On April 6, Neflix announced that, for 15 days straight, Tiger King: Murder, Mayhem and Madness, which released on March 20, had been its most-watched series, beating all previous records. For the millions of people kept indoors by the Covid-19 pandemic, Joe Exotic—the eponymous Tiger King—seemed almost heaven-sent. He is so fascinating that spending seven hours getting to know his story still leaves you wanting more.
Exotic is the former owner of the G.W. Zoo in Oklahama, home to 176 tigers and an unverified number of lions, crocodiles, chimpanzees and other exotic animals. His story, and the sheer strangeness of the ‘big cat’ world of private animal collectors in America, inspired Eric Goode to make Tiger King. According to fellow zoo owner Bhagavan Doc Antle, Exotic is a “completely insane, gay, gun-toting, drug-addict fanatic”.
He has had five husbands—two of whom later admitted to being straight. He ran for president in 2016, and then for governor of Oklahoma in 2018. He had eight alligators and crocodiles that formerly belonged to Michael Jackson, all of which died in a fire that also destroyed Exotic’s recording studio. The docu-series strongly hints at Exotic’s culpability in the act of arson. While he professed to loving his animals, he was part of a ring that stuffed cubs in briefcases and exhibited them to wealthy women in private cub-petting parties in Las Vegas.
Exotic is best-known for his rivalry with animal rights activist Carol Baskin, who campaigned against his zoo for years, eventually bringing him to near-bankruptcy through a series of lawsuits that forced him to sign his zoo off to Jeff Lowes. For years, Baskin was Exotic’s enemy number one, the target of his unabated hatred in most of his online shows. He even made a music video on her titled ‘Here, Kitty Kitty’, in which he sang about her allegedly feeding her late husband to tigers in her sanctuary park.
Exotic, whose legal name is Joseph Maldonado-Passage, is currently serving a 22-year prison sentence for attempting to hire a hit-man to murder Baskin for $3,000, and for the incidents of animal abuse in his zoo. He is now on tattoos, T-shirts, memes, and even TikTok videos. Though he is in prison, and says he now regrets caging animals, he is overjoyed by his renewed fame. Whether he is worthy of it is another question; there is no denying his narcissism, ruthless pursuit of fame, not-so-unwitting cruelty to animals, and his sheer bloodlust for Baskin. His belief that everything bad that happened to him was because of her is increasingly shared by his most die-hard fans, one of whom is rapper Cardi B, who wanted to raise funds on GoFundMe for his release from prison. She even alleged that Baskin gave Exotic the coronavirus.
Ultimately, Exotic is both weird and larger than life. If nothing else, his never-ending saga kept people indoors during a dangerous phase of human history. When they look back on this period, they will remember watching Tiger King on Netflix—an interlude of enjoyable madness in a time of tragedy.