Shownotes
Joseph Allen Maldonado called Blair Kaplan Venables while incarcerated to talk about his childhood, and complex grief and shared the truth behind the the show “Tiger King.” This is his story, and he is RESILIENT A.F.
About the Guest:
Joseph Allen Maldonado (né Schreibvogel; born March 5, 1963), known professionally as Joe Exotic and nicknamed "The Tiger King," is an American media personality and businessman who operated the Greater Wynnewood Exotic Animal Park (also known as the G.W. Zoo, Tiger King Park and formerly the Garold Wayne Exotic Animal Memorial Park) in Wynnewood, Oklahoma, from 1999 to 2018.
Born in Kansas, Exotic and his family moved to Texas, where he enrolled at Pilot Point High School.[3] After graduation, Exotic briefly served as the chief of police in Eastvale. He then opened a pet store with his brother, but after his brother's death in 1997, Exotic sold the store and founded the G.W. Zoo. During his tenure as director there, he also held magic shows and cub-petting events at venues across the U.S., hosted an online talk show, and worked with producer Rick Kirkham to create a reality television series about himself, but this latter effort ended when most footage was destroyed in a fire in 2015. In 2016, Exotic ran as an independent in the 2016 presidential election, earning attention as a novelty candidate due to his eccentric persona and unconventional campaign style.
Exotic left the G.W. Zoo in June 2018 and was arrested three months later on suspicion of hiring two men to murder Big Cat Rescue founder Carole Baskin, with whom he had a complicated rivalry.[5] In 2019, Exotic was convicted and sentenced to 22 years in prison on 17 federal charges of animal abuse and two counts of attempted murder for hire for the plot to kill Baskin. In 2021, he worked with attorney John Michael Phillips to file a motion for a new trial, and on July 15, 2021, a U.S. appeals court ruled that the convictions for the two murder attempts were wrongly treated as separate. The trial court reduced his sentence by 1 year, resentencing him to 21 years in late January 2022.
Source: Wikipedia
Links:
https://joeexoticofficial.com/pages/joeexotictigerkinginnocent
https://www.instagram.com/joe_exotic
https://www.youtube.com/c/JoeExoticTV
https://www.facebook.com/joejschreibvogel/
https://www.tiktok.com/@thereal_joeexotic
Book: https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1982180439?tag=simonsayscom
⚠️ Content Note: Some episodes may contain themes that could be distressing. Please take care of yourself while listening, and don’t hesitate to seek support from a mental health professional if needed.
About the Hosts:
Blair Kaplan Venables is a British Columbia-based grief and resilience expert and coach, motivational speaker and the Founder of The Global Resilience Project. Her expertise has been featured on media platforms like Forbes, TEDx, CBC Radio, Entrepreneur, and Thrive Global. She is named the Top Grief and Resilience Expert of the Year 2024 by IAOTP. USA Today listed Blair as one of the top 10 conscious female leaders to watch and she empowers others to be resilient from stages around the world. 'MyStory,’ which is a television show available on Amazon Prime Video, Apple TV+ and Google Play, showcases Blair's life story. She is the host of the Radical Resilience podcast and specializes in helping people strengthen their resilience muscle using scientifically proven methods and guides grieving high performers with her Navigating Grief Framework. The Global Resilience Project’s award-winning book series are international bestsellers, and her fourth book, RESILIENT A.F.: Stories of Resilience Vol 2, will be published in January 2025. In her free time, you can find Blair writing, in nature, travelling the world and helping people to strengthen their resilience muscles.
Links:
https://theglobalresilienceproject.com
https://www.linkedin.com/in/blairdkaplan
https://www.facebook.com/blair.kaplan
https://www.facebook.com/BlairKaplanCommunications
https://www.instagram.com/globalresiliencecommunity
https://www.instagram.com/blairfromblairland/
https://www.facebook.com/globalresiliencecommunity
https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-global-resilience-project
Alana Kaplan is a compassionate mental health professional based in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. She works in the mental health field, and is a co-host of the Resilient A.F. podcast. Fueled by advocacy, Alana is known for standing up and speaking out for others. Passionate about de-stigmatizing and normalizing mental health, Alana brings her experience to The Global Resilience Project’s team, navigating the role one’s mental health plays in telling their story.
