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Thursday, June 24, 2010

The beasts of Neverland: what became of Bubbles & Thriller?


Michael Jackson's menagerie

Michael Jackson with chimp Bubbles and pet llama Photo: Photo by GAB Archive/Redferns

When Michael Jackson died a year ago he left behind three children, eight brothers and sisters and millions of bereft fans. He also left a zoo’s worth of exotic animals.

Perhaps it shouldn’t have come as a surprise – his first solo number one, after all, was Ben, an ode to a pet rat – but the media and fans alike were fascinated by the private zoo that the King of Pop created at his 2,600-acre Californian ranch, Neverland.

Among the residents were tigers, chimpanzees, zebras, giraffes, alpacas, snakes, alligators and elephants. Their upkeep, though, cost a fortune, and, as personal and financial woes piled up, Jackson was forced to move out of Neverland and find his animals new homes.

He gave the job to his well-respected vet, Martin Dinnes.

‘Michael told me that he didn’t care about making money from selling his animals, he just wanted me to make sure that they went to the best homes possible,’ Dinnes says.

Michael Jackson's pet chimp Bubbles Photo: Picture by: CNN/ Splash News

‘So I took two years, from 2006 to 2008. Some were sold and some were given away but Michael approved of all the places they went.’

Not everybody agrees. Animal rights campaigners say many animals are living at substandard facilities, while some new owners criticise Jackson, whose estate has raked in $250 million since his death, for making no provision to fund the lifestyles of his beloved pets.

Michael Jackson and Bubbles the chimp during the making of the video "Moon Walker." Photo: Credit: Polaris / eyevine

One year after his death, we tracked down the animals of Neverland to see how they are adjusting to life in a world where animals do grow old.

Bubbles the chimpanzee

Few will need reminding that Jackson’s highest-profile pet was a chimpanzee named Bubbles. After rescuing him from a research centre in the early Eighties he took him on his Bad world tour.

Bubbles wowed fans by mimicking his moonwalk on stage and the two became inseparable. At Neverland, the ape slept in a cot in the singer’s bedroom and used his lavatory.

However, after the birth of Jackson’s son Prince Michael Jnr, Bubbles – who was growing into moody adolescence – was deemed potentially dangerous and moved to a sanctuary for Hollywood animals.

For the past six years he has resided in Florida at the Center For Great Apes. Half of the money needed for his care – which costs £12,000 per year – is still provided by Jackson’s estate.

Michael Jackson in 1983 Photo: Bonnie Schiffman/Corbis Outline

‘Michael owned Bubbles all these years,’ says Patti Ragan, who runs the centre. ‘He would visit him, but he couldn’t handle him any more.

'Chimps that appear on television are almost always very young. When they grow up they get very big and have huge canine teeth. They become very dangerous so can’t work around actors and entertainers.’

Bubbles, Ragan says, is now 26 years old and weighs nearly 13 stone. He’s changed in other ways too. In a mirror-image of Jackson’s own metamorphosis, Bubbles’ face has become significantly blacker.

‘It isn’t pink anymore,’ Ragan says. ‘When chimpanzees get older their faces get covered in more and more black freckles and turn a beautiful, dark rich colour.’

The chimp, like his owner, is also very fond of children.

‘There are some youngsters in his group, little kids, and he loves to play games with them,’ she says. ‘He likes to be groomed by the others in his group and sometimes he’ll groom them.’

However, Ragan says categorically that Bubbles does not dance and dismisses reports that he attempted to commit suicide after hearing of Jackson’s death, or that there were ever any plans for him to attend the funeral.


MJ's boa constrictor
Michael Jackson pictured with a serpentine member of his menagerie in 1987 Photo: Getty Images

‘All chimpanzees walk backwards if they’re playing so his moonwalking was nothing special,’ she says.

‘This is a 180lb great ape, not a chimp baby in a red suit. He is not a person.’

The giraffes and parrots

Jackson’s four giraffes – Rambo, Jabbar Jnr, Princess and Annie Sue – along with his collection of parrots, left Neverland in 2007 and moved to Page, in Arizona, to live with a couple of well-meaning but inexperienced animal enthusiasts called Tommy and Freddie Hancock.

