Tiger King's Jeff Lowe Has A Surprising Net Worth

The drama on the Netflix docuseries, "Tiger King: Murder, Mayhem and Madness," is only exceeded by the spectacle that swirls around the show in real life. When the true-crime streamer launched in March 2020, more than 34 million viewers had watched its kooky "characters" just ten days into its release, according to IndieWire. The episodes centered around Joe "Exotic" Maldonado-Passage and his daily existence as a zoo owner and keeper of big cats. The doc also touched on his attempted bid for governor of Oklahoma, singing career, and polyamorous relationships said Distractify. 

Then there was that murder-for-hire scheme aimed at nemesis and animal activist Carole Baskin — something Joe Exotic received a federal jail sentence for participating in, along with convictions for killing five tigers, selling tiger cubs, and falsifying wildlife records, reported the Associated Press. He is currently in a prison in Fort Worth, Texas. Joe Exotic announced he had prostate cancer in early November, said the U.S. News & World Report. In comparison, his former business-partner-turned-FBI-informant, Jeff Lowe, might seem more low-key. After Exotic's arrest, Lowe took over the zoo, rechristening it The Greater Wynnewood Exotic Animal Park (and later called Tiger King Park), offered Distractify. But like Joe Exotic, Lowe faced legal and financial troubles.

Like his former business partner, Jeff Lowe was questioned about how he treated his animals. In May 2021, federal authorities confiscated 69 big cats from his animal park, according to The New York Times. Prosecutors believed that many of the animals had either been sold, purchased, or transported illegally. The confiscated animals included a jaguar, seven lions, 46 tigers, and 15 lion-tiger hybrids. The affidavit filed said that the Tiger King Park animals were often "harmed and harassed."

As a result, Lowe lost his claim to the zoo, said Men's Health, and ownership was given (in a strange twist of fate) to Exotic's onetime rival, Carole Baskin. This was done because a judge ruled that Exotic wrongly transferred zoo ownership to his mother in lieu of giving Baskin a lawsuit settlement for a trademark infringement case. Baskin sold the property in June, said EW, but with a caveat: that it cannot be used for anything that's associated with the "Tiger King" Netflix series. And what about Jeff Lowe? Cinemaholic estimated his net worth was $5 million to $10 million in 2020 ... so maybe he doesn't need a zoo after all.