Joe Exotic Claims He Will Sue Everyone Involved With Joe vs. Carole

Two years after Netflix’s Tiger King made Joe Exotic famous, his story will be adapted in Peacock’s scripted series Joe vs. Carole. The show stars Kate McKinnon (Saturday Night Live) as his longtime rival Carole Baskin and John Cameron Mitchell (Shrill) as Exotic, fictionalizing their feud as Baskin strives to take down Exotic and his for-profit exotic animal zoo.

In the past, Exotic has embraced the platform and notoriety Tiger King has given him — despite never having actually seen the show because he’s been in prison. But he has a much different opinion about Joe vs. Carole and all the other projects that have sprung up in the wake of Tiger King. Exotic hasn’t spoken to any media outlet about the Peacock series, as he’s currently being held in a medical facility for federal inmates in Butner, North Carolina. But his Instagram page is updated almost daily, assumedly by somebody on his team. In a May 2021 Instagram post, he expressed disdain about a now-canceled Tiger King movie starring Nicolas Cage, praising Cage as a “talented actor” but writing that he was “not going to get excited about anyone playing Joe Exotic except ME, Joe Exotic the Tiger King.” He added that he wanted to tell his “own damn story.”

Exotic called the second season of Tiger King “sleezy” in an Instagram post the same month, and has expressed similar sentiments about Joe vs. Carole. On June 11, 2021, he posted a headline of a Joe vs. Carole cast announcement, writing, “I do not support or approve of this show, as no one has ever talked to me about the truth.” He added that producers “just can’t let [his late boyfriend Travis [Maldonado, played by Nat Wolff] rest” and that “no one knew anything about Travis other than making sh*t up to feel important to make money.”

Exotic continued to rant about Joe vs. Carole in an Aug. 15, 2021 post, where he shared an image of Mitchell’s Exotic being dipped and kissed on set. “This is not how I live or lived my life and fully intend on suing all involved,” he wrote.

And on Feb. 14, 2022 he posted, “March 3, two days before my birthday, Hollywood releases another movie about me for profit, while the United States of America slowly kills me in solitary confinement. All this while a woman who killed her husband walks free.” (He’s referencing Baskin, who has denied having any involvement in the 1997 disappearance and presumed death of her second husband Don Lewis).

Ultimately, it seems that Exotic hates being famous because he sees it as benefiting everyone but himself. “Get on the internet and Google 'Joe Exotic' and hit the shop button and look, everybody in the world is making money off of me, but me,” he told ABC News.