‘Tiger King’: John Reinke Said Jeff Lowe and Dillon Passage Once Had a Fist Fight

We are still finding out about all the drama that happened before Joseph Maldonado-Passage, also known as Joe Exotic, went to prison. We know he had a falling out with his business partner, Jeff Lowe from Tiger King. John Reinke now claims Lowe had a fist fight with his husband, Dillon Passage.

Joe Exotic of ‘Tiger King’ got married to Dillon Passage

Maldonado-Passage got married a fourth time to Passage. He is currently in prison and was sentenced to 22 years. However, they are still in a relationship.

“We are still married,” Passage told Variety. “I wasn’t just going to abandon him when he needed help because he was there for me. I felt it was only right to stand by him and not judge him for the circumstance because I understood his relationship with Carole.”

He continued, “It was a very negative kind of thing and he was in a dark place when all of this stuff occurred. He just needed support so I was just going to stand next to him.”

Jeff Lowe addressed his falling out with Joe Exotic

Lowe’s relationship with Maldonado-Passage ended badly. He claimed Maldonado-Passage was embezzling money by forging his name on checks before he went to prison. He talked about finding out the zoo owner was being investigated with his wife, Lauren Dropla.

“We came in, we snuck back into town, went to the bank to get our bank statements, and the teller said, ‘You know, I am probably not supposed to tell you this, but the feds are watching your bank account,'” he told Entertainment Tonight. “So we knew at the time that they had been monitoring the bank account, looking for money coming in from Joe selling tiger cubs.”

They eventually started cooperating with law enforcement before Maldonado-Passage was arrested. Lowe also ended up kicking Maldonado-Passage off the zoo and he took it over. He’s currently the owner of G.W. Zoo.

John Reinke said Lowe and Passage got into a fist fight

Reinke was the longest-serving employee of G.W. Zoo. He eventually left once Lowe took over. Reinke claimed Lowe and Passage got into a fist fight before he left the job.

“I was there when Jeff and Dillon got into a fist fight out in the back parking lot, and rolled around for 15 minutes in the gravel. I was there for that,” Reinke claimed on the Joe Exotic podcast.

“Jeff Lowe did not like Dillon, which is Joe’s new husband, at all and Dillon pushed all the buttons. And one day Jeff was bringing the cubs to the nursery from his house and Dillon tried squirting him with water, just to piss him off,” Reinke claimed. “I got to hand it to Jeff Lowe. For a 55-year-old man, he rolled around that gravel for 15 minutes with Dillon and I’m talking fist fight now and Dillon’s 25, 24, something like that.”

Reinke said he realized that it was time to leave after Lowe accused him of recklessly killing animals because he had a vet euthanize sick cats. People who appeared in Tiger King are coming together for a new episode, which will act as a reunion. It will be available on April 12.