DISGRACELAND - Joe Exotic: Tiger King, Budding Country Star, Confidence Man Extraordinaire

Episode Date: April 7, 2020

Joe Exotic, the gun toting, mullet wearing, polyamorous subject of the hit Netflix series Tiger King was more than just a murder-minded conman. He could sing! You saw those videos. We did too. As a singer, Joe’s voice belied the tortured Everyman experience of some of the best country music crooners, hinting at deep trauma resulting from unspeakable loss, assault and violence. Most of which was for the most part, left on the cutting room floor of the popular Netflix series and is on display in this special Covid-19 bonus content episode of Disgraceland. To view the full list of contributors, see the show notes at www.disgracelandpod.com.  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is exactly right. Double Elvis. This season on Dear Chelsea, with me, Chelsea Handler, we have some fantastic guests like Amelia Clark. When like young people come up to me and they want to be an actor or whatever. My first thing is always, can you think of anything else that you can do? Rather be disappointed in. Do that.

David O'Yello. I love this podcast, whether it's therapy or relationships or religion or sex or addiction or you just go straight for the guts. Dennis Leary, Gaten Moderato from Stranger Things, Tana Mongeau, Camilla Morone, Carrie Kenny Silver, and more. Listen to these episodes of Dear Chelsea on the Iheart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Sometimes a suspect is found guilty before a verdict is ever read in court.

On the Wicked Words podcast, I talk with the writers who dig deep into the cases that changed history, including Marshall. Clark, who went from prosecuting one of the most famous murder cases to writing crime fiction. It doesn't matter that you didn't take part in the murder. If you were at the scene at all, you're guilty of murder. Every week, the real story is revealed. Join us every Monday for new episodes of Wicked Words. Listen to Wicked Words on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Movies can make you feel, make you dream. Sometimes they even make you appreciate architecture. Is there anybody

who's been hotter in a doorway than Elizabeth Taylor? That's the kind of analysis you'll find every week on Dear Movies I Love You, the new podcast from the Exactly Right Network. Every Tuesday, we break down the films we're crushing on, from blockbusters to deep cuts. Listen to Dear Movies I Love You on the Iheart Radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Disgrace Land is a production of Double Elvis.

Hey guys, do my best to bring you as much content as I can during this COVID-19 lockdown. So here's a special unplanned bonus episode I decided late Friday afternoon to write once I learned the music news about Tiger King's Joe Exotic. Like the rest of America, I too binged Tiger King and was excited to come at the story from a music angle. So my team and I jumped into action and we pulled this together in three days so you can have some content on this disgrace land off week. For context, it usually takes two weeks to produce an episode of disgraceland, and that doesn't include research. So I not only relied heavily, obviously, on the Netflix documentary as a source for this episode, but I also relied on the New York Magazine Intelligence Air article on Joe Exotic entitled

American Animals that was reported in partnership with Over My Dead Body Season 2, Joe Exotic by Wondery. These and the rest of the sources used for this episode are available on my website, as are the sources for all of my episodes. Finally, if you have some extra coin lying around and want to donate to help prevent the type of animal cruelty depicted in this episode, there are numerous animal rights organizations out there worthy of your donation. And if depictions of animal cruelty, rape, or suicide trigger you in any way,

then you might want to skip this. But if stories about gun-toting, mullet-wearing, polyamorous conmen get you going, then guess what, motherfucker? This episode's for you. Melotron. Stories about Joe Exotic are insane. As the owner of a roadside zoo in Oklahoma, he ruled over his staff like a redneck circus wrangler.

He took tigers and other large predators to malls across America until his touring show was shut down by his nemesis, Carol Baskin. He was strapped at all times and made sure everyone who ever saw his YouTube show knew he was ready to stand his ground in defense of his cats, blow any intruders away or just plain blow shit up. He was a polygamist, a politician, a padlocked Prince Albert wearing protagonist in his own movie. And he was, of course, the star of a series of low-budget country music videos,

including one where the body parts of his arch-rival's husband are fed to real live hungry tigers. The song, like the video, is so bad shit crazy that it's hard not to qualify it as anything less than great, because Joe Exotic made great music. Actually, he didn't. But he did make music, sort of, but not in the way you expect

and totally unlike that music you heard at the top of the show. That wasn't great music either. That was a preset loop from my Melotron called Hammond Tube Funk MK2. I played you that loop because I can't afford the rights to the box by Roddy Rich. And why would I play you that specific slice of Lo-Fi auto-tuned cheese, could I afford it?

