'Truth will come out': Joe Exotic's desperate bid for freedom after 'year from hell'

Joe Exotic is currently serving 22 years in jail on two counts of hiring someone to murder Carole Baskin. Photo / Supplied

'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 ...

Joe Exotic is currently serving 22 years in jail on two counts of hiring someone to murder Carole Baskin. Photo / Supplied

"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."