Michael Jackson’s chimp buddy Bubbles now a laid-back oldie
Michael Jackson’s chimp buddy Bubbles is now a laid-back oldie who hates cameras.
The primate famously became a close friend of the singer as his eccentricity rose in the 1980s.
He is said to have sat in the studio for the recording sessions for the Bad album, as well as sharing hotel rooms with the singer on tour.
But eventually he faded out of the public eye, and in the aftermath of Jackson’s death, it has emerged Bubbles has been living at a sanctuary in Florida.
Now a 26-year-old, weighing 165 pounds and standing at four feet tall, he’s no longer mingling with the likes of Elizabeth Taylor – but he does get to share a cage with other famous chimps.
Bubbles is at the Great Ape Sanctuary in Wauchula, Florida. The animals are in large domes that connect to 4,000ft of elevated tunnels in the 120-acre property 200 miles north west of Miami.
Most are former ‘child star’ chimps, too, having been in films and commercials. Staff call them the “Hollywood Chimps”.
The retirees spend a lot of their days poking each other and bickering – but not Bubbles.
According to the centre’s founder and director Patti Ragan, he is the “sensitive” one. “He’s a very dignified chimp,” she said. “Everyone knows him as the pink-eared, pink-faced chimp in the red suit. But the world has missed his adolescence and adulthood. He’s not the same.”
She added: “Bubbles was obviously a well-loved chimp. It is obvious that Michael Jackson took good care of him… But it’s hard to say whether he inherited anything from Michael.”
He supposedly was taught to Moonwalk but the centre has not seen him pull off that trick.
However, he is similar to his former owner in his dislike for rogue cameras.
When people try to take pictures, he simply turns and walks away.
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