Because that was the number one song in America on January 22, 2020. And that was the day that Joe Exotic was sentenced to 22 years in federal prison for only a small sample of the insane behavior he had exhibited over the previous decade. On this episode, Big Cat Exploitation, Tiger Mallings, deadly gunplay, low-budge country cheese, and Joe Exotic. I'm Jake Brennan, and this is Disgraceland. Please Cruiser was screaming down the highways off-ramp. Its driver was drunk to the point of pissing the khaki pants of his uniform,

and humiliated, rejected again. The bourbon, the beer, it dulled the pain, but love was more than just a shot away. Gay nightlife in Dallas, Texas in 1985, for Eastville Chief of Police, Joe Shreveogel, was heartaches by the number. trouble by the score. Still, at the age of 22, while dealing with, as he would be the rest of his life, the post-traumatic stress of being raped at the age of five and having to navigate the tricky

emotional terrain of young closeted homosexual adulthood, Joe, with the alcohol revving him up, had reached his breaking point. He turned down the off-ramp and gunned it, pedal to the metal, straight for the wall, no sad farewells, no tear-dimmed eyes. On his way to that fair land where the soul never dies. Joe survived the crash. Some would say thrived, but the memory of the crash snuck up on him now and then, out of nowhere, as did the other memories, the bad ones, the one about his first husband, Brian, dying of AIDS. And that wound was deep. It wasn't healing, ever. Worse than that, though, more scarring, more frightening, was the memory of his second husband, Jay-Z.

Get on the ground, motherfucker. You're going to eat this gun, you hear me? You're going to fucking eat it. Eat it, eat it. J.C. was now doing a life sentence for first-degree murder. He came and went, just like the memories. Joe couldn't control them, but it didn't matter. He could control most everything else.

He had confidence in spades. He used it to build a mini empire, an exotic animal empire. Joe Shri-Vogel was now Joe Exotic. Exotic animals, big cats were the game, but entertainment was the business, show business, or more precisely, Joe business. It had always been that way. The business of show, the business of Joe, that's how we got the gig as chief of police at 19. With zero experience or any real education, he talked himself into it.

Confidence. And then, later, as a traveling magician, he did the same thing. He knew a trick or two sure, but like every good confidence man, Joe was only as good as the card up his sleeve. He'd bury the memories, stroll the expanse of his 16-acre exotic animal park, the G.W. Zoo, and contemplate his next move, his next score, his next love. Within the 16 acres of the animal park, Joe was master of his domain. Within this space, he kept an untold number of plates spinning within his own three-ring circus act,

not only feeding lions and tigers and bears and more, but playing Backwood Sugar Daddy there in Winnowwood, Oklahoma, to the island of misfit toys that made up his staff, guiding tourists through to see the wonders and to pet the baby tigers while they took selfies for future Facebook, Instagram, and Tinder profile picks. Business was good-ish, and there was always some complications, some hassle, usually money. But things were up. Joe was moving into television. He'd launched his own web TV show, but he also hadn't experienced

reality TV producer and crew following his every move, making a reality series on spec, with hopes of selling it to Animal Planet or National Geographic or some other basic cable channel, hopefully through a bidding war. So far today, it was quiet at the zoo. Joe was sitting outside, smoking, looking up at the clouds, watching them take shape, looking for signs, wasting time. And there are only a few patrons so far are milling about, waiting for the show to start, waiting to shell out what few dollars they had to hold and pet a baby tiger. Shit, that reminded Joe, the cats over in the tiger pen needed to be fed. Tigers only eat about once a week, meaning wild tigers only kill once a week, to eat, not for sport.

Generally speaking, tigers are afraid of humans. Not that there aren't numerous attacks of humans by tigers in the wild. There are, but those are mainly cases of mistaken identity, where the tiger thinks the human is something else, something normally on the menu like a wild boar or an elephant calf. Tigers, of course, also attack humans when they feel threatened, but assuming threats aren't part of the deal and assuming the tiger's normal diet doesn't dry up, then humans are usually off the menu. But not on that morning, not at Joe Exotic's exotic animal park. On that day, humans were Apsa fucking lootly on the menu. The animal clawed at the arm, big six-inch claws ripping skin.

Then a second swipe, gripping into the muscle under the human flesh, shredding the tendons where the muscle connected to the bone, pulling Joe's worker, the one they called Saf into the fence and separated him from the hungry man-eater. The tiger thrust his head at Saf's arm, brought his sharp canines down through the skin of the arm, severed it almost completely. The tiger fell back for a moment on the other side of the fence.

