Joe Exotic – who rose to prominence last year as the subject of the Netflix documentary Tiger King – has announced he’s been diagnosed with prostate cancer.
Currently serving a 22-year prison sentence for charges including killing abuse and hiring someone to murder big cat enthusiast Carole Baskin, Exotic shared his diagnosis on social media earlier this week.
A post on his Twitter page read: “John Phillips has received my medical records from FMC Fort Worth and my PSA count came back very high for prostate cancer. The prison has approved testing to verify what stage it is in.
“My body is tired, I have lost a tremendous amount of weight, the mouth sores are out of control.”
He further outlined his symptoms in a series of follow-up tweets, urging Joe Biden to “make this right and sign that pardon that Trump left behind so I can go home and get proper medical care and proper food”.
Exotic – whose legal name is Joseph Maldonado-Passage – is currently onto the third year of his 22-year sentence.
He was found guilty of two counts of hiring someone to kill Carole Baskin, eight counts of falsifying wildlife records and nine counts of violating the Endangered Species Act by killing tigers and selling some across state lines.
Last year, he made an appeal for Biden’s predecessor, Donald Trump, to pardon him, to no avail.
Tiger King debuted on Netflix in March 2020 at a time when much of the world was going into lockdown, and quickly became a hit on the streaming platform.