Tiger King Joe Exotic’s five husbands: All you need to know from tragedy to polygamy – OK! magazine

Joe Exotic is no stranger when it comes to marriage, having been wed five times over the decades but as we've seen in Netflix's Tiger King they haven't all ended in wedded bliss.

The main protagonist of the docuseries, who was born Joe Schreibvogel and is now Joseph Maldonado-Passage, always had a man by his side during his time as ruler at the GW Zoo in Oklahoma before he was sentenced to 22 years in prison.

He is currently serving time for trying to hire a hitman to kill animal-rights activist Carole Baskin, who was persistent in trying to get Joes zoo shut down for his treatment of animals and for killing five tiger cubs.

The petting zoo owner, 57, is still reportedly married to his most recent husband Dillon Passage, who he met when Dillon was 19,

It's not the first time he married someone considerably younger than him, as he met John Finlay and Travis Maldonado when they were both 19 and eventually had a 'throuple' marriage.

Here we take a look at his past relationships, from tragedy, polygamy and deceit what really happened to his ex-husbands?

Joe was in his early twenties when he met his first husband Brian Rhyne, who was 19 at the time, in a gay cowboy bar called Round Up in Texas.

He was working there as a security guard and it wasn't long before Brian moved into Joe's trailer, according to a profile by New York Mag about the exotic cat lover.

They eventually got married at the same bar they met and Brian helped Joe open his zoo named after his brother Garold Wayne who died in a car crash.

But tragically by 2001 Brian passed away from complications related to HIV, leaving Joe heartbroken.

Joe's second husband who is not spoken about in the documentary is Jeffrey Charles 'JC' Hartpence.

Joe reportedly met the events producer a year after Brian's death, and they went on to team up together to launch Joe's travelling zoo show performing across shopping centres and state fairs across Oklahoma, Wisconsin and Texas.

The relationship between JC, who has been named as Joe's life partner as well as husband, was volatile and it is believed to have come to an end when JC held a gun to Joe's face.

Several years after their split JC was convicted for "aggravated indecent liberties with a child under the age of 14" and was put on the sex offenders register.

He is in a Kansas prison where he is serving a life sentence for first degree felony murder and won't be eligible for parole until 2034.

After Joe split from JC, he met a 19 year old John Finlay who had just recently graduated from school in 2003. The zoo owner hired John to help run the zoo and is his first husband to actually feature in the Tiger King docuseries.

By 2014 John took part in a wedding alongside Joe and their throuple partner Travis Maldonado in an polygamist ceremony, but a year later John wasn't happy and wanted out of the relationship.

John, who is now Joes ex husband and has a brand new set of teeth, later admitted that he was "never gay" and identified as straight, confessing to having an affair with the GW Zoo receptionist at the time.

He is filmed for the majority of the programme shirtless revealing plenty of tattoos, one of which read 'Privately Owned By Joe Exotic' he later got it covered up in the last episode of the series.

He now also lives with his wife and former GW Zoo receptionist Stormey Sanders and has started a Facebook page titled The Truth About John Finlay, where he shares updates on his life, including various photos and videos.

"Yes I have my teeth fixed," Finlay said in one post. "The producers of the Netflix series had video and pictures of this but chose not to show it."

In 2013 Travis Maldonado, then 19, started working at the GW Zoo, he told everyone apart from Joe that he was straight.

A year later he was married to Joe and John in a threeway ceremony, footage of which is shown in the Netflix series.

Tragically an increasingly erratic Travis, who had a drug problem, accidentally shot himself in the head after trying to prove a point that a gun wouldn't fire without a chamber.

The moment is documented in Tiger King, showing that another GW Zoo employee witnessed the awful moment which devastated Joe who had been running for governor of Oklahoma at the time of his husband's death in 2017.

Despite his grief over the accidental death of Travis, Joe moved on just two months later marrying his fifth husband Dillon Passage, 19.

Joe met Dillon online and one of their first dates is shown in the Netflix show, with Joe saying that they met up and Dillon never went back home, instead moving in with Joe.

By this point Joe was no longer the official owner of GW Zoo and when Dillon was 22, they moved to Florida together before Joe was later arrested and sentenced to 22 years in prison.

Its reported that Dillon is still in fact married to Joe, after he posted: Im still married to Joe but my social media platform isnt used for any Joe things."

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Tiger King Joe Exotic's five husbands: All you need to know from tragedy to polygamy - OK! magazine