Finlay later married a woman and had a child, according to NY Mag. He also has new teeth, according to a recent Facebook post on his fan page, “The Truth About John Finlay.” “Yes, I fixed my teeth,” he wrote next to a photo of himself with perfect teeth. “The producers of the Netflix series had videos and photos, but didn`t show it.” Joe met Brian in the late 1980s while working as a security guard at a gay cowboy bar in Texas called the Round-up Saloon, according to a New York Magazine profile. Brian was 19 at the time, but soon moved into Joe`s trailer, where they shared several poodles. Soon “they looked alike, with horseshoe mules and whiskers and dressed in jeans and boots,” the profile reads. “On Saturdays, they would snort pink methamphetamine and go to bars. Hartpence would have wanted the zoo to become a rehabilitation center for big game while Joe continued to raise his cats. In 2003, Joe allegedly threatened Hartpence with a photo of his tiger, Goliath holding a piece of meat that read “J.C.`s remains,” as well as a note that said, “If you don`t come together, this will be your reality,” according to Texas Monthly. But as his business and marriages grew, so did his personality, eventually leading to his demise. Her escapades inside and outside the park — particularly her country music career, a reality show, and the 2016 presidential bid — have often clashed with husbands, investors, employees (including one who bears a striking resemblance to Aaron Eckhart in Erin Brockovich) and Baskin. While it`s easy to Google where Exotic ended up after the government intervened, it`s worth waiting for his journey to unfold on screen. In seven episodes, co-directors Eric Goode and Rebecca Chaiklin trace the course of Joe Exotic`s eccentric life and introduce viewers to other characters from the big cat world in a story that includes polygamy, mysterious disappearances, drug abuse, cult leaders, and exploitation of humans and animals. This is the real story behind Tiger King.
Joe Exotic`s life began to fall apart after 2015. Her husband Travis Maldonado committed suicide in 2017. While dealing with his grief and financial problems, Joe Exotic remained consumed by his hatred of Baskin. In 2017, he tried unsuccessfully to have Baskin killed by paying an employee to complete the task; This employee ran away with the money. At the time, the FBI was investigating Joe Exotic for alleged animal abuse at the zoo. When federal agents discovered that he had tried to kill Baskin, they sent an undercover agent that Joe Exotic wanted to hire to conduct a second attempt on Baskin`s life. Goode: I would say big cats see tigers as a kind of status symbol, like you would with a Ferrari or a luxury car collection. They have the animals to elevate their position. That`s what makes them special. Goode: A few years ago, I went to Nepal and filmed one of the most successful tiger recovery programs with the World Wildlife Fund. We really struggled at the end and tried to fit everything into this series, and unfortunately this material didn`t succeed.
Of course, I didn`t go there and I filmed everything so that it didn`t end up in the series. But it was difficult with the tone and direction the show took at the end to accommodate everything. Of course, ideally, we want people to understand the problems without us spoon-feeding them. Joe Exotic was convicted in 2019 of 21 charges, including conspiracy to kill Baskin and kill several tigers. In January 2020, he was sentenced to 22 years in prison and is currently in the Grady County, Oklahoma Jail. He seems to believe that Tiger King will somehow justify it, according to recent Facebook posts. On Friday, a post from his account read: “Now that the Netflix series is out, I can`t watch it, but if you watch. The people who set me up. Please share this with a law firm that can help me get out of here. Joe Exotic, who considered Baskin a hypocrite because she also made money from exotic animals through her sanctuary, hit back in a rather extreme way. He began making videos in which he read copies of Baskin`s diary, which he acquired after one of his former employees stole it, and posted it online.
He suggested that Baskin`s diary entries showed that she had killed her ex-husband and began a campaign to arrest him for his death. Hartpence then held two guns to Joe`s head while he slept and told him he was leaving the zoo. After dissuading him, Joe called the police and Hartpence was arrested. Hartpence is currently serving a life sentence for a murder unrelated to the Joe Exotic saga, The Wichita Eagle reported. He is also a convicted pedophile, according to Digital Spy. Joe has to sell his zoo because of the significant economic burden of legal bills. McClendon seemed to be the king of Oklahoma City when everything fell apart. The hydraulic fracturing revolution has created an oversupply. The price of natural gas plummeted and U.S. prosecutors charged him with conspiracy to manipulate prices.
The day after the indictment, McClendon drove his SUV head-on into a highway overpass and died instantly. Garold Wayne Exotic Animal Memorial Park, known as the G.W. Zoo, was populated by a growing number of exotic animals as Joe acquired exotic tigers, lions, ligers and more. As GW Zoo gained popularity in the early 2000s, Joe Exotic became a local celebrity. To keep the zoo running, he continued to breed animals to maintain a steady supply of tiger cubs, and he took his exotic animals on tour and charged people for photo ops. “Tiger King” was probably always destined to be a hit. How else could a documentary series with exotic animals, polygamy, weapons, murder plots, methamphetamine and genital piercings be anything else? From 2014 until weeks in 2020, their cameras followed Exotic and Baskin, who were already legally involved, observing in real time as it escalated into something much, much darker. The end result is a seven-part series that takes many unexpected turns as these people reveal their true intentions.
To understand everything that takes place in this documentary, ET has put together a guide to the most important personalities and their intertwined stories. Chaiklin: Most of the tigers we were with were subjected to deplorable cruelty. We saw babies torn from their mothers and screaming. They would get sick because they are so manipulated and get ringworm and scabies. It was troubling. Are they cute? Yes. Were there temptations to cuddle or touch? Yes. But it was very clear that this was nothing positive. While Maldonado-Passage was working in a gay bar in Texas in the `80s, he met Rhyne, and the two married, even though the marriage wasn`t official. Together, the two founded the Maldonado-Passage Zoo in Oklahoma with money Maldonado-Passage received when his brother Garold died in a car accident. In 2001, Rhyne died of HIV and Maldonado-Passage held his funeral at the zoo.
Jennifer Nied is Fitness Editor at Women`s Health and has over 10 years of experience in health and wellness journalism. She is always exploring – workouts and sweat testing equipment, hiking, snowboarding, running and more – with her husband, daughter and dog. Although Joe seems to love all of his exotic animals, there are some questions about the ethics behind removing cubs from their mothers right after birth. Shortly after taking over the finances, Lowe discovers that Exotic has embezzled money and funds from his 2016 presidential bid, putting the two men in conflict and leading to even crazier antics from Extic.
