Tiger King star Joe Exotic hires limo to escort him from prison but doesn’t get Trump pardon

Despite having a limo waiting outside his prison for the moment Trump pardoned him, controversial figure Joe Exotic won’t be set free.

Joe Exotic’s legal team was so confident the Tiger King star would get a pardon from President Trump that they had a limo parked near his prison — and hair and makeup at the ready.

But one of 2020’s most controversial figures is not being pardoned.

The White House this afternoon released details outlining the Executive Grants of Clemency - and Exotic wasn’t among them.

Mr Trump granted pardons to 73 individuals and commuted the sentences of an additional 70 individuals.

“This time tomorrow, we’re going to be celebrating,” Eric Love, who was leading Exotic’s bid for freedom, told Metro.co.uk in an interview Monday afternoon.

“We have good reason to believe it will come through,” he said of a presidential pardon for the Netflix star, who is serving 22 years for trying to hire a hit man to kill zookeeper rival Carole Baskin.

“We’re confident enough we already have a limousine parked about half a mile from the prison. We are really in action mode right now,” he said of a stretch limo near the Federal Medical Center in Fort Worth in Texas.

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This is the stretch Limo standing by at #JoeExotic Fort Worth Lawyers office. I’m told they’re waiting on a call from the White House confirming the presidential pardon before heading to pick him up at the prison. @CBSDFW pic.twitter.com/1tJzQHefxD

— Ken Molestina (@cbs11ken) January 19, 2021

Once word of a pardon was to come through, the driver would pick up the legal team as well as a team for the flamboyant star’s hair, makeup and wardrobe, Love told the Sun in a separate interview.

“We are not going to have any cameras with us. It’s going to be a very private moment,” Love said — but purely because Exotic, whose real name is Joseph Maldonado-Passage, wants to be glammed up first.

“Joe is a very flamboyant person — Joe is a colourful personality. And if you look at someone when they’ve been incarcerated, they don’t look like that when they’re coming out,” Love told the Sun.

“So Joe’s got to have that platinum done, and well that’s what we got — hair, wardrobe and makeup. We’ve got the best in the business,” he said.

RELATED: Tiger King star’s tragic past revealed

The Netflix star’s legal team had ‘the best hair and makeup team’ in the business ready to pamper him if he was set free. Picture: Supplied

Telling Metro that the Tiger King star’s hair was “the first order of business,” Love said they would then “probably go and get some pizzas, steak, maybe a McRib.”

They then planned to house him in a ranch just outside Fort Worth.

Love said they believed Trump would issue the high-profile pardon in part to “take most of the limelight away from President-elect Joe Biden” — and said they already had a thank you video recorded.

“We have it queued up and ready to go,” Love told Metro. “As soon as we get the word, we’re going to execute that video to the White House and thank them.”

Maldonado-Passage is a year into his sentence.

Trump previously said he would “take a look” at the pardon request.

This article originally appeared on the New York Post and is reproduced here with permission.