“Tiger King” star Joe Exotic announces engagement to fellow prison inmate: 'Spend every minute of the day together'

"We love each other very much," Exotic tells EW via a phone call from prison where he is serving a 21-year sentence.

Joe Exotic, the star of Netflix's true crime documentary Tiger King — currently serving a 21-year prison sentence — announced he's engaged to a fellow prison inmate.

"Meet Jorge Marquez he is 33. He is so amazing and is from Mexico," read a post on the docuseries subject's X account, under a slightly blurry image of Exotic with his new beau that appeared to be a screenshot from his website. "Now, the quest of getting married in prison and getting him asylum or we be leaving America when we both get out. Either way, I wish I would have met him long ago," it continued.

Exotic, whose real name is Joseph Allen Maldonado, confirmed the engagement to Entertainment Weekly in a phone call from prison. "We filed our official papers for the marriage license from the prison yesterday, so we're just waiting for an approval," he tells EW. "He has picked out Dec. 12 as the date we're hoping to get this approved by."

Exotic explains that their application "has to be approved by the warden and psychiatry and the chaplain" before their license can be approved.

"We love each other very much, spend every minute of the day together," Exotic says, which makes him eager to finalize the union. "I've been through some s--- in my days," Exotic continues. "I buried two husbands, the third one ran off with 2.6 million bucks from Netflix and left my ass here, but Jorge is a very amazing young man."

Exotic's most recent husband is Dillon Passage, whom he married in Dec. 2017. The ceremony came two months after Exotic's previous husband, Travis Maldonado, died after accidentally shooting himself. Exotic and Passage separated in 2020 and filed for divorce the next year.

At the time of the filling, Passage stated that he and Exotic still speak "three to five times every day," and remembered him as "super sweet to me" and a "genuine and a good, down to earth guy."

Related: Get a first look at the Tiger King-inspired Joe vs. Carole

The release of Tiger King in 2020 catapulted the outrageous police-chief-turned-zookeeper to pop culture infamy. By that time he was already arrested on suspicion of hiring two men to murder Carole Baskin, the founder of Florida's Big Cat Rescue and a longtime rival of Exotic's. He was sentenced to 22 years in prison in 2019 on 17 federal charges, including animal abuse and attempted murder for hire.

Exotic has filed numerous motions petitioning for a new trial, the presentation of "suppressed" evidence, and a shorter sentence. He got his last wish in 2021, when a U.S. appeals court ruled that the two convictions for the murder-for-hire attempts were wrongly treated as separate. He was resentenced to 21 years behind bars.

Over the phone, Exotic cites "tons of evidence" he plans to use to appeal his conviction, including claims of "video confessions under oath" of "false testimonies" given in his trial, and "700 phone recordings of federal agents." Exotic is looking forward to "solid answers from the appellate court by February," and hopes to reunite much sooner on the outside with Marquez, who is set to be released this coming May.

Related: Tiger King's Doc Antle convicted of wildlife trafficking in Virginia

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When asked how he maintains such a prolific social media presence while incarcerated in a facility that does not permit inmates to use social media, Exotic explains, "How I do this is, I use the phone 50 times a day. My people tell me what's going on and I tell them what to post... so just about everything that's posted is posted by me, via a proxy."

Last year, fellow Tiger King star Doc Antle was convicted on four felony counts related to the purchase and sale of endangered animals. He was subsequently released on $250,000 bond and is currently awaiting trial.