By Lee Brown - New York Post




Joe Exotic’s legal team is so confident the “Tiger King” star will get a pardon from President Trump on Tuesday that they have a limo parked near his prison — and hair and makeup at the ready.

“This time tomorrow, we’re going to be celebrating,” Eric Love, who is 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 hitman 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.

Once word of a pardon comes through, the driver will 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 colorful 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.



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 plan to house him in a ranch just outside of Fort Worth.

Love said they believe Trump will issue the high-profile pardon in part to “take most of the limelight away from president-elect Joe Biden” — and said they already have 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 will “take a look” at the pardon request.