The husband and wife team, who had made their fortune selling jet skis, planned to open a 175-acre wildlife reserve and spend their retirement looking after abandoned animals. But their plans went awry almost immediately.

First, the animal rights group PETA accused the Hancocks of mistreating the giraffes and keeping them in ‘cramped temporary pens’.

Then the couple became mired in a legal battle with the local council over the terms of the lease agreement for the proposed reserve. Both the Hancocks and the giraffes faced eviction.

And then, within the space of a few weeks at the end of last year, both Rambo and Jabba Jnr died.

PETA blamed the Hancocks, accusing them of neglect. But the Hancocks insisted they were the victims of a local smear campaign and said they thought the giraffes had been poisoned.

‘It has to be said that the circumstances around the deaths are suspect,’ Freddie says.

‘The veterinarian said Rambo was in excellent health. It’s very difficult to prove anything but I know that somebody did that to these animals and of course we have our suspicions who. Someone has a personal vendetta against us.’

Freddie and her husband have now found a new site in South Utah and plan to move the surviving giraffes and the rest of their animals there. As yet, there has been no official investigation into the deaths of either Rambo or Jabba Jnr.

The alligators and snakes

One suspects that the Peter Pan of Pop would have approved of the GW Exotic Animal Memorial Park in Oklahoma, where most of his reptiles now live.

A sanctuary for animals that have been neglected or abused, it was set up in 1997 by Francis and Shirley Schreibvogel in memory of their son Garold Wayne, who died in a road traffic accident.

Today, the park has 12,000 exotic animals – including Madonna, Jackson’s albino python, and the singer’s alligators – many of which are sponsored by the friends or family of people who have died. Three people (although not Jackson) are buried on the site.

The pop star’s two alligators live in the Steve Irwin Memorial Complex, an indoor alligator centre, built in memory of the Australian ‘Crocodile Hunter’, which has two indoor pools. A door gives them exclusive access to two pools outside.

‘The big alligator we call MJ,’ says John Reinke, the park manager. ‘We have a sign on the cage that says he belonged to Michael Jackson.

‘MJ is about 14ft long and weighs about 1,100lbs [half a ton]. He eats whole raw chickens like you get in the grocery store,’ Reinke says.

‘The python is 18ft long and she weighs 300lbs,’ he adds.

‘When we tell people that we got Michael Jackson’s animals they get pretty excited and want to see them but we don’t get crazy fanatics.’

The tigers: Thriller and Sabu

Although named after the best-selling album of all time, Thriller the tiger was not the cub pictured cradled in Jackson’s arms on the record sleeve.

Nevertheless, she and her brother Sabu, born in 1998, were two of the pop star’s most beloved pets. nThey now live on the Shambala Preserve in California, which is owned and run by the actress Tippi Hedren – Melanie Griffith’s mother – best known for her starring role in Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds.

‘The tigers came to us in 2006 when Michael decided never to return to Neverland,’ says Hedren, who is now 80 and has run Shambala since the early Seventies.

‘They were the first animals to be placed. Thriller and Sabu live in a very large compound of their own and are very happy.’ As soon as Hedren heard about Jackson’s death, she says she went to their compound and told them the news.

‘I have no idea if they understood what had happened or not,’ she says. ‘But I talk to the animals a lot. I often sit outside their enclosure and get to know their personality.’

The actress has been in love with big cats since 1969 when she made a film in Zimbabwe. She now has around 70 at Shambala, including lions, cougars, leopards, servals and one ‘very magnificent’ liger, all of which have been rescued from illegal zoos or private individuals.

She also has several domestic cats, one called Melanie Griffith and one called Antonio Banderas (after Melanie’s husband). The others are named Sean Connery, Marlon Brando and Rod Taylor (after Hedren’s co-star in The Birds).

Thriller, Sabu and the rest of the animals at Shambala enjoy a pampered existence. They are fed on specially flavoured beef and receive the best health care that money can buy. When Thriller developed a swelling on her neck she was taken to hospital for an MRI scan.

However, Hedren says Jackson never contributed a penny to their upkeep.

‘It’s disappointing because Michael was known for his love of animals and I don’t know why he completely abandoned them,’ she says. ‘It would be wonderful if someone in the family stepped up.’

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