"Truth will come out" - Joe Exotic's desperate bid for freedom

'Tiger King' star Joe Exotic has slammed some of his former friends and employees for "just collecting money and talking s*** to get on TV" and using his name "to profit off the hell I am living".

Exotic - who was speaking through his attorney John M. Phillips - insisted to TMZ that the "truth will come out ... come hell or high water, they will all answer to perjury at some point".

Meanwhile, Exotic - who is currently serving 22 years in jail on two counts of hiring someone to murder Carole Baskin and multiple violations of animal welfare laws - has been desperate to get out of jail and asked Kim Kardashian West to help him.

In a letter to the 'Keeping Up with the Kardashians' star, Exotic wrote: "I know you have never met me and may never want to however I do believe that you hold the values of our justice system dear to your heart.

"I am writing you this letter not as Joe Exotic but as the person Joseph Maldonado-Passage, asking you to please help me by just taking 10 minutes out of your life and placing a call to the President to look at my 257 page pardon it's all the evidence I'm innocent and ask him to sign my pardon so I can return home to [my husband] Dillon [Passage] and my father ...

"I have lost 57 years of work, my zoo, my animals, my mother has died, my dad is dying and I've been taken away from my husband who I love dearly. Everyone is so busy making movies, getting interviews, selling stuff and dressing up like me that everyone forgot I'm a real live person in prison and kept from even telling my own story for something I didn't do."

This article was first published on BANG Showbiz and is republished here with permission.