“Chimp Crazy” star Tonia Haddix on Thursday was sentenced to 46 months in prison.
The 55-year-old exotic animal broker was convicted for lying to a federal judge about the death of her chimpanzee Tonka, whom she was hiding in her basement. Haddix, who calls herself the “Dolly Parton of chimps,” pleaded guilty to perjury and obstruction of justice in March and was arrested in July for harboring yet another ape in her Missouri home.
“Now that Tonia Haddix is locked up, she’s getting a taste of the suffering she inflicted on animals by imprisoning them in cages and denying them any semblance of a natural life,” Brittany Peet, PETA Foundation‘s general counsel for Captive Animal Law Enforcement, said in a statement. “PETA is relieved to see justice done and urges everyone to support the Captive Primate Safety Act, which will keep vulnerable monkeys and apes out of the pet trade and the hands of ruthless dealers like Haddix.”
PETA first considered legal action against Haddix in 2018 after she took ownership of seven chimpanzees from the now-closed Missouri Primate Foundation, according to the animal rights group. After a court ordered Haddix to relinquish them all, she claimed Tonka — a celebrity chimp who’s appeared in “George of the Jungle,” “Buddy” and “Babe: Pig in the City” — had died.
In Episode 2 of the four-part docuseries “Chimp Crazy,” which aired on HBO in 2024, Haddix broke down in tears during a Zoom court hearing as she detailed Tonka’s alleged death. But just after Missouri Senior District Judge Catherine D. Perry ruled in her favor, the chimp was discovered locked in a small cage in Haddix’s basement, where he could only walk a few steps in each direction and had no access to the outdoors.
“Chimp Crazy” director Eric Goode, who was obscuring his identity via a proxy director during filming due to his reputation as the producer of “Tiger King,” ultimately made the decision to inform PETA where Tonka was. The chimp was removed from Haddix’s custody on June 5, 2022, and relocated to the Save the Chimps sanctuary in Fort Pierce, Fla.
“I didn’t feel guilty,” proxy director Dwayne Cunningham told The Times last year. “I always said to Tonia, ‘Don’t ever say anything to me that you don’t want the whole world to know.’ And Tonia being Tonia, she just kept talking. So I didn’t feel guilty; I felt like I was doing my job. But I felt bad for a friend, because I could see that the love story was spiraling out of control.”
