Jailed Reality Star Joe Exotic Rages After Trump’s Chrisley Pardon: ‘I Guess Being Innocent Is Not Enough’
(AP Photo/Sue Ogrocki, File)
Joe ‘Exotic’ Maldonado is not pleased with President Donald Trump’s pardon of Todd Chrisley and Julie Chrisley, with the jailed reality TV star taking to social media to ask whether being “innocent” was enough anymore.
Joe Exotic is best known for his role on the Netflix docuseries Tiger King, which focused on his work with big cats and his eventual arrest for allegedly paying hitmen to take out his rival, Carole Baskin, the founder of Big Cat Rescue.
Exotic was arrested in 2018 and he’s in the fifth year of a 21-year sentence. He maintains his innocence, claiming coercion and other tactics are behind his charges.
The Chrisleys, fellow reality TV stars who starred in Chrisley Knows Best, were convicted of bank fraud and tax fraud and were facing a combined 19 years behind bars after their 2022 conviction.
Trump called their daughter this week to deliver the news that he was pardoning both of her parents.
“Donald J. Trump please restore freedom for Joe Exotic so he can go back to doing good in the world,” Exotic wrote on X, insisting he did not “hurt anyone” or “pay anyone.”
In another message, Exotic implied more money and influence could get him out of prison, saying he’d offer up a million dollars if he had it.
“I guess being innocent is not enough in America. They all admitted to perjury on world television but yet I’m left to die of cancer before I can get any help,” he wrote.
Exotic has not had the best of luck under Trump’s new administration. His husband, Jorge Flores Maldonado, was also reportedly deported back to Mexico by ICE earlier this month.
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“Don’t you think between losing my life’s work. My parents and now this that I’ve suffered enough and it’s time to watch season 2 of Tiger King and see they admitted on world television the committed perjury and let me go?” Exotic asked in an Instagram post.
Maldonado is now in Mexico and fears he could be kidnapped by cartels.
“The cartels are very active here — I cannot even go out on the street. They think I have money because of my husband,” he said.