Saff managed to get his arm free at that exact right moment, falling into a puddle of muddy water on the ground. As soon as the attack happened, word went out fast. Joe was on the scene in less than a minute, pulling his severely wounded employee out of the muck and quickly applying a makeshift tourniquet to his arm. In another minute flat, Joe threw on an EMT jacket, always the showman,

this time playing the role of authority through sheer confidence alone, as he went to announce the malling to the crowd of visitors wandering around his gift shop. Even in the face of disaster, Joe's bravado carried the day, as he described the incident to the assembled crowd as if nothing had gone wrong, except for Saf putting his arm through the fence.

It was Saff's fault, after all, and if his shit sure wasn't his fault, or the Tigers. Because at heart, Joe's fast-talking persona was inseparable from his love for the big cats. Like all big cat people, he had the stones to walk among some of the world's most efficient predators. Compared to that adrenaline rush,

dealing with the fallout on this messy day at the park was nothing. Every confidence man knows how to handle a mark who spots the work, provide a distraction, move along, nothing to see here. Except the GW Zoo, in the wake of SAF's malling, there was still plenty to see. The park remained open, and SAF himself would soon be back on the job, not wanting to give the press more ammo in their campaign to shame Joe or worse. shut him down. The inevitable had happened, but thanks to an EMT costume change and the loyalty

of his workers, Joe Exotic would stay on top for now. That night, Joe sat in front of his computer. The glow of the screen was the only light shining in his broke down palace, a ramshackle ranch house on the zoo's property. Inside, it was a total shithole, double-eyed decor. Joe chain-smoked and cruised Craigslist. It was a nightly rich. old habit. It relaxed him. Joe knew the ins and outs to the free market listing site, come internet sewer. Depending on what you were looking for, meth, paid sex, weed, whatever, and that you knew how to look for it. Capital T in the post to indicate the poster had meth, promises of roses for paid sex or violets for weed. Craigslist could hook you up,

especially when it came to sex. Casual encounters, NSAs for no strings attached, massages, waterworks, party and play, all kinds of sex, sex, sex, and more sex. So much so that Newsweek in 2015 reported that Craigslist alone was responsible for a 16% increase in HIV cases. Joe was clean, though. He thought so anyway. He was in love with Travis. Travis was beautiful, which was most of the reason why Joe married him, and certainly all of the reason Joe's other husband, John, allowed for the polygamous union. Travis was easy on the eyes,

but that's not why John allowed Joe to bring him into the relationship. John allowed it, because he'd let Joe do whatever the hell was Joe wanted to do. Joe was the boss, literally. Joe not only paid husband number one John's checks at the zoo, but Joe also paid John's bills, took care of him, real Sugar Daddy style.

John wasn't bad looking either. Bulky, 19 years old. Joe bought him steroids to beefcake him up with bit more, and Joe paid for his tattoo, the one just above his cock that said, privately owned by Joe Exotic. But aside from all that, Travis was okay with John. Like John, Travis wasn't even really gay. He was just desperate, young, impressionable, and easily influenced by confidence, experience, and opportunity. Travis would go in with Joe for the same reasons John did, and like John, Travis liked the meth a little too much. It clouded things.

made it all bluey up in his head. Sex, sexuality, love, desire, devotion. What did any of it really mean anyway? The three of them, Joe, Travis, and John lived somewhat happily at the zoo, and Joe loved both his husbands, but Travis was special. Maybe Joe would write him a song.

Yeah, something heartfelt, something Clint Black would sing to his pretty wife and mean it. Joe pointed his cursor to the little blue create a posting link on Craigslist. You lit another cigarette. This season on Dear Chelsea, with me, Chelsea Handler, we have some fantastic guests like Amelia Clark. When, like, young people come up to me and they want to be an act or whatever.

My first thing is always, can you think of anything else that you can do? Rather be disappointed in. Do that. Dennis Leary. I wake up and I'm hitting him in the head with a water bomb. And Bruce Jenner is on the aisle in a karate stance like he's about to attack me. making karate noises. And his entire

the Kardashian family over there, everybody's going, and the air marshal is trying to grab my arms and screaming. And I immediately know that I've been a sleepwalk. David O'Yellowo. I love this podcast, whether it's therapy or relationships or religion or sex or addiction or you just go straight for the guts.

