it's the HBO doy series being build as the new Tiger King and chimp crazy is directed by the same filmmaker Now The Eccentric exotic animal owner featured in the series is claiming that she was tricked into participating she spoke about that with Lisa Guerrero America is going bananas today over HBO's new hit docu series chimp crazy produced by the same filmmaker who made Tiger King chimp C unravels the wild story of an eccentric woman's obsession with primates especially this chimp named Tonka Tonka loved me as much as I love Tonka the series follows Tanya hax's bizarre efforts at hiding Tonka from authorities after a judge ordered that the chimp who appeared in the 1997 comedy George of the Jungle be turned over to an animal sanctuary did you fake tonka's death absolutely 100% I did I spoke to Tanya had in 2022 and she admitted that she lied to authorities when she told them that Tonka was dead and she had him cremated the truth was very different this was tonka's Hideaway yeah she was hiding Tonka in the basement of her Missouri home but the Animal Rights group Peta was suspicious Peta never believed Tanya's story that Tonka was dead so we started we started looking for him they teamed up with tonka's former co-star actor Ellen and together offered a $220,000 reward for anyone with information on tonka's whereabouts they are not supposed to be locked up in little cages and basements after 6 months an anonymous tip LED US Marshals to Tanya's basement where they swarmed over her home and seized Tonka so who called in that anonymous tip Tanya hadek says she believes the filmmakers behind chimp crazy ratted her out so why would they do such a thing she says it was to create TV drama for the HBO documentary it's because they wanted a magnificent ending to their story so that they could get that $60 million off of the documentary so how is Tonka doing today we found him here at a chimpanzee rescue sanctuary in Florida he is now aged 32 living a life he deserves in the open air and out of that cage in the basement you could see as soon as stonka arrived how he was checking out looking for other chimpanzees but Tanya says she believes Tonka would be better off in her care they took him from the only home he knows the only mother he knows and he woke up in a sanctuary setting and he doesn't know what happened he counts on me and I know he does and now every his whole world's turned upside down we reached out to HB and the filmmakers for comment but did not hear back [Music]