Just about every mom has drawn a line somewhere on pets. Katherine Jackson drew hers at chimpanzees.
Katherine is Michael Jackson’s mother. And when Michael was already a grown man and still living at the family home, he started talking about getting a chimp of his own.
She told the story to NBC’s “Dateline” in an hour that aired on Friday, June 25, 2010. The way she tells it, she wasn’t caught completely off guard, because Michael had been dropping hints for a while.
“I didn’t know he was gonna bring him home because he had talked about getting a chimpanzee”
So she did what moms do. She laid down the law with the people who worked with the animals.
“and so I told one of the trainers I don’t want a monkey here.”
That should have settled it. It didn’t. Michael brought a chimp home anyway, and Katherine’s house rule was about to get its biggest test.
That little chimp was Bubbles, and in time he became famous around the world. Plenty of fans still picture him at Michael’s side, and this footage of the two of them on tour in Japan in 1987 shows why.
Michael and Bubbles on tour in Japan in 1987
So how did a chimp get past Katherine Jackson’s rule?
It started with the surprise of meeting him. Here’s how she told it: “About a week or two later, Michael brought him home and I was shocked to find out that they act so much like humans.”
Then he did the thing that won her over for good. Bubbles would walk right up to you and raise his arms, the same way a toddler does when they want to be carried.
Katherine described it like this: “He would go and stand in front of you and hold his little hands up for you to pick him up.”
It’s hard to stay firm against that. Any grandmother reading this knows exactly what those little raised arms do to your heart.
According to “Dateline,” it wasn’t only Katherine who melted. Pretty soon the whole household had fallen for him.
It’s a funny turn for a woman who’d told the trainer flat out that she didn’t want a monkey in the house. She still said “monkey” when she told the story, even though Bubbles was a chimp. (Chimps are actually apes, but plenty of us mix them up, so we’ll let Mom have that one.)
Bubbles’ famous friend drew huge crowds wherever he went, and this footage of fans greeting Michael’s arrival in Japan for the 1987 “Bad” tour gives you a taste of the life that little chimp stepped into.
Fans greet Michael’s arrival in Japan on the 1987 “Bad” tour
All that came later, though. Back at the family home, the story started with a mother who said no and a chimp who knew exactly how to ask to be held.