Joe Exotic via Netflix, Donald Trump via Wikimedia CommonsFilm & TVNewsTiger King’s Joe Exotic is ‘very close’ to a presidential pardon from TrumpThe former zoo owner wants Donald Trump to release him from a 22 year sentence for animal abuse and murder-for-hireShareLink copied ✔️December 3, 2020Film & TVNewsTextThom Waite Tiger King’s Joe Exotic is reportedly “very close” to receiving a presidential pardon, which would release him from the 22-year sentence he’s currently serving for animal abuse and hiring a hitman to murder his nemesis, Carole Baskin. Earlier this week, Donald Trump’s team said that they are vetting a number of pardon requests as the outgoing president’s administration draws to a close. Among those is that of Joseph Maldonado-Passage (aka Joe Exotic, aka the Tiger King). “We've heard from the Tiger King,” one source told ABC News, adding: “You wouldn't believe the amount of calls, some insane, we've gotten.” The former zoo owner was jailed in September 2018, ahead of the Netflix documentary that would catapult him to fame for his messy antics and wild style (plus the fact that we had nothing else to do during lockdown). In the wake of his newfound popularity, Exotic’s legal team pushed for a pardon from Trump, claiming that he was wrongly convicted of murder-for-hire. Fans and supporters have also decorated a bus with the message: “President Trump, please pardon Joe Exotic.” Eventually, it got to the point that Trump himself said he’d “take a look” at the case, though he knew “nothing about it”. Now, if Exotic’s team is to be believed, they’re “very close” to getting the pardon they want. “We are waiting on the pen to hit the paper,” one of his attorneys, Eric Love, tells ABC. “We think we are very, very close.” Exotic has shared a message from prison via Instagram too, and appears to think he has a chance. “If President Trump grants me this miracle,“ he writes, “I can honestly say I am putting everyone connected to that zoo and that industry behind me. I am taking the higher road and will work on forgiving them.” Of course, it remains to be seen whether the presidential pardon will actually come to fruition. Does it seem unlikely? Maybe. But it also feels like a pretty fitting end to the Joe Exotic saga by 2020 standards. If Joe Exotic gets a presidential pardon, I will be fully convinced this year is a social experiment or computer simulation— mel (@melthesadclown) December 2, 2020Expand your creative community and connect with 15,000 creatives from around the world.READ MOREThe Voice of Hind Rajab, a Palestinian docudrama moving audiences to tearsMeet the 2025 winners of the BFI & Chanel Filmmaker AwardsOobah Butler’s guide to getting rich quickRed Scare revisited: 5 radical films that Hollywood tried to banPlainclothes is a tough but tender psychosexual thrillerCillian Murphy and Little Simz on their ‘provoking’ new film, Steve‘It’s like a drug, the adrenaline’: Julia Fox’s 6 favourite horror filmsHow Benny Safdie rewrote the rules of the sports biopic Harris Dickinson’s Urchin is a magnetic study of life on the marginsPaul Thomas Anderson on writing, The PCC and One Battle After AnotherWayward, a Twin Peaks-y new thriller about the ‘troubled teen’ industryHappyend: A Japanese teen sci-fi set in a dystopian, AI-driven future