Tiger King's Joe Exotic Accepts Carole Baskin's Offer to Reduce Prison Sentence

The Tiger King saga continues to unfold in some surreal ways, and the latest development had former enemies Carole Baskin and Joe Exotic possibly having the chance to work together in an unexpected way. Exotic is currently serving a 22-year sentence for the plot to kill Baskin and violating wildlife laws, so you might not expect Carole and Howard Baskin to offer some help to Exotic, but that's what they did, recently saying that they would help Exotic get a reduced sentence if he supported the Big Cat Public Safety Act. Now Exotic has accepted that offer, though with a change or two.

"It is time for Carole and Howard to put up or shut the hell up because I'm accepting their offer," Exotic told ET. "And I'm gonna take it one step further than that, OK? It is time to get on the phone to President Biden or whoever they need to that they've got in their little financial pocket and say, 'Hey, Joe is willing to support a big cat bill to help protect cats in America from being exploited. But we need to keep our end of the deal and get Joe a pardon because this wasn't really about murder for hire or shooting five tigers -- this was about exploiting Joe to support Carole's agenda.' So, there's the offer on the table, all right?"

"The way it's written is not gonna help anybody except PETA and Carole Baskin," Exotic said. "So, I'll testify in front of the Senate, I'll testify in front of the House, they want to end big cats in America and they want to end the exploitation of them, I'm the man to do it. But it's time to get an attorney general down here and listen to the evidence that I have to prove I'm innocent and get me the hell out of here. And they've got my support. Other than that, they need to stay the hell out of the news with all their crap just to get their name in the paper because I just called their bluff."

Baskin has since responded to Exotic's pitch, and it appears that would be just part of the deal.

"I wouldn't seek a reduced sentence for Joe based upon him just saying he'd help end cub handling," Baskin said. "I think he'd say anything, but not actually do it. He'd have to actually work with authorities to bring all of his buddies to justice and work with legislators to end cub handling. Then, I'd want him to be rewarded for having done the right thing."

We'll just have to wait and see how this all plays out.