‘Tiger King’ Joe Exotic quietly ends presidential campaign

Joe Exotic, star of the hit 2020 Netflix docuseries Tiger Kinghas ended his presidential campaign.

Exotic’s Joseph Maldonado to Free America campaign committee filed a termination report with the Federal Election Commission on Thursday, Raw Story first reported. The filing shows his campaign has just $1,400 in funding left after raising more than $16,000.

Exotic, whose real name is Joseph Maldonado-Passage, is currently serving a 21-year sentence in a federal prison for his part in a murder-for-hire plot targeting his rival, Carole Baskin. Exotic was arrested after offering $10,000 to an undercover FBI agent in exchange for her murder.

Exotic announced on Twitter in March 2023 that he had filed paperwork to run for president in 2024 as a Libertarian candidate, later switching to Democrat. He maintained his innocence and insisted he could campaign legally from prison.

“Yes, I know I’m in federal prison and you may think this is a joke, but it’s not. It is my constitutional right to do this even from here,” Exotic wrote on his campaign website. “Put aside for a moment the fact that I’m gay, that I’m in jail for now, that I’ve used drugs in the past, that I have more than one boyfriend at a time, and that Carole hates my guts. None of this has anything to do with me being your voice.”

Exotic was diagnosed with prostate cancer in 2021. He stopped treatment in February 2023, writing in a letter obtained by TMZ that his doctors suspected the cancer was growing rapidly, and that he was content to “stay here and just let it happen.” ” At the time, he drew up a new will in which he left everything to his fiancée, Seth Posey.

“I don’t mind dying, my birthday is coming up and all I want to do is see Seth,” Exotic wrote.

Exotic’s team requested a 7.5-year sentence reduction in 2022 due to his diagnosis, which was denied. Baskin told the judge during the hearing that Exotic “continues to harbor intense feelings of ill will toward me” and that she continued to receive threatening messages despite his arrest.

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