'Tiger King' Joe Exotic, still in prison, quietly ends presidential campaign

Joe Exotic, star of the hit 2020 Netflix docuseries Tiger King, has ended his presidential campaign.

Exotic’s campaign committee, Joseph Maldonado to Free America, filed a termination report with the Federal Election Commission Thursday, Raw Story first reported. The filing reveals that his campaign has just $1,400 left in funding after raising over $16,000.

Exotic, whose real name is Joseph Maldonado-Passage, is currently serving a 21-year sentence in a federal prison for his part in a murder-for-hire plot targeting his rival, Carole Baskin. Exotic was detained after offering $10,000 to an undercover FBI agent in exchange for her murder.

Exotic announced on Twitter in March, 2023 that he had filed paperwork to run for president as a Libertarian candidate in 2024, later switching to Democrat. He continued to maintain his innocence, and insisted that he was legally able to campaign from prison.

“Yes, I know I am in Federal Prison and you might think this is a joke but it's not. It is my Constitutional right to do this even from here," Exotic wrote on his campaign website. "Put aside that I am gay, that I am in prison for now, that I used drugs in the past, that I had more than one boyfriend at once, and that Carole hates my guts. This all has not a thing to do with me being able to be your voice."

Exotic was diagnosed with prostate cancer in 2021. He stopped treatment in February, 2023, writing in a letter obtained by TMZ that his doctors suspected the cancer was rapidly growing, and he was content "to stay here and just let it take its course." He drafted a new will at the time in which he left everything to his fiancé, Seth Posey.

“I could care less about dying, my birthday is coming up soon and all I want is to see Seth," Exotic wrote.

Exotic's team asked for a lesser sentence of 7.5 years in 2022 on account of his diagnosis, which was denied. Baskin told the judge at the hearing that Exotic "continues to harbor intense feelings of ill will toward me" and that she had continued to receive threatening communications despite his detainment.