After Husband Is Deported, Tiger King Star Offers to Follow

Tiger King star Joe Exotic is demanding President Trump intervene after his husband was deported to Mexico. Jorge Marquez Flores, 33, who wed the former reality TV star behind bars earlier this year, was deported Friday, shortly after completing a sentence in federal prison in Texas for residing unlawfully in the US, report Newsweek and TMZ. Exotic, real name Joseph Maldonado-Passage—a 62-year-old former zookeeper serving a 21-year prison sentence for violating federal wildlife laws and plotting to kill his rival, Carole Baskin—has been pleading for a presidential pardon. He previously offered to buy a $5 million Trump gold card to secure US residency for his husband, per Newsweek.

On May 10, Exotic said he would give the US government half of his earnings if he and Flores were allowed to live together in the US. After Flores was deported, Exotic urged Trump to "allow me go to Mexico with my husband." "I know that you are not fond of my lifestyle," Exotic wrote to Trump on X, referring to his life as a gay man. "But I supported you." Maintaining his innocence, he urges the president "to have one of your people watch Tiger King Season 2, where they all admitted to perjury and a plot to kill me on world television and let me out." "Just let me go to Mexico," he adds, "and you can keep Carole Baskin." (More Joe Exotic stories.)