These are all the mad things that Netflix left out about Joe Exotic in Tiger King

He used to shoot horses and feed them to his cats

4 years ago

*Contains spoilers*

You’d think that with the amount of time the Tiger King documentary spends with Joe and everyone he worked with, you’d learn everything there is to know about him.

Wrong. There are multiple details that have been revealed since, from his own personal social media channels to interviews with people who featured in the series. After a series where you’d think there isn’t possibly any more you could know about the man, just what else exactly has been revealed since about Joe Exotic?

He was donated horses, that he then shot and fed to his cats

In Tiger King, we learn that Joe would buy reduced meat from Walmart, feeding it to his animals as well as putting it in the pizzas that he started serving on-site, but he found another cost-efficient way of feeding his cats too.

New York Magazine wrote that he “also took in horses that people donated to him, shot them in the head, and gave them to the tigers, hair and all, so they could be fed a diet resembling what they’d eat in the wild.”

His first husband died of HIV

The series showed that Joe’s husband Travis was killed, but didn’t mention anything about a previous husband that died of HIV. Joe met Brian Rhyne while working at a gay cowboy bar, when Rhyne was just 19. According to New York Magazine: “On Saturdays, they would snort pink-tinged meth and go out to the bars. Sundays, they lazed around at home and watched Westerns on TV.”

Unfortunately, Rhyne died of health problems attributed to HIV in 2001. His funeral was held at the zoo.

One of his partners is serving a life sentence for murder and sexual assault of a minor

JC Hartpence was with Joe inbetween his first and second husband. Due to differing thoughts on how the zoo should work, as well as massive drug abuse, Hartpence ended up holding a gun to Joe’s head while he was asleep. Joe woke up, the police were called, and Hartpence never returned to the zoo.

Since, Hartpence spoke to Texas Monthly and told them that he was convicted of molesting a child in 2006, and murdered a man in 2014, being given a life sentence. Maddd.

He was sexually assaulted when he was younger

Joe’s life shared as much happiness as it did tragedy. Along with two of his husbands and his brother dying, he was also sexually assaulted when he was five years old.

Although briefly touched upon in the series, New York Magazine added a bit more information by claiming that when “he was 5 years old, he says he was repeatedly raped by an older boy. This happened in his own home. He vividly recalls how a drawer in the bathroom could be opened to prop the door shut.”

He appeared on an episode of Louis Theroux

Yup, Louis made an episode about exotic animal owners and Joe takes up most of the episode, amongst some other owners. In one particularly unsettling part, Joe says: “If he was to get you and not kill you and eat you right away, he’s going to torment you. So, if you were to get in there and I was out here trying to get you out he would be on top of you covering you up. I’d just shoot you, it would be more humane.”

Louis replies: “You would shoot me? In the head?” Joe Exotic replies “yeah”.

For more info on the episode, read more about the craziness here.

He allegedly didn’t sing or write his own songs

Numerous sources have now claimed that he neither wrote or sang his hit songs. To be fair, it was pretty easy to tell from the outset that it wasn’t Joe’s voice, and even his ex-husband John Finlay has come forward to confirm this:

He’s, unsurprisingly, got a weird YouTube channel

Exotic’s YouTube channel is a treasure trove in itself, and so it’s unsurprising that he’s uploaded more than his fair share of weird shit onto it. In 2014, he posted a weird video on YouTube of two tigers having sex simply titled “Animal Sex”:

Or perhaps his very odd music video in memory of Travis is more your thing:

Amongst these are also a video of him talking about becoming governor (the entire thing is uploaded upside down for whatever reason) or several videos of him interrogating “PeTA spies”.

That same “spy” later went on to do an AMA on Reddit about his experience working for Joe for five years, which can be found here. It’s a genuinely interesting read.

He is currently seeking a pardon from President Donald Trump

He announced in a Facebook post that he would be seeking a pardon from Donald Trump for his charge of hiring a hitman. It reads: “I am asking for a special investigation or a Presidential Pardon from the Conviction I have Just received.

“Mr. President, I am pleading with you to please have this looked into. I am currently incarcerated at the Grady County Jail in Oklahoma and facing 20 – 50 years in prison for doing the same thing every zoo and sanctuary owner has had to do at one time or another.”

As well as a ‘$94M legal settlement’ against his enemies

According to the New York Post, he “is demanding a combined $94 million from the US Fish and Wildlife Service, his former business partner Jeff Lowe and several former colleagues said.”

Joe announced on his Facebook page: “I have been illegally charged with these crimes and the Trump Administration, the United States Department of Interior along with the Federal Wildlife service must be held accountable for what they have done to me, my parents and my family, along with my animals.”

His brother died in a car crash

Although lightly touched upon in the series, there isn’t a whole lot more information to be shown. The LinkedIn page for the zoo claims that it was “started in 1997 by Francis and Shirley Schreibvogel of Springer, Oklahoma. The G.W. Exotic Animal Park was named in honor of their son, Garold Wayne (G.W.) Schreibvogel, who was killed by a drunk driver outside Dallas, Texas earlier that year.”

Garold Wayne Schreibvogel was killed at the age of 36 by a drunk driver on 14th of October, 1997. Findagrave shows that he left behind a spouse named Lois Jean and two children named Chisum and Dustin, and even includes a photo of his grave: