For several years, Joseph Maldonado-Passage, also known as Joe Exotic, ran the "Greater Wynnwood Exotic Animal Park" - a zoo where he had hundreds of exotic animals in captivity.
In early 2020, Netflix released a series about him called "Tiger king: Murder, Mayhem, and Madness" where the viewer gets to follow the eccentric zoo owner and the characters he is surrounded by.
But the same year the series was released, Joe Exotic was sentenced to a long prison term for, among other things, trying to hire a man to murder his rival, animal rights activist Carole Baskin.
At first, his friend Jeff Lowe ran the zoo in Joe's absence, but after a court decision, the zoo went to Carole Baskin instead.
This is because she previously sued Joe Exotic for trademark infringement.
Carole then resold the zoo on the condition that it may not be used as a zoo again in 100 years.
The documentary filmmaker received a letter from the prison
In 2011, the documentary filmmaker Louis Theroux made a program about dangerous animals in captivity and visited, among others, Joe Exotic.
Several years later, Louis received a letter from Joe, written from inside the prison, in which he said he wanted to tell his version of the story.
Then Louis Theroux decided to make another documentary about the former zoo owner.
Louis Theroux: What happened to the Tiger king? on SVT Play.