Joe Exotic Transferred to Prison Medical Center Over COVID-19 Concerns

Joe's husband said the 'Tiger King' star was placed in isolation because there were confirmed cases at the facility where he was previously held.

April 3, 2020

Joseph Maldonado-Passage, aka Joe Exotic, has been transferred to a prison medical center.

As pointed out by the New York Post, inmate records confirm the 57-year-old Tiger King star is currently at the Forth Worth Federal Medical Center, which is operated by the Federal Bureau of Prisons. The records do not indicate when or why Joe Exotic was transferred to the facility, but his husband, Dillon Passage, recently announced Joe Exotic was placed under coronavirus isolation.

"We speak three to five times every day, but since he's been moved to this new facility, they are putting him on a COVID-19 isolation because of the previous jail he was at, there were cases," Passage said during Wednesday's episode of Andy Cohen's SiriusXM radio show. "I’ve yet to speak to him since he moved."

According to Variety, Joe Exotic was incarcerated at Grady County Jail in Chickasha, Oklahoma, before he was transferred to Fort Worth FMC. Passage told the outlet he does not believe his husband has contracted the virus. Prison officials could not reveal the reason for the move, citing HIPPA restrictions.

Joe Exotic is serving 22 years in federal prison on murder-for-hire and animal abuse charges. His case was explored in the hit Netflix docuseries Tiger King. Passage told Cohen that Joe Exotic has not seen the series, but is enjoying his newfound fame from behind bars.

"He's in jail, so he can't necessarily watch [the show], but once the show dropped he was getting hundreds and hundreds of emails to his jail mail, and he was ecstatic," Passage said. "It was a lot of good feedback, and he likes attention, obviously. He calls himself 'Joe Exotic the Tiger King.'"