Joseph Maldonado-Passage, aka Joe Exotic, is well aware the nation is enthralled with the Netflix docuseries Tiger King: Murder, Mayhem and Madness, which revolves around him.
Speaking during a March 22 interview posted by Netflix on Friday, the former tiger zoo owner and convicted felon, currently at the Federal Medical Center Fort Worth, said he wished he could enjoy his newfound fame (many call it infamy).
“You know it would be nice if I could actually see me being famous out there, but I’ve seen these same four walls for a year and a half now,” he said in a video posted to Twitter.
Still rocking the mullet and handlebar mustache, Maldonado-Passage joked he would be as crazy as he was before when he finished serving his 22-year sentence for his part in a murder-for-hire plot of animal rights activist Carole Baskin and a slew of animal abuse charges.
Maldonado-Passage did express remorse for some of his behavior in the prison interview.
“Go it in a cage with your animals for a week. I mean, when I left the zoo and I sent my chimpanzees to the sanctuary in Florida and imagined what my chimpanzees went through for 18 years, I — I’m ashamed of myself,” he said.
Maldonado-Passage thanked his husband, Dillon Passage, for sticking by his side after the arrest and conviction. Passage said in a previous interview this week that Joe Exotic is currently in isolation behind bars out of an abundance of caution during the novel coronavirus pandemic, having just transferred prisons. However, he has not been diagnosed with the virus, prison officials told The Hollywood Reporter.
In the prison interview, Maldonado-Passage said he was ready to move on with his life.
“I’m done with the Carole Baskin saga. It’s now time to turn the tables and Joe get out of jail a free man and exonerated from all these charges,” he said.
Watch the interview below.
Joe Exotic was interviewed from prison March 22.
Here’s what he told us pic.twitter.com/ueqTeWfKxh
— Netflix (@netflix) April 3, 2020
