“Chimp Crazy” has all the makings of a “Tiger King” sequel: a fashionably challenged protagonist, an intervening animal rights organization and a blind awareness of self-incrimination. Just remove Carol Baskin’s missing ex-husband from the equation and enter a 29-year-old missing chimp. Tonka, known for his role in “Buddy” (1997) alongside actor and animal rights activist Alan Cummings, lived at the Missouri Primate Foundation until a court ordered his seizure—along with six other chimps—by PETA in 2021. Soon after, he was reported missing, later to be proclaimed dead via congestive heart failure. Although, he was most certainly alive, living in a cage in Tonia Haddix’s basement for the next year.

There is currently no federal law in the United States banning the private ownership of non-human primates. While the importation of these species is illegal, prolific breeders, such as Connie Casey, continue to fuel the market and sell to unknowledgeable buyers. Tonia Haddix was one such customer, having decided to buy a chimpanzee from Casey on a whim. Instead, she ended up buying Casey’s entire so-called sanctuary—the Missouri Primate Foundation—feeding the residents Happy Meals and soft drinks, even the night before she knew they would be taken by PETA. When the morning came, she kidnapped Tonka, her favorite, and stashed him at a friend’s house. From there, he ended up in a cage, watching Haddix constantly scroll through Instagram and TikTok (when she wasn’t getting lip fillers, botox or a self-tan). 

Unfortunately, Tonka was not the only chimpanzee to endure prolonged captivity in a private home in the United States. Travis, a 240 pound chimp kept as a pet in Sandra Herold’s Stamford, Connecticut. home for 14 years, brutally attacked Herold’s friend, Charla Nash, in 2009, ripping off her face and hands before he was shot by police. Similarly, Buck, a pet chimpanzee in Pendleton, Oregon. was killed by the Umatilla County Sheriff’s Department in 2021 after his owner, Tamara Brogoitti, ordered deputies to “shoot him in the head” following an attack on her daughter. Buck lived with Brogoitti for 17 years. 

It is largely forgotten that the needs of primates are incompatible with life in a private home. They are social beings, requiring interaction with their own kind, and while relatively cute as infants, they will inevitably exhibit wild behaviors, potentially harming others in the process. In an attempt to mitigate these risks, some owners have forced their pet primates to undergo tooth extraction procedures to keep them “tame.” Primates can also be vectors for zoonotic diseases, increasing the risk of a spillover event. They have previously been documented to transmit yellow fever, measles and viral hepatitis to humans. Thus, it is in their best interest, in addition to our own, that they remain out of private homes. 

From Haddix to Brogoitti and all the non-human primates in between, Eric Goode, the director of “Chimp Crazy,” weaves together a powerful story of moral ethics, love and heartbreak. “We like to believe our own truth,” he says in the docuseries’ final episode. While Haddix’s actions—among others—were questionable at best, it is only through sharing these experiences, as Haddix so unapologetically does, that one might finally be able to end the captive primate industry.