Engaging in self-care and growth keeps her going, and her love for reading, travel, and personal relationships helps foster that. When she’s not working, Alana can often be found on walks, working on a crossword puzzle, or playing with any animal she sees.
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Transcripts
How do you move through that grief? Like, how do you navigate
Speaker:the pain? Like, are any
Speaker:You know, you you get numb to it. I mean, there's not
Speaker:a day, goes by that I don't think of all of them.
Speaker:Yeah. But but, you know, it's it's,
Speaker:it's like my parents both died since I've been in here too.
Speaker:Mhmm. It's just you you you literally just get
Speaker:numb to it. And I think that's why, I
Speaker:I wrap myself up with with animals so much,
Speaker:in my life because, you know, I I
Speaker:just got tired of of the loss of people.
Speaker:Welcome back to another episode of Resilient AF
Speaker:with Blair and Alana. But this time, no Alana,
Speaker:but a very interesting guest. So when it
Speaker:was proposed to me to see if I want to interview this person,
Speaker:I wasn't sure because there's lots of controversy
Speaker:around this specific person. But then I remembered we
Speaker:all deserve to share our story. And
Speaker:some circumstances are in our control and some are
Speaker:not, and I'm really honored and grateful that
Speaker:I had a chance to do this interview. I was told there's a couple conditions.
Speaker:This person was going to be calling me from jail. I had to
Speaker:pick up. I only had 30 minutes, and
Speaker:so we began our journey. And
Speaker:so we made a plan, but I got a message
Speaker:that he was in solitary and that we had to reschedule.
Speaker:So we rescheduled, and while I was on a mini vacation, I made time
Speaker:to meet with him. He did not show up. We tried again the next
Speaker:day. He did not show up. I was getting
Speaker:upset and frustrated. I then learned that the jail was in lockdown because of a
Speaker:fight. And so when
Speaker:we find and then the next day, we did not have a plan to talk,
Speaker:and I had 2 missed calls from the jail. So I knew that I was
Speaker:not getting stood up and that this interview would happen, but I was giving
Speaker:up hope. I was giving up hope. And
Speaker:so we finally connected, and
Speaker:I got a call from jail in Texas
Speaker:from Joe Exotic, the Tiger
Speaker:King. Now before
Speaker:I introduce him, a couple things you should know.
Speaker:He called from jail, had to get my number approved,
Speaker:had to be very specific at a specific time. I only had
Speaker:15 minutes that I wasn't aware of. So the the interview does
Speaker:end quite abruptly, but it was a really powerful 15
Speaker:minutes. And we talked
Speaker:more about him, his upbringing, and his experience with grief,
Speaker:and I learned some stuff. If you're a diehard Joe
Speaker:Exotic fan, maybe you've read his book and watched his music videos
Speaker:and have been to his website. All of his links are in the show
Speaker:notes. You know, he's he's working really
Speaker:hard at trying to get a pardon,
Speaker:and I learned that he's been in jail since
Speaker:2018, 2 years before the Netflix
Speaker:series aired that he had nothing to do with.