Guy Branham. So anyway, Nicole Kidman broke up with Keith Thurban. Being half of a country couple, was always a hat she was going to wear, not like a life she was going to lead. Oh, interesting. I like that. Did you practice that on your way over?

Gaten Matarazzo from Stranger Things. Tena, manjou, Camilla Morone, Carrie Kenny Silver, and more. Listen to these episodes of Dear Chelsea on the Iheart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Kate Winkler Dawson, host of the Wicked Words podcast.

Each week I sit down with the True crime writers behind some of the most compelling true crime stories and discuss their years spent investigating and why it still matters. He sees his father coming out of the woods with his hands over his face and he knows something happened. His father just grabs him and says she's gone. She's gone. These are the cases that leave survivors, families and the journalists who cover them changed forever. Working in national television, it'll put shoot to your limits and you'll end up doing things you never thought you do. You know, you look back at it and you're like, I can't believe that really happened.

Join me and step inside the investigation. New episodes drop every Monday on the exactly right network. Listen to Wicked Words on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Remember when you'd walk into your local video rental place and there were always those two employees behind the counter arguing about movies? Well, that's us. I'm Millie to Cherico. And I'm Casey O'Brien.

And now we're arguing about movies on our podcast, Dear Movies I Love You, from the Exactly Right Network. Can I say something about the criterion closet? Go ahead, dude. They're letting too many people in there. Okay, that's another film gripe I got two. Sadly, that rental place doesn't exist anymore. It's probably a store that sells running shoes.

Or an ice cream shop with an extra pee and an E at the end. So consider us your slacker movie clerks in podcast form. I would like to establish a timeline. of the moment you figured out who Channing Tatum was. Every Tuesday, we dig into the movies we can't stop obsessing over, from hidden gems to big screen favorites. New episodes drop every week on the exactly right network. Listen to Dear Movies I Love You on the Iheart radio app, Apple Podcasts,

or wherever you get your podcasts. When Joe got the MP3 of the songs mixed email to him and clicked play, and the sound came rushing out of his tinny little computer. speakers. It was glorious. Joe heard his future calling him. The song was perfect, so on brand, so Joe. The reality show television producers, the networks, his staff, the zoo. They're all going to have the same reaction. Joe, you sound amazing. Damn right, he'd tell him. He was Joe exotic, not some other guy. Of course he could sing. He had one good leg left too after that bitch tiger chainsaw tore him up good, but guess what, motherfucker? He could dance.

too. But singing and dancing wasn't going to be enough. He needed theatrics and in the age of the internet, clicks were almost as good as dollars and that meant Joe needed a video. He had the song, now it was time to pour gas on this bitch. The federal agents from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service could not believe what they were seeing, yet they couldn't stop watching. They didn't even like country music. Hell, one of them didn't even really like music. Yet these music videos, were endlessly entertaining. So amateur, yet so damn bad shit crazy, it was better than porn. There were love letters to tigers with cheap storm cloud visuals.

Explosions. A ubiquitous bottle-died mullet. Uncomfortable, extra, shitty tattoos, tattooed eyeliner, more shitty tattoos. A candlelit dinner for one. More tigers, more storm clouds. Scannily-clad country chicks were the singer, who everyone knew was gay, because he was openly married to not one but two men.

surrounded himself with hot babes to demonstrate his sexual prowess with the ladies called pretty woman lover and in all the videos the one constant besides the mullet of course was the singer's shameless confidence it's unbelievable he comes across as some sort of every rose has its thorn era brett michael's crossed with joe dirt and with zero irony and about as much self-awareness as Kenny powers but the one that took the cake the video that after absolutely could not be topped, was the one called Here Kitty Kitty. In it, the singer, Joe Exotic, a.k.a. Joe Maldonado passage, a.k.a. Joe Maldonado, aka Joe Shrive Vogel, sings directly to his nemesis, while wearing a priest's uniform, while an actor playing his nemesis, feeds her husband's body parts to real live hungry tigers. That nemesis won Carol Baskin, owner of Big Cat Rescue. you outside Tampa, Florida. Like any good nemesis, Carol was like Joe in some ways, but is polar opposite and others. Like Joe, Carol loved big cats and provided them a sanctuary in which

to live out their days in captivity. Unlike Joe, Carol had sworn off breeding and declared herself an animal rights activist. Like Joe, Carol knew the value of internet publicity, sharing web vlogs and maintaining a highly popular Facebook group. Unlike Joe, she used her online platform to target animal abusers and tried to shut down their businesses, and Joe was at the top of her list. From Joe's perspective, this was rank hypocrisy. Letters from Big Cat Rescue had hounded his touring mall show

