“One day I came home and my wife was feeding our baby daughter with one boob and a chimpanzee with the other.”
These are the words of a man married to self-professed “chimp mum” Pamela Rosaire, who features in a new docuseries about a Hollywood ape and a woman who calls herself the “Dolly Parton of chimpanzees”… whatever that means?
While Rosaire was nonchalant about breastfeeding the chimp, husband Roger wasn’t quite so comfortable. “One day she’s got Dallas [human baby] on one booby and a chimp on the other,” he says in the wild new show Chimp Crazy.
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“I say, ‘Woah, what are you doing?.” A now grown-up Dallas says: “We were like brother and sister. The moment a boy liked me, he’d throw poop at him. I can’t imagine life without him.”
(Image: MAX)
This latest show follows the life of Tonia Haddix, a blonde cosmetic surgery fan who initially works for breeder Connie Casey caring for seven apes at the Missouri Primate Foundation, reports the Sun. Tonia dubs herself the Dolly Parton of chimpanzees.
Directed by Eric Goode the story unravels the disappearance of Hollywood chimp Tonka – who starred in movies like Babe, Pig In The City, George Of The Jungle and 1997’s Buddy with actor Alan Cumming – an appeal to find the primate, and a suspected elaborate hoax and court battle between animal charity Peta and exotic pet breeder Connie Casey.
(Image: MAX)
Chimp mum Tonia, who is mother to two human children, admits she loves the animals more than her own flesh and blood – even skipping school sports days to look after the primates. “You can shape them into you. They don’t grow up and get a mind of their own,” she chillingly reveals in the show.
“They don’t break your heart. They’ll be your friend for life. I’m sorry, but there is nothing like monkey love. It is so empowering. You become their mother. It’s like your love for God.”
However, Tonia’s monkey antics soon got her into hot water as animal rights group Peta saw she has no training or formal qualifications surrounding looking after the primates.
(Image: MAX)
In July 2021, during filming, Peta wins a court order to move the chimps to an outdoor sanctuary for a better life. What’s more, monkey mad Tonia is ordered to stay at least two miles away. But on the day welfare bosses turn up to confiscate the animals, one goes mysteriously missing…
In the show Tonia claims movie star Tonka – who was 38, weighed at least 14 stone and loved chicken nuggets – had died the day before Peta arrived to confiscate him… And guess what? No one believes her. She says he suffered a stroke and is seen on film visibly distressed in his small cage, throwing himself against the metal bars.
Scots actor Alan Cumming, known for GoldenEye and The Traitors US, then gets involved because he fell in love with Tonka while filming family movie Buddy. “Every morning I’d walk on set and he’d be so excited to see me. He’d run and leap into my arms. It was magical. My understanding of what happened after his Hollywood career ended is that he retired to Palm Springs,” he revealed.
(Image: MAX)
“That’s what I was told. So every time I went to Palm Springs, I kind of expected to bump into him! Then Peta said they’d found this place in Missouri where chimps were kept in very poor conditions, and that one of them was Tonka.
“They showed me a picture of him in this indoor cage looking depressed, which was very upsetting. What I now realise is that once they’ve done their ‘thing’ in showbusiness, anyone can buy them and they can end up in roadside circuses and so on.”
Cumming joined the Peta campaign to find Tonka, offering $10,000 for information leading to his safe return. The star says on film: “I hope he is alive. But if he is, where the f**k is he? “I just hope Tonka can have the retirement that I thought he was going to have.”
(Image: MAX)
The docuseries also delves into some of the high-profile and horrifying attacks involving chimpanzees, including the story of Charla Nash who was interviewed by Oprah Winfrey after a chimp called Travis bit off her face in 2009.
Charla was friends with Travis’ owner Sandy Herold, who used to bathe with her chimp. And as we revealed earlier, one chimp mum went even further and started breastfeeding on of the animals. Chimpanzee ownership is legal in some US states despite the fact the animals can be highly dangerous.
Primate breast-feeder Pamela Rosaire said: “Years ago, I had a baby chimp born two months premature. Premature chimps can’t digest formula, but I’d just had my daughter, Dallas, so I did what came naturally. He’s a baby that needs feeding, so feed it.” Peta has made repeated failed bids to stop exotic pets being bred.
(Image: AFP via Getty Images)
Peta start to try and confiscate Tonka after a whistleblower reveals footage suggesting conditions in which he and six other chimps were kept breached the Exotic Animal Act.
Peta lawyer Jared Goodman said: “These chimpanzees were being kept in very barren cages, sitting in their own waste, and this was frankly unlawful.” Peta first ask Tonia to improve the primates’ living conditions but apply for an order to take the chimps away when they claim to see no improvement.
And things get so heated between Tonia and Peta that during the filming of Chimp Crazy she even tried to run over lawyer Goodman. She admits she regularly checks Facebook to see if Goodman’s wife has left him, and calls him “a pr*ck”.
Peta try to catch Tonia out as she gives them “evidence” of Tonka’s “natural causes” death, but say this wasn’t actually possible – adding it was her husband who signed the papers. Later, Peta gets hold of a text from Tonia sent after Tonka went missing that implies she may be hiding him, which she denies.
A judge dealing with the court case later said he believes “Ms Haddix makes things up”, adding: “I want to know, is Tonka still alive? Based on evidence I have heard today, I cannot say.”
Want to find out more? Four-part docuseries Chimp Crazy is available to stream on HBO Max.
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Source: Celebrities - dailystar.co.uk