Speaker:So sit back, relax,
Speaker:enjoy the conversation with the Tiger King about
Speaker:his incarceration, his childhood, complex
Speaker:grief, and
Speaker:the journey that got him there. So Joseph
Speaker:Allen Maldano, also known as Joe
Speaker:Exotic and the Tiger King, he's an American media personality and businessman
Speaker:who operated the GW Exotic Animal
Speaker:Park. So the GW Zoo in honor of his brother is what it's named
Speaker:after. Tiger King Park, formerly the Gerald Wayne
Speaker:Exotic Animal Memorial Park in Oklahoma. He was born in
Speaker:Kansas. Him and his family moved to Texas where he went
Speaker:to Pilot Point High School. After graduation, he briefly served
Speaker:as the chief of police of Eastville. He then opened a pet store
Speaker:with his brother. But after his brother's death in 1997, which was extremely
Speaker:devastating, Exotic sold the store, and he started the GW
Speaker:Zoo. I'm not gonna go too deep into him. You can
Speaker:Google him and and a bunch of stuff comes out. I wanna encourage you to
Speaker:go to his website. He has his social media handles below as well. I didn't
Speaker:even know he wrote a book, and I'm excited to dive into it. He
Speaker:is smart, and the Netflix
Speaker:series paints him as, a specific type of
Speaker:character. And and some of that is is true, and it's it's
Speaker:within him. But my perception of him is that
Speaker:he is one of us. He's the walking wounded who carries trauma,
Speaker:who carries grief, betrayal.
Speaker:And I just wanna say thank
Speaker:you, Joe, for taking the time to call me. I'm so honored that we
Speaker:finally connected. And
Speaker:sit back and enjoy the ride.
Speaker:Oh my gosh. I can't believe we finally connected. I thought you were maybe, like,
Speaker:a myth a mythical conspiracy. Hell no.
Speaker:No. How are you doing? Oh, not too bad
Speaker:considering it's prison. Yeah. So,
Speaker:you know, we I know we only have a limited amount of time together.
Speaker:And Right. I'm not too sure what you've been
Speaker:kinda told about our show, but, it's all about
Speaker:grief and resilience. And I'd love to just talk to you a bit about your
Speaker:life. Ask anything you want.
Speaker:Alright. So, I mean, the world is very familiar with you. You you
Speaker:basically shared absolutely almost everything on your Netflix
Speaker:show during the pandemic. And, like, I fell in love with you. I think
Speaker:you're quirky and, like, I am always wearing
Speaker:animal prints. And, like, it just I don't know. I I I love the
Speaker:vibe that you give off, your honesty. But I
Speaker:wanna go back to your childhood, and I'd love
Speaker:to know what some of the happiest memories you have from your childhood
Speaker:are. You know, there there there wasn't very many.
Speaker:And I think that's what makes me who I am today. Why
Speaker:I help people so much and I do so much nonprofit stuff and
Speaker:everything because my childhood sucked.
Speaker:I you know, every day of my life, my mom and dad
Speaker:fought. Even though they were married 72 years, they fought
Speaker:every day. Mhmm. And then and then, you know, I
Speaker:had, some sexual abuse from
Speaker:my my oldest brother and my dad, you know, growing
Speaker:up. Oh, gosh. So I don't know if
Speaker:you ever read my book. It's all in my book, you know. But,
Speaker:yeah. I mean, other than other than,
Speaker:you know, the the time that I was growing up in
Speaker:Wyoming and able to have,
Speaker:pet raccoons and porcupines and stuff,
Speaker:real honest to god. I I can't think of any time I
Speaker:had fun being a kid. I'm sorry you
Speaker:went through all that. That's absolutely terrible. And I
Speaker:did read that you were close with your brother who passed away.
Speaker:Is that true? Yeah. Very. He he he was my
Speaker:mentor. Absolutely. Me and my brother was
Speaker:in business. You know, we owned that pet store together for
Speaker:16 years. What's your brother's name?
Speaker:Gerald Wayne, g w. GW. Well, may GW's
Speaker:memory be a blessing. But so that's That's what we that that's what
Speaker:we built that zoo in memory of. You know? We built it as a memorial
Speaker:park, you know, to save animals and memory of people who've died. And that that's
Speaker:probably the the saddest part about this whole story is there was
Speaker:a 151 other memorials there,
Speaker:and 3 people were actually buried under their their
Speaker:exhibits. You know? Wow. Jeff Jeff and Carol
Speaker:and them just completely destroy it. Is
Speaker:there no more memorials there because, there's the new ownership?