until he had to shut it down. But how much better really was Carol's organization than his own? It was clear to everyone watching with grim fascination over the interwebs she had gotten under his skin. In Joe's web videos, Joe would position mannequins and sex dolls labeled Carol and blow them up with dynamite, empty gun barrels into them,

and threatened to send Carol venomous snakes through the U.S. mail. And these weren't the acts of any normal confidence man, but of a showman who had started drinking his own Kool-Aid. Carol up the ante and retaliated by suing Joe for copyright infringement for ripping off her Big Cat Rescue logo in an effort to sow confusion in the big deal. cat community. The sewing of confusion worked for Joe, and so did the lawsuit for Carol. Carol won her day in court, and the result would be her bleeding Joe financially for years.

He was crushed, nearly ruined financially because of it, and he couldn't let the gripe against Carol go. The hypocrisy of it all, especially considering that Joe, like a lot of others in the big cat community, was convinced that Carol was the actual criminal, a felon even, a murderer, who got away with killing her husband and taking over his fortune, dousing him with sardine oil and feeding him to the tigers on their property. And that was the running theory anyway. There's no evidence supporting it, but the story worked with Joe's narrative,

that Carol was the real villain, not him. And he was going to prove it. That's what the new song was all about. And that's what the Here Kitty Kitty Video was about too. Joe singing his ass off, channeling Charlie Leuven. It wasn't quite Knoxville girl, but here Kitty Kitty was steeped in murder. Joe was shining a light on Carol's bullshit,

showing the world that in his eyes, she was a murderer. And that's why the feds were watching Joe, clocking his silly music videos, making sure his antics didn't escalate into anything real. Because there were rumors, rumors that Joe was more than just a hapless publicity-starved con man. There were rumors about the slaughtered tigers, and darker rumors still.

that Joe had real murder on his mind. We'll be right back after this word, word, word. This season on Dear Chelsea with me, Chelsea Handler, we have some fantastic guests like Amelia Clark. When like young people come up to me and they want to be an actor or whatever, and my first thing is always, can you think of anything else that you can do? Rather be disappointed in. Do that.

Dennis Leary. I wake up and I'm hitting him in the head with a water bomb. And Bruce Jenner is on the aisle in a karate stance like he's about to attack me. Like, making karate noises. And his entire the Kardashian family over there, everybody's going, and the air marshal is trying to grab my arms and screaming. I immediately know that I've been asleep walking. David O'Yellowo.

I love this podcast, whether it's therapy or relationships or religion or sex or addiction or or you just go straight for the guts. Guy Branham. So anyway, Nicole Kidman broke up with Keith Thurban. Being half of a country couple was always a hat she was going to wear, not like a life she was going to lead. Oh, interesting. I like that.

Did you practice that on your way over? Gaten Matarazzo from Stranger Things. Tena Monsu. Camilla Morone at Carrie Kenny Silver. And more. Listen to these episodes of Dear Chelsea on the Iheart Radio app, podcast or wherever you get your podcasts. Remember when you'd walk into your local video rental place and there were always those

two employees behind the counter arguing about movies? Well, that's us. I'm Millie de Cherico. And I'm Casey O'Brien. And now we're arguing about movies on our podcast, Dear Movies I Love You, from the Exactly Right Network. Can I say something about the criterion closet? Go ahead, dude.

They're letting too many people in there. Okay. That's another film grape I got two. Sadly, that rental place doesn't exist anymore. It's probably a store that sells running shoes. Or an ice cream shop with an extra pee and an E at the end. So consider us your slacker movie clerks in podcast form. I would like to establish a timeline of the moment you figured out who Channing Tatum was.

Every Tuesday, we dig into the movies we can't stop obsessing over, from hidden gems to big screen favorites. New episodes drop every week on the exactly right network. Listen to Dear Movies I Love You on the Iheart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Kate Winkler Dawson, host of the Wicked Words podcast. Each week I sit down with the true crime writers behind some of the most compelling true crime stories and discuss their years spent investigating and why it still matters. He sees his father coming out of the woods with his hands over his face, and he knows something happened. His father just grabs him and says she's gone.

