Tonia Haddix says she never wanted the limelight. Small monkeys screech in the background as the exotic animal broker tells Rolling Stone that she’s frustrated by the whole media circus that has descended upon her life after being the “unwitting” star of HBO’s latest docuseries Chimp Crazy . “I don’t want this crap, I just want to be normal,” Haddix says.
When reminded that most wouldn’t consider running a small petting zoo, bottle-feeding capuchin monkeys and housing baby wallabies and a host of other animals typical, Haddix laughs. “That’s my normal,” she says. As Haddix tells it, she believed that she was participating in a small production advocating for the private ownership of exotic animals.
Instead, the series wound up focusing on Haddix’s intense relationship with her movie-star pet chimpanzee Tonka and her ensuing battle against PETA after she faked the ape’s death . The kicker comes when Haddix discovers that the documentary crew following her for the past year — and knew Tonka was alive and living in Haddix’s basement — not only was being secretly puppeteered by Tiger King director Eric Goode, but his team had turned her in to PETA, which resulted in Tonka being taken away in 2022. The four-episode series, whose finale aired Sunday night, is poised to be HBO’s most-watched documentary in years .
Attorneys for PETA have also been tuned in, filing a fresh motion for a judge to consider bringing perjury and obstruction charges agains.