Speaker:It it's it's a ghost town. I mean, they they just completely
Speaker:destroyed it, and the weeds are taller than the cages. Oh, that's
Speaker:absolutely terrible, especially because it was a memorial. Yeah.
Speaker:But back to GW, like, I know you said you didn't have a lot of
Speaker:happy memories from your childhood. But if you think maybe more
Speaker:specifically with you and GW, can you remember, like, some times that
Speaker:you guys had a lot of fun and that there was last Well, and, you
Speaker:know, and that and that goes that goes again back to Wyoming.
Speaker:You know? Me me and Gerald used to always go
Speaker:horseback riding because we lived in the mountains. So we spent almost every
Speaker:day on a horse in the mountains. And and
Speaker:we would, go exploring in old mines,
Speaker:shafts, and blowing up
Speaker:beaver dams and and, you know, stuff like that. And,
Speaker:you know, my brother is the one who who
Speaker:taught me that your word is This call is from a
Speaker:federal prison. Your word is no good. You you're just a piece of
Speaker:shit because the respect that you you leave
Speaker:behind is all you take with you when you die.
Speaker:Yeah. How how old was he when he passed away?
Speaker:32. That's like, I can't
Speaker:even imagine, like, I don't you don't probably don't know too much about my story,
Speaker:but in a very short period of time, my husband almost died. We
Speaker:suffered a miscarriage. We don't have children. My
Speaker:father-in-law, mom, and dad all died, and that was in a few years. And
Speaker:so I navigated grief for my parents and a child,
Speaker:but I've never lost my sibling, which I have one sister. So I
Speaker:I definitely have no idea how you felt in the sense of losing
Speaker:your sibling, and that seems to be your closest family member. How do you
Speaker:think that grief impacted you? I
Speaker:changed my life, completely. You know,
Speaker:and and I I had I had
Speaker:twin little boys, that that,
Speaker:she was 9 months pregnant with, and she had a wreck and they died.
Speaker:And, you know, and then and then before my
Speaker:brother died, my first husband of 16 years died, you
Speaker:know. And and then Gerald died,
Speaker:and then my last husband, you know, shot himself. You saw that in
Speaker:the movie. Oh my gosh. Tiger King. So so
Speaker:death death has been a big part of my life, you know,
Speaker:growing up. And, I got a a
Speaker:young, experience of it because probably
Speaker:one of my first jobs was, when I was 13 years old. I was
Speaker:a nurse's aide in a nursing home, and I saw a lot of
Speaker:people die there. But, yeah, it it
Speaker:when my brother died, it changed my life. It it almost
Speaker:destroyed my parents. I couldn't, you know, I couldn't even
Speaker:imagine what they went through because my dad lived to
Speaker:die every day. Yeah. That's
Speaker:And, that's painful. Like, it's it's like, there's
Speaker:there's no, like, there's certain types
Speaker:of grief that, you know, like, my grandma, like, she's
Speaker:91. She'll she'll die soon. Like, we expect that. But when things don't
Speaker:happen in the right order, like, a parent isn't supposed to bury their
Speaker:child. Right? Like Right. Right. You know? And, like, losing your brother
Speaker:before your parents. Like, things are just out of order, and I can't even imagine
Speaker:what what that would be like. Like, I watched both my grandparents bury their
Speaker:children. My my mom's mom buried her daughter, her oldest daughter, and my
Speaker:grandma grandma buried my dad. And it's just so
Speaker:not the way that life's supposed to be, and then you
Speaker:get hit with this absolutely tragic experience.
Speaker:And you've had a lot of loss. Right? Yeah. Your your first
Speaker:husband, GW, you know, your your other
Speaker:partner or husband shot themselves. How how do you
Speaker:move through that grief? Like, how do you navigate the pain?
Speaker:Like, or any You
Speaker:know, you you get numb to it. I mean, there's not a
Speaker:day, goes by that I don't think of all of them.
Speaker:Yeah. But, you know, it's it's
Speaker:it's like my parents both died since I've been in here too. Mhmm.