She's gone. These are the cases that leave survivors, families, and the journalists who cover them changed forever. Working in national television, it'll push you to your limits, and you'll end up doing things you never thought you do. You know, you look back at it and you're like, I can't believe that really happened. Join me and step inside the investigation. New episodes drop every Monday on the Exactly Right Network. Listen to Wicked Words on the IHeart Radio app. Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.

Tiger Cubs are high unto themselves. They're potentially dangerous, but not really. People love them. They're so damn cute, beautiful. People can't get enough of them. And therein was the draw to Joe Exotic Zoo, the Cubs. People would line up for hours to pay five bucks to get to hold them for a couple of minutes, and then another five bucks to get their picture snapped with them.

But the problem with Tiger Cubs is they grow up into Bucs. big hungry tigers that cost over 10 grand a year to feed, each. And for someone like Joe Exotic, those big hungry tigers weren't good for much beyond making more tiger cubs. But pretty soon, those cubs would be old enough to make more cubs. And then, they too, would be costing too much money to feed. It was a goddamn vicious cycle. Travis hopped in Joe's pickup.

He wasn't excited about what he knew they were going to do. Joe, behind the wheel, didn't seem to care at all. He sang along to Garth Brooks on the radio as they drove to the outer limit of the zoo's property. Out there, other zoo staff were waiting. The ditch was dug days ago. Joe pulled up to it, hopped out of the truck, took a shotgun. Travis stayed in the pickup. And the adult tigers Joe had requested were there, in the ditch, roaming.

All five of them, Samson, Delilah, Trinity, Lauren, and Cuddle. Joe raised a shotgun, took aim, and blasted Samson away, then Delilah, then Trinity, Lauren, and at last, cuddles. They all died instantly, all five of them, and Joe was off the hook for 50 grand. The callous murder of the Tigers was one of the many things Travis could no longer truck with. Life on the zoo was, well, a zoo. Joe was a mess, in constant motion, starting one fire to distract from another. There was the lawsuit with Carol, the literal fire in the Alligator House, the destruction of their web studio in years of lost footage,

and unbelievably, a serious run for governor of Oklahoma by the most unsurious of candidates. Making matters worse was the fact that Travis confided to others that Joe had him completely locked down, that he wouldn't let him leave the zoo, wouldn't let him get a job elsewhere, that he kept him doped up on grass and meth in order to keep him under his thumb. Travis sunk into a deep depression because of it all, smoked more and more weed and doubled down on the meth.

All the while, Joe was consumed with the zoo, with paying off the lawsuit from Carol, with his silly campaign for governor that was going nowhere and with his new friend, Jeff. Jeff was Jeff Lowe from Las Vegas, Rumored to be a con man of sorts himself. Jeff had what Joe needed. Cash.

Cash to keep the studio afloat while Joe paid off Carol. Jeff could get shit done. Dig that McMansion on the outskirts of town. Dig that Hummer. Dig that swinging dime spot wife with the Triss with the call girls in Vegas. Jeff had it going on. Jeff was the answer to Joe's prayers. Or so, Joe thought.

No one else did. Jeff represented the end. Death. Joe transferred legal ownership of the zoo to Jeff and focused on brand and entertainment and fending off Carol. Jeff managed his new investment, quickly took control of the zoo, and brought in new management, Alan Glover. Alan Glover ran out of Fox decades before running into Joe Exotic and his band of misfit toys at the GW Zoo.

Alan did hard time, a convicted felon who snickered at Joe's tattooed eyeliner. Alan had a teardrop tattoo below his eye. Rumors spread that it was a prison marker symbolizing. that Alan had killed a man, though many claim that the teardrop prison logo is an indicator that it's wearer is a bitch, someone sissy, someone turned out by a more dominant prisoner, a sex toy. It's not surprising which meaning Alan ran with on the zoo. He refused to work for Joe, degraded him regularly for being a homosexual, claimed he worked for Jeff and Jeff alone, which was true. Alan didn't get along with Joe's other zoo staff either, Travis among them. Travis was

sunk. Not only was working with Alan under the new zoo order of pain in the ass, Joe was not himself. He was irritable. His mood swings were off the charts. He was regularly blowing up at staff, berating them high, fucked up, erratic, becoming more possessive of not only Travis but also of John, his other husband. Near impossible to deal with and due to Carol's lawsuit and the constant pressure put on Joe to pay off the massive million-dollar-plus debt the court's rule to owed Carol, Joe was constantly stressed about money. The feeding the cats was becoming impossible, and there was only so much in expired meat donations he could grab from the local Walmart, and a good portion of that bad meat, was now being used

to top the pizza Joe was serving to customers from the new pizzeria he and Jeff built on the zoo. But customers weren't the only ones who needed to eat. The adult tigers needed to eat too, and Joe had no cash to make it happen. So he was eager to take the call about the horse. The ones some locals wanted Joe to take off their hands. They wanted to donate it to the zoo. Travis thought it was a bad idea. Joe didn't give a fuck what Travis thought. Travis smoked some more dope.

