'Tiger King' Star Joe Exotic Tells Trump: 'You Forgot Me ... Again'

Tiger King” star Joe Exotic isn’t happy that President Donald Trump just pardoned a whole bunch of Jan. 6 rioters but hasn’t gotten to him yet.

Exotic, whose real name is Joseph Maldonado-Passage, is currently serving 22 years in prison for attempting to hire a hit man to murder rival Carole Baskin in addition to numerous multiple federal wildlife violations.

The 61-year-old inmate is currently incarcerated at the Federal Medical Center in Fort Worth, Texas, where he is being treated for prostate cancer.

The disgraced zookeeper expressed his disappointment at the president’s lack of action with an Instagram post on Tuesday that featured an illustration of someone hunched over in the rain. (Commenters guessed it was a character from the anime “Naruto.”)

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“President Trump: You forgot me ... again,” read the caption.

In the post, Exotic griped about the unfairness of it all, saying, “if I was a crack dealer, maybe if I broke in the capital or even have been related to the Bidens. I might have gotten some relief on being in prison innocent.”

He added: “Hell the guy who killed 2 FBI Agents even [g]ot a pardon today. I can’t even get a new trial based on admitted perjury testimony.”

Exotic’s post comes days after his attorney, Levi McCathern, held a news conference at which he claimed he had “new evidence” proving his client’s innocence, according to Fox affiliate KDFW.

According to McCathern, key witnesses, including alleged hitman Allen Glover, have admitted to perjury in the case.

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“Joe Exotic did not hire anyone to murder anyone,” he said. “He was convicted of a murder-for-hire, but there’s a problem with that. No one was killed, no one was paid and no one, except for Joe, was ever charged.”

HuffPost reached out to the White House for a comment on the possibility of Exotic getting pardoned, but no one immediately responded.

Exotic has been angling for a pardon since he was sentenced in 2019, but with no luck. Rather than trying to flatter the president, Exotic has preferred an antagonistic approach.

In Jan. 2021, when Exotic wasn’t pardoned at the end of Trump’s first term in office, he declared he “was too innocent and too GAY to deserve a Pardon from Trump.”

In June, 2023, when Trump was facing possible criminal charges, Exotic taunted the then-former president by saying he’d “save [him] a bunk and a bed roll” in prison.

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Trump has avoided commenting on Exotic’s case for the most part.

In April 2020, he told reporters he was unfamiliar with the case, and then asked them if they would “recommend a pardon.” He jokingly added: “I’ll take a look.”

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