel family moved to Texas, where Exotic was enrolled at Pilot Point High School.[12] After graduating from high school, he joined the Eastvale police department and was promoted to chief of the small department in 1982.[13][14] He was outed to his parents as being homosexual by his estranged older brother Yarri, and in response their father made Exotic shake his hand and promise not to come to his funeral.[15]
Exotic has said that he was badly injured in 1985 when he crashed his police cruiser into a bridge, although his claims about the wreck have changed over time: In 2019, he told Texas Monthly that the incident was a spontaneous suicide attempt,[13] but he told The Dallas Morning News in 1997 that he was forced off the road by an unidentified vehicle during a drug investigation.[14] A 2019 investigation by New York, which included interviews of family members and local residents who knew him at the time, failed to find anyone who could recall such an event taking place, although he presented a photograph showing a wrecked car as evidence.[16]
Career[edit]
Animals[edit]
Soon after the auto accident, Exotic moved to West Palm Beach, Florida, and managed a pet store. A friend who worked at a drive-through safari park brought baby lions to his neighbor's home and let Exotic handle them. Exotic credits these experiences with inspiring him to work with animals.[16]
Exotic returned to Texas and worked at various jobs before opening a pet shop with his brother "G.W.", who shared Exotic's love of animals, in Arlington, Texas, in 1986.[13] In 1997, after closing the first pet shop and opening a new one nearby, Exotic came into conflict with Arlington officials over repeated code violations for decorations and signs: He had been hanging gay pride symbols such as a United States flag with rainbow stripes in the shop windows, and he accused city inspectors of homophobia and of targeting the business because of his sexual orientation.[14] In 1997 his brother was killed in an auto accident, and Exotic sold the pet shop and purchased a 16-acre (6.5 ha) Oklahoma farm with his parents.[17][14] Two years after his brother's death, the farm opened as Garold Wayne Exotic Animal Memorial Park in dedication to his brother.[18] Two of Wayne's pets were the zoo's first inhabitants.[13]
In 2000, Exotic acquired his first two tigers, which had been abandoned.[13] He said that the first animal rescue in his career as a zookeeper was an eleven-foot alligator with a severe eye infection. According to Exotic, he spoke by phone to Steve Irwin of Australia Zoo, whose vets provided advice on appropriate antibiotics for alligators and on treating an injured kangaroo. In 2006, after Irwin was killed by a stingray, Exotic dedicated a large indoor alligator complex inside the G.W. Zoo in his memory, naming it the Steve Irwin Memorial.[19] Some of the alligators in the complex came from Michael Jackson's Neverland Ranch.[20][21]
In 2002, seeking to earn money to feed his growing menagerie, Exotic partnered with a traveling magician to provide and handle tigers during stage illusions. The experience taught Exotic that traveling magic shows could be lucrative, and after parting with the magician, he began staging shows himself and adopted "Joe Exotic" as his stage name. He soon found that attendees would pay to pet and have their picture taken with tiger cubs, and these activities were often more profitable than the magic show itself. His magic shows evolved into dedicated cub-petting events and he began breeding his cats to ensure that cubs were consistently available. The money he earned allowed him to increase the number of adult cats at his park and feed them. To benefit his stage persona, Exotic began behaving more flamboyantly, wearing flashy clothing and jewelry and adopting his trademark bleached mullet hairstyle.[16]
Exotic worked as the owner and operator of the G.W. Zoo for over 20 years. He left the zoo on June 18, 2018, three months before his arrest.[22] In 2021, Exotic stated that his whole outlook on animals in captivity has changed while he's been in jail, and he now believes that "no animal belongs in a cage". He also said that he never would have had a zoo if he had known what life inside a cage was like 20 years ago.[23]
Politics[edit]
2016 presidential campaign[edit]
Exotic ran as an independent candidate in the 2016 United States presidential election, attaining ballot access in Colorado and receiving 962 votes (including recorded write-ins) nationwide.[48] During his campaign, Exotic uploaded several video messages to then-Republican nominee Donald Trump, in which he called out several politicians he said were crooked, Baskin and other animal rights people who he alleged were scamming the public, and various laws he disagreed with.[49][50][51]
While running for president, Exotic was featured in an episode of Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, which covered Exotic's write-in campaign as part of the show's coverage of the 2016 U.S. presidential election. John Oliver complimented the production quality of Exotic's music videos, and came up with a campaign slogan for Exotic: Make America Exotic Again, which later inspired the title of the Tiger King episode covering Exotic's political runs. Before the episode aired, Oliver was warned about the controversies at Exotic's zoo and his rants toward Baskin.[52]
During the 2016 United States presidential election, Exotic supported Trump over Hillary Clinton.[53]
2018 Oklahoma gubernatorial campaign[edit]
After losing in the 2016 election, Exotic ran in the 2018 Libertarian Party primary election for Governor of Oklahoma. He received 664 votes in the primary, finishing last among the three Libertarian candidates.[54][55][56] During his primary campaign, he was officially censured by the Oklahoma Libertarian Party.[57] In 2019, following his arrest, the state convention voted unanimously to revoke his party membership.[58]
Legal violations, controversies and criminal convictions[edit]
Animal abuse claims and USDA violations[edit]
Exotic has been strongly criticized for his treatment of animals that he owns, including by Carole Baskin, which eventually led to an investigation by the USDA and convictions for animal abuse.[65]
In February 1999, animal welfare investigators discovered a large number of neglected emus in Red Oak, Texas, and Exotic volunteered to capture the animals and take them to his animal park. However, Exotic, local volunteers, and Red Oak police were quickly overwhelmed by the task of corralling the large and fast-running birds, several of which died. Exotic and another man resorted to killing emus with shotguns and were accused of animal cruelty by police. However, since the emus were considered livestock, they could lawfully be killed humanely in Texas, and a grand jury declined to indict Exotic. Most of the surviving birds ultimately wound up at Texas ranches.[14]