Joe, once the horse was donated, arranged for it to be brought out to the ditch. Travis was bored. There were only so many trails to tear ass over on his four-wheeler. Joe grabbed his shotgun and headed out toward the ditch. Travis grabbed his ruger and headed toward the zoo's office. Joe was fed up, tired of the hassle of the zoo, Carol's bullshit, Jeff's bullshit, tired of the staff, tired of John, tired of Travis, tired even of the tigers. Travis was fed up as well, fed up with Joe mostly.

His constant bullshit, his possessive ways, fed up because, frankly, he had no life with Joe. He wasn't allowed to leave, to work, to love, to live. Joe drove in his pickup, blasted his newest would-be single. God damn, this demo was hot. He knew it. The vocals especially, deep, resonant, hinting at a knowing soul, someone who's seen some shit, a dead husband, a jailed husband, a kept husband. Travis stopped his four-wheeler, blasted a rail of meth up his nose, his blood ran hot.

He knew he was fucked, this time especially, trapped, kept, dying inside to be more. Someone who could live a life, a real person, a real man, a free man. Joe put his hand on his shotgun on the seat at his side. It comforted him, made him feel like the man he was, in control, confident. Travis patted his hand on the Ruger in his pocket as he bounced off the four-wheeler. It gave him purpose, for a moment anyway, less confused. Joe exited the pickup truck, and there was the horse, as requested, roaming in the ditch. Travis entered the zoo's office.

There was the camera, as expected, running up on its perch. Joe raised the shotgun. Travis raised the Ruger. Joe thought, out here, no one would see. Travis thought with the camera on, everyone would see. Joe pointed it straight at the horse's head. Future tiger meat, he thought. Travis pointed it to the temple of his own head.

Fuck with me. Fuck with you. He pulled the trigger. Publicly, Joe displayed legitimate grief and, of course, confidence. Travis' death tore him up good. And it brought a shit ton of publicity, good and bad, down on Joe, Jeff, and the zoo. Privately, Joe is a mess. alone, at night, with the remnants of his trauma,

the constant pick of his stress and rattling anxiety, the hum of Craigslist, as always, lighting his room from his computer screen. The television, dead quiet, just like his confidence. Joe lashed out. He pulled the revolver from his side, the one he kept on him at all times, took aim at his television, and blew it away.

Then he took game at the couch across from him and fired a bullet through it as well, and finally, he did what seemed like an inevitability, He put the barrel of the gun to his own head and pulled the trigger. But the pistol malfunctioned, and Joe Exotic escaped death by his own hand. But Carol Baskin would not be so lucky. Not if Joe had anything to do about it. She was bleeding him.

It had to end. She was the living embodiment of an existential threat to his way of life. She had to die. And Joe knew just how to do it. He was confident that not only could he get rid of Carol, but if he was smart, he could solve another problem as well. Get rid of that world-class prick Alan Gardner in the process and killed two birds with one crossbow. And that was the plan anyway. The plan he cooked up with Alan, traveling halfway

across the country from Oklahoma to Tampa, Florida with a gun for Alan for an ex-con, was too risky. So a crossbow was decided upon. Alan would sneak out to Carol's property with a crossbow while she was out for a regular bike ride and shoot her with it. No, Alan had a better idea. He was into the knife, smaller, easier to carry and conceal. He'd sneak onto Carol's property, wait for her in the bushes, jump out, attack, and cut her head off for $5,000. But Alan was in it for more than the money. He hated Joe, and he knew that if he did this for him, he would own him forever. Alan knew already that he was going to hell for his sins. He needed to make the most of this world. He told a friend and confidant of his and Jeff's,

James Garrison, who was in on the plan to kill Carol. If anybody rats me out and I get popped, everybody that they love, I'll have them burnt alive. Every fucking single person, and I mean that from the bottom of my heart, they will be burnt the fuck alive. Joe promised Alan the full 5K when the job was complete and gave him a three grand advance.

