Somewhere in the Florida countryside, a 185-pound chimpanzee is flipping through a magazine, looking at the pictures.
His name is Bubbles. In the 1980s, he was probably the most famous animal on the planet.
Bubbles belonged to Michael Jackson. He went on tour with the King of Pop and showed up at Michael’s side in places nobody expected to see a chimp, and people couldn’t get enough of him.
That was a long time ago. Bubbles turned 43 this year, which makes him an old man by chimp standards.
He was reportedly born in 1983 at a lab in Texas that bred chimps for medical research, and Michael brought him home as a baby. But baby chimps grow up, and adult males get very strong. By the time Bubbles was fully grown, a house full of people was no place for him.
He went to live with an animal trainer in California. Then in 2005 he moved to the Center for Great Apes, a sanctuary in the small town of Wauchula, Florida. A woman named Patti Ragan started it to give a forever home to chimps and orangutans that had nowhere else to go, and many of them came from show business or research labs.
Ragan talked about his life there when he turned 41.
Michael Jackson Would Be Happy With Bubbles the Chimp’s Life, Says Sanctuary
These days Bubbles is the head of his own little family. He lives with an older female named Oopsie, her daughter Boma and Boma’s two kids, Kodua and Stryker. He likes to explore the tunnels, and he takes a nap every afternoon, sometimes in a nest he builds under a tree.
And yes, he paints.
Ragan has said Bubbles loves to paint and draw. Staff hand him a tray with about five colors that won’t hurt him if he decides to taste them. Most of what he makes is bright and abstract, and people actually buy it. One of his canvases reportedly sold for $1,500 at an art show in Miami, with the money going back to the apes.
A local TV crew got a close look at it.
Bubbles the Chimp’s Artwork on Display in Miami
Michael’s estate still pays for Bubbles’ care, which runs more than $30,000 a year. La Toya, Michael’s sister, came to see him in 2010. Fans mail him mangos, coconuts and soft blankets, and he likes to curl up with the blankets at nap time.
Staff even play Michael’s songs while they clean the night houses. The sanctuary says Bubbles doesn’t react to that music any differently than the other chimps do.
In April 2025, Wauchula’s leaders declared an official “Bubbles Day.” According to the local paper, two Michael Jackson fan groups gave the sanctuary a life-size bronze statue of him.
This year brought a strange new headache. Fake photos made with AI started spreading online, showing Jaafar Jackson, Michael’s nephew and the star of the new movie “Michael,” visiting Bubbles. The sanctuary had to tell people it never happened, since Jaafar has never been there.
Ragan told a Florida TV station she knows Michael wanted to come visit Bubbles there, too.
As for his health, the old guy is holding up well. The sanctuary said this year that he was “doing quite well health-wise” for a chimp his age.
One more for the road: a short clip the sanctuary posted of his play date.