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.

Born in Kansas, Exotic and his family moved to Texas, where he enrolled at Pilot Point High School.

After graduation, Exotic briefly served as the chief of police in Eastvale.

Joe Exotic was born Joseph Allen Schreibvogel in Garden City, Kansas, on March 5, 1963, to parents Francis and Shirley Schreibvogel.

The Schreibvogels had four other children: Tamara, Pamela, Yarri, and Garold "G.W."

Wayne.

The Schreibvogel family moved to Texas, where Exotic was enrolled at Pilot Point High School.

After graduating from high school, he joined the Eastvale police department and was promoted to chief of the small department in 1982.

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.

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, but he told The Dallas Morning News in 1997 that he was forced off the road by an unidentified vehicle during a drug investigation.

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.

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.

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.

In 1997 his brother was killed in an auto accident, and Exotic sold the pet shop and purchased a 16 acre Oklahoma farm with his parents.

Two years after his brother's death, the farm opened as Garold Wayne Exotic Animal Memorial Park in dedication to his brother.

Two of Wayne's pets were the zoo's first inhabitants.

In 2000, Exotic acquired his first two tigers, which had been abandoned.

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.

Some of the alligators in the complex came from Michael Jackson's Neverland Ranch.

Exotic worked as the owner and operator of the G.W. Zoo for over 20 years.

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.

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.

He left the zoo on June 18, 2018, three months before his arrest.

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".

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.

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.

In 2023, Exotic announced his candidacy in the 2024 presidential election as a Democrat.

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.

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.

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.

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.