Tommy Lee played bongos for rescued chimpanzee Limbani at a Florida sanctuary and painted with him.
Tommy Lee spent an afternoon playing bongos for a chimpanzee. The Mötley Crüe drummer visited Save the Chimps in Fort Pierce, Florida ahead of the band’s West Palm Beach show, and gave a private performance to Limbani, the youngest resident at the sanctuary.
Footage of the two of them, Lee on the drum, Limbani moving in time to it, has passed 3.7 million views on the sanctuary’s Instagram.
“I never thought I’d play drums for a chimpanzee,” Lee told People. “Limbani’s rhythmic response to my beat was captivating! I don’t know who enjoyed our session more, him or me?”
He added: “I learned a lot from the staff and volunteers. To me, they are the rock stars! It’s a day I’ll NEVER EVER forget!”
The pair also made something together, which sold at auction for $5,000 towards the sanctuary’s costs.
“I painted the black and silver base coat, then he added brush strokes in red and blue,” Lee said. They called it “Wild Side” — the same song that opened Mötley Crüe‘s set in West Palm Beach a few days later.
Limbani has a following of his own. He was born on 24 August 2016 with pneumonia and rejected by his mother, and spent his first eight years at a private facility in Miami, where he built an Instagram audience of more than a million but never met another chimpanzee.
He moved to Save the Chimps in December 2024, after PETA ran a public campaign for his relocation in the wake of the HBO documentary series Chimp Crazy. The sanctuary says his previous owners approached them about rehoming him.
He turned 10 on Monday, days after Lee‘s visit. His name means “be strong” in Chewa, a language of southern Africa.
Limbani is still in the sanctuary’s Special Needs facility while he learns to live alongside his own species. He has been introduced to Timmy and Tuffy, two older residents, Tuffy spent most of his life in a drained swimming pool, and the three have since been folded into a group of four. Once that settles, he moves to one of the sanctuary’s island habitats.
Save the Chimps was founded in 1997 by Carole C. Noon, initially to take in chimpanzees the US Air Force had put up for auction. It now houses more than 200 across 150 acres in St. Lucie County, in family groups on twelve three-acre islands, with limited human contact once the animals are settled.
Its residents come from laboratories, the pet trade and entertainment work. Among them is Tonka, who appeared alongside Alan Cumming in “Buddy” and later featured in “Chimp Crazy“.
The sanctuary is accredited by the Global Federation of Animal Sanctuaries, is a founding member of the North American Primate Sanctuary Alliance, and is not open to the public.
Mötley Crüe are working through the “Return Of The Carnival Of Sins” tour, marking twenty years since the original “Carnival Of Sins” run and 45 years as a band. The West Palm Beach date at iTHINK Financial Amphitheatre had Tesla and Extreme supporting.
