Joe Exotic’s ex-husband has revealed that his three-way wedding with Exotic and another man was bogus.
John Finlay told the Sun that Exotic, Travis Maldonado, and himself faked the polyamorous marriage as a publicity stunt to land their own reality television series. The now 37-year-old said that he was “young and dumb and didn’t know a nail from a hole in the wall” when he first met Exotic when he began working at his big cat zoo. Finlay was 19 and said that he was “impressionable” and willing to “try anything once.”
Finlay has since cut off contact with Exotic and is married to a woman named Stormey, whom he says “completes” him. He maintains that when it came to his relationship with Exotic, he was only “in it for the fun,” but Stormey is truly his soulmate, despite still sporting several tattoos dedicated to Exotic.
“My only short-term goal is to get all my tattoos covered up,” Finlay assured. “It helps get rid of old memories, and I will feel a lot freer when they are gone.”
Finlay says that despite “Tiger King” depicting him as a “drugged-up hillbilly” and the fake wedding storyline, he would be willing to participate in a second series.
Exotic, whose real name is Joseph Maldonado-Passage, remains in the Federal Medical Center in Fort Worth, Texas. He is serving 22 years for plotting to kill his nemesis and fellow zoo owner Carole Baskin. The 58-year-old is going through a divorce with his latest husband, Dillon Passage.
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