Photo Credit: @joe_exotic
It’s official: Tiger King himself, Joe Exotic, just got married again—from behind bars, no less. And here I am, out in the free world with Wi-Fi, shampoo that costs $32, and at least three dating apps… still single.
On Tuesday, April 22, the Netflix documentary star (real name Joseph Maldonado-Passage) revealed on X (formerly Twitter) that he tied the knot with fellow inmate Jorge Flores Maldonado. The post included a photo of the newlyweds in matching tuxedos and matching white baseball caps, which apparently was AI-generated, but hey, they still look great!
“Never been more proud of someone. Meet my husband Jorge Flores Maldonado,” he captioned the post—and somewhere between that sentence and my seventh consecutive Bumble left-swipe, I realized I might actually be the problem.
Joe Exotic, if you recall, is currently serving a 21-year prison sentence for a list of offenses that include 17 federal charges of animal abuse and two attempted murder-for-hire plots against his forever nemesis, Carole Baskin–the drama that birthed a million memes.)
AI is getting way to crazy. Carole Baskin is upset why? Because it was not her?@rmsthornton great work buddy.#photoshop #funny #tigerking pic.twitter.com/C99emjHWOG
— Joe Exotic (@joe_exotic) April 22, 2025
And yet… he’s thriving romantically.
This marks Joe’s third marriage—yes, third. First to Travis Maldonado in 2015, then to Dillon Passage in 2017, and now to Jorge. Because apparently, orange really is the new black and the new matchmaker.
Joe and Jorge got engaged back in November 2024, and now they’re legally wed, probably to the soundtrack of a prison-issued boom box and a guard shouting “Wrap it up!” Meanwhile, my Hinge date just unmatched me because I asked what his favorite kind of bread was…it was a fair question!
RELATED: This Netflix Reality Star is Getting Hitched For the Third Time
So what does this say about us, dear reader? That true love knows no walls? That romance can bloom even in the darkest of places? Or maybe that we’ve just got really terrible taste in men?
One thing’s for sure—if Joe Exotic can find not one, not two, but three husbands in his lifetime, including one while he’s locked up until 2036, then there is no excuse for me not to have a plus-one to my cousin’s wedding this summer.
Love is wild. Love is weird. And apparently, sometimes… love is in prison.