Speaker:It's just you you literally just get numb to it. And I think
Speaker:that's why, I wrapped my
Speaker:This call is from a federal prison. My I wrapped myself up
Speaker:with with animals so much, in my
Speaker:life because, you know, I I just
Speaker:got tired of of the loss of people. I mean, losing
Speaker:an animal is also very devastating. I've buried, like, I've I've lost a
Speaker:few cats and like so it's like losing a person.
Speaker:It is. And and, you know, I did a a music video about,
Speaker:my my chimpanzee dying, you know, and and it was
Speaker:like losing a kid.
Speaker:But, I mean, it's tough. I I
Speaker:the only way I'm going to be able to change anything or do
Speaker:anything in memory of them is if I keep fighting.
Speaker:And and that's that's my drive, you know. Yeah.
Speaker:My my big goal is to testify in front of congress when
Speaker:I make it out of here. And I'm gonna change
Speaker:the system somehow, some way. I'm gonna change the system.
Speaker:And I'm gonna do it in in memory of my mom and dad and my
Speaker:brother because I they destroyed they destroyed my
Speaker:life, to close that zoo down and put me in
Speaker:here. Yeah. You know, they were married 72 years.
Speaker:And the minute they put me in jail, they put them in separate nursing homes
Speaker:so they couldn't communicate, so they could take their prop my my
Speaker:niece could take their property away from them,
Speaker:and they died alone after 72 years of marriage. And it's
Speaker:it's not right. No. That's heartbreaking. I mean, like
Speaker:Yeah. Yeah. I mean It's heartbreaking. It's heartbreaking. Because my
Speaker:brother, GW, never left home. He always
Speaker:lived on the same property as my mom and dad even with his
Speaker:wife and kids, you know, but in a different house,
Speaker:because my brother swore that they would never go to a nursing home.
Speaker:And when he died, I sold the pet store in in
Speaker:Texas, and I moved to Oklahoma to take care of my mom and dad.
Speaker:And together, we built that zoo. You know? Yeah.
Speaker:And the minute they got me arrested, they took my power of attorney away from
Speaker:me, that I had on mom and dad, and they slapped him
Speaker:in in nursing homes. The exact same thing that my brother never
Speaker:wanted to happen. They slapped him in separate nursing homes, and
Speaker:my niece took their house and their their property and and let
Speaker:them die alone in a nursing That's that's
Speaker:terrible. So I I do, like, agree like, you
Speaker:you are not a stranger to grief and, like, trauma.
Speaker:So the Netflix series, like, how did you decide to do
Speaker:do all that? Like, what what was the catalyst in putting
Speaker:your Yeah. Well outstand? Well, I understand that I didn't film
Speaker:for Netflix. Okay? I didn't film for Tiger
Speaker:King. Everything that you saw me on that
Speaker:show, they took either off of my YouTube channel
Speaker:or Dylan, my husband at the time, signed a contract
Speaker:and sold them my footage from me filming.
Speaker:Okay. I was filming my own show, my own reality show.
Speaker:And and he sold them my footage for $2,600,000
Speaker:and left me here. Oh my gosh. Yeah. I didn't get
Speaker:a dime. Yeah. So many people think that that
Speaker:I filmed that for for I didn't I didn't I was in
Speaker:jail 2 years before Netflix even filmed that. Oh my
Speaker:gosh. I had no idea. That's crazy. Oh, yeah.
Speaker:Yeah. No. I was I was arrested in September of 2018,
Speaker:and Tiger King was filmed in in 18/19.
Speaker:So so you were arrested when it came out on
Speaker:Netflix? Like, you're already in jail? I was in jail 2 years
Speaker:already. Yes. Wow. And when you
Speaker:got a did you know you were going to get arrested? Nope.
