Joe Exotic will move to Mexico if his new fiance isn't allowed to stay in the US

Joe told RadarOnline.com: "Whether it helps his immigration status or not, we love each other enough to get married. We even got tattooed matching wedding bands already on.

"What it would do is, it would assure him, and it would show the court, that he has a little bit of financial stability to stay in America.

"It's gonna look better for his asylum case to be married. We're just hoping that the prison will allow us to get married and stay in the same prison."

He told the outlet that if he can't get help from the government to "keep him here", then "I guess I'm going to Mexico."

Despite his lengthy sentence, the 61-year-old reality star - whose real name is Joseph Maldonado - is hopeful he will make progress with his appeal and not be in jail for long without Jorge, who only has a few months of his prison term left to serve.

Joe said: "He gets out in May of next year so that gives us seven months to get my appeal done and find out where I'm at. We're hoping to be able to walk out the door close to the same time."

Joe announced his engagement on X this week.

He shared a photo of them together on his X account and wrote: "Meet Jorge Marquez he is 33. He is so amazing and is from Mexico.

"Now, the quest of getting married in prison and getting him asylum or we be leaving America when we both get out. Either way, I wish I would have met him long ago."

The former zookeeper then confirmed the news to Entertainment Weekly.

He told them in a phone call from prison: "We filed our official papers for the marriage license from the prison yesterday, so we're just waiting for an approval. He has picked out December 12 as the date we're hoping to get this approved by."