Alan got in his car, headed for Florida, and quickly blew all the money on strippers, booze, and drugs. There was no hit on Carol. Fuck it. Alan decided the 5K and Joe fucking Exotic weren't worth more time. Joe Exotic, he of the never-ending bullshit, the consummate entertainer, a man who seemed forever confident,

an extraordinary confidence man, a confidence man's con man, had been out-conned by the ex-con, Alan Gardner, who not only conned Joe out of his money, but conspired with Jeff Lowe and their friend James Garrison, to set Joe up for the feds and help convict him of a murder-for-hire plot. Murder-for-hire being a tricky charge to land convictions for, needing an exchange of money-wired recordings acknowledging the plot

and then motioned by the hired assassin to execute the plot, well, the feds being the feds, weren't going to hang their hat on a complicated scheme that wouldn't guarantee a guilty verdict, especially once Allen blew the money on a lost weekend in Florida instead of taking out Carol. So Joe was brought up on 19 total charges, two that covered the attempt to kill Carol, and 17 for animal cruelty, including multiple attempts to sell or offer to sell tigers, and perhaps most heart-strength-pulling of all, the murder of the five tigers,

Samson, Delilah, Trinity, Lauren, and Cuddles. For all of it, Joe got 22 years in a cage. For Joe Exotic, for Joe Maldonado Passage, Joe Maldonado, Joe Shreveogel, there were many humiliations about prison. The irony, of course, being that he, a man who exploited helpless animals, killing them and keeping them caged for his own enrichment, was now behind bars. That, of course, stung like a motherfucker. But perhaps more stinging was the fact that finally Joe Exotic's confidence had paid off.

He was famous, not because of some lowbrow reality TV show, and not because of his silly music videos. but because of a Netflix documentary, Tiger King, that captured America's imagination at a time when the country desperately needed the distraction. Joe Exotic was the most famous man in America, and he was rotting behind bars. That stung.

But so, too, did the discovery and humiliation that Joe wasn't, even in his newfound fame, quite what he presented himself as. After the popularity of the Netflix documentary on his life, his zoo, his beef with Carol. It came out in public that Joe wasn't the real voice behind those impassioned country songs he'd been releasing over the years.

Songs and music videos that constituted so much of who Joe was, his identity. But no, Joe, with his high-pitched, nasly redneck lilt, couldn't hold a tune if it was drenched in crazy glue. Word is out that Joe Millie Vanilly that shit, pointed the cursor toward the blue create a posting link on Craigsley.

and lured a struggling country act from Vancouver, Washington, the Clinton Johnson band to write, record, and of course sing his songs for him. Joe Exotic. Forever a con. Forever a disgrace. I'm Jake Brennan, and this is Disgraceland. Disgraceland was created by yours truly and is produced in partnership with Double Elvis. Credits for this episode can be found on the show notes page at Disgracelampod.com. If you're listening as a Disgraceland All-Axist member, thank you for supporting the show.

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Rate and review the show and follow us on Instagram, TikTok, Twitter, and Facebook at Disgracelam pod. And on YouTube at YouTube.com slash at disgraceland pod, rockerola. This season on Dear Chelsea, with me, Chelsea Handler, we have some fantastic guests like Amelia Clark. When like young people come up to me and they want to be an actor or whatever. And my first thing is always, can you think of anything else that you can do? Rather be disappointed in. Do that. David O'Yello

I love this podcast whether it's therapy or relationships or religion or sex or addiction or you just go straight for the guts Dennis Leary Gaten Madarazzo from Stranger Things Tanna Monjou Camilla Morone

Carrie Kenny Silver and more Listen to these episodes of Dear Chelsea on the IHeart Radio app Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts Movies can make you feel make you dream Sometimes they even make you appreciate architecture.

Is there anybody who's been hotter in a doorway than Elizabeth Taylor? That's the kind of analysis you'll find every week on Dear Movies I Love You, the new podcast from the Exactly Right Network. Every Tuesday, we break down the films we're crushing on, from blockbusters to deep cuts. Listen to Dear Movies I Love You on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Sometimes a suspect is found guilty, Before a verdict is ever read in court, on the Wicked Words podcast,

I talk with the writers who dig deep into the cases that changed history, including Marsha Clark, who went from prosecuting one of the most famous murder cases to writing crime fiction. It doesn't matter that you didn't take part in the murder. If you were at the scene at all, you're guilty of murder. Every week, the real story is revealed. Join us every Monday for new episodes of Wicked Words. Listen to Wicked Words on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.