Speaker:Had no clue. I
Speaker:like, my mind is blown right now that that that they were able
Speaker:to do that about you with all of your footage without your
Speaker:consent. Yeah. And they had no consent of mine,
Speaker:and then they turned around and he sold all of my clothes to a museum
Speaker:in Las Vegas too. I I have nothing. I have no home. I
Speaker:have no clothes. I have nothing. I have no pictures
Speaker:from when I was a kid. Nothing anymore. It's
Speaker:all gone. Everything. That's I'm that's so
Speaker:sad. So so why did you get arrested? Like,
Speaker:obviously, there's tons of articles. I went through your website. I know you have a
Speaker:bunch of evidence that wasn't used. Like, what what was what did
Speaker:they arrest you on and how long was your sentence from
Speaker:today? They arrested me in Pensacola,
Speaker:Florida. I was at my rent house down there with Dylan. Okay?
Speaker:And they arrested me in a hospital parking lot because I was
Speaker:I was at the hospital fixing to get a blood infusion.
Speaker:They arrested me in the parking lot. One murder for hire charge.
Speaker:Okay? And I was like, what the hell do you mean murder for hire?
Speaker:So they extradited me from Florida back
Speaker:to Oklahoma City, and they tried to get me to plead guilty
Speaker:to one murder for hire charge. And I was like, I haven't done
Speaker:anything. So I want my day in court because I thought I could
Speaker:trust the system. It will the minute that I asked for a
Speaker:trial, they superseded my indictment with 20
Speaker:more charges. Wow. So that's where they put all the
Speaker:health certificates on there, you know, Lacey violations, and
Speaker:then they charged me for euthanizing those 5 tigers without a permit
Speaker:and all kinds of stupid shit. Do you think So that way they could
Speaker:so that way they can drag that all around in front of the jury. You
Speaker:know? Do do you think this would have happened if Dylan didn't sell all
Speaker:that footage? No. It wouldn't have. Absolutely, it
Speaker:wouldn't have. K. So anyway, they
Speaker:convicted me and they sentenced me to 22 years. And
Speaker:as of right now, if I don't get a pardon or I don't
Speaker:win my appeal, which I should, I have 5 years left.
Speaker:5 years. And if you win your appeal, when would you get out?
Speaker:I would get out immediately. And how
Speaker:how can we, the public, help support you in winning an
Speaker:appeal? Like, is there Blair Blair, hey, this is fixing to hang up. So let
Speaker:me real quick, get on all of my social media. They should have posted a
Speaker:petition today. Sign the petition. Share it around. I'm
Speaker:trying to get a pardon, and, just
Speaker:spread the evidence around. But the big thing is put hashtag freejillexotic
Speaker:on every post Trump and Biden puts out there.
Speaker:And as you can tell, our interview,
Speaker:abruptly abruptly ended because I thought we had 30 minutes, and I didn't know
Speaker:we had 15. And luckily, he gave me gave me a little warning, like,
Speaker:I'm getting, you know, told to hang up. So some questions I
Speaker:wanted to ask him that perhaps if there's another interview or if we write about
Speaker:him in the future, I wanted to talk to him about forgiveness. I wanted to
Speaker:talk to him about how he can forgive himself for any choices he made that
Speaker:may have, you know, hurt people or,
Speaker:let him on a certain path. I wanted to talk to him more about his
Speaker:cancer diagnosis. I, online, read that he was diagnosed
Speaker:with prostate cancer. And, so, unfortunately, we didn't have
Speaker:time to get to those. So I wanna thank you for listening
Speaker:to our vulnerable, real, raw
Speaker:chat between Joe and me
Speaker:from jail to Kamloops. And just
Speaker:remember, friends, you're gonna get through those hard times.
Speaker:You can do it. And if you believe you're gonna get through
Speaker:it and you put the effort in, you will. We are
Speaker:here to help you get through your hard times, to inspire you, to strengthen your
Speaker:resilience muscle. Let us be that lighthouse in the storm.
Speaker:Let us help you through your dark times. You are not alone.
Speaker:It is okay to not be okay. And remember, friends,
Speaker:you are resilient, a
Speaker:f.
