Exclusive: The Harambe Tapes, Revealed

Ten years ago today, one gorilla's death broke the internet, from sports and politics to million-dollar memes. But Harambe's life was a tragic battle over name, image and likeness — including files the Cincinnati Zoo worked to suppress... until now. Desus Nice and Katie Nolan help Pablo get to the bottom of what gorillas in our midst can teach us about ourselves. • Subscribe to PTFO on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/@PabloTorreFindsOut to watch the Harambe tapes and more • Subscribe to "Casuals with Katie Nolan" https://pod.link/1788997372 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy https://acast.com/privacy for more information.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  Welcome to Pablo Torre Finds Out. I am Pablo Torre, and today, we're gonna find out what this sound is.

• 0:06Speaker 01

  I'm accusing myself of this conversation because I think it's bull Pablo, that you are trying to capitalize off a dead gorilla. We would never do that.

• 0:15Speaker 00

  Right after this ad.

• 0:19Speaker 02

  I've got big news. I switched to Verizon and got the new iPhone 18 Pro. Shh. I can keep my old phone, and I also get the latest iPhone every year. Shh, anything else? Verizon let me choose Apple Watch Series 12 or iPad on them. Everybody, listen up. Shh. Switch to Verizon and get the new iPhone 18 Pro now. No trade-in needed, and the latest iPhone every year with Simplicity Plan. Plus, choose Apple Watch Series 12 or iPad on us. Simplicity Plan with Simplicity Pro required. Plan and device payment purchase are separate agreements with separate terms. Service plan for Watch or iPad required. Additional terms apply for all offers.

• 0:49Speaker 03

  At Humana, our Medicare Advantage plans are easy to understand and easy on your wallet. Like offering more benefits than you'd get from original Medicare alone, and including dental, vision, and hearing coverage in every plan. And the best part is, every plan has a $0 or low monthly plan premium, which makes it easier to save, too. So this Medicare planning season, plan well with Humana. Learn more at gethumana.com. Humana is a Medicare Advantage HMO and PPO organization with a Medicare contract. Enrollment in any Humana plan depends on contract renewal.

• 1:21Speaker 00

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• 1:56Pablo Torre?

  And reach out to them. It brings prospecting, outreach and follow-up into one place instead of several separate tools. It's used by sales teams of all sizes, from small businesses to larger organizations. And it's built for teams who want less manual busywork and more time with buyers. If your marketing and sales teams are trying to work from the same view of the customer, it's worth a look. Sign up for free at apollo.io. That's apollo.io.

• 2:30Pablo Torre?

  I've been waiting so long to do this episode with you guys. And I love, as always, that you don't have any idea what-

• 2:36Speaker 00

  I hate it, as always.

• 2:37Speaker 05

  I'm terrified.

• 2:38Speaker 00

  I hate it, as always, so.

• 2:40Pablo Torre?

  You have folders in front of you?

• 2:41Speaker 00

  I see them.

• 2:42Pablo Torre?

  I have what has been alleged to be a [BLEEP] eating grin on my face. That is how much I'm enjoying having-

• 2:47Speaker 00

  Is this-

• 2:48Speaker 05

  I don't know.

• 2:48Speaker 00

  Are we gonna like it as much as you like it?

• 2:50Pablo Torre?

  I can't totally be sure.

• 2:53Speaker 00

  Great.

• 2:54Pablo Torre?

  I do know that Dee's is nice, Katie Nolan, you are both my friends.

• 2:58Speaker 00

  For now.

• 2:59Speaker 05

  For now.

• 3:00Pablo Torre?

  And also animal people.

• 3:02Speaker 00

  What's going on? Yeah, uh-huh.

• 3:04Pablo Torre?

  And-

• 3:04Speaker 00

  We do like dogs.

• 3:05Pablo Torre?

  You have, you have, you have dogs?

• 3:07Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 3:07Speaker 05

  Is this about something that happened a couple of months ago in Prospect Park? Cause the dog came at me. I'm just saying, like-

• 3:16Pablo Torre?

  It's about something that we got at our tip line. Here Pablo Torre finds out. Fans, whistleblowers, they will dial 513-85-PABLO.

• 3:27Speaker 05

  Is that in area codes with Ludacris?

• 3:29Speaker 00

  Oh, good.

• 3:30Speaker 05

  That's how I reference everything. 212-513-212.

• 3:34Pablo Torre?

  I don't know if Ludacris has hoes in Cincinnati, Ohio.

• 3:38Speaker 00

  Mm-mm, no, I think Famously doesn't mention it, yeah.

• 3:41Pablo Torre?

  But this is the area code we were randomly assigned by Google. But cosmically recurs-

• 3:46Speaker 00

  Interesting.

• 3:47Pablo Torre?

  Because this was earlier this year. We got a tip.

• 3:52Speaker 06

  Hi, my name is Jeff McCurry. I'd like to see if you would like to show the world the secret videos that the Cincinnati Zoo has tried to keep quiet for 10 years. These videos are very graphic. They absolutely are real. Everybody that's seen them is just speechless. Anyway, I look forward to hearing from you. We have several months till the 10th anniversary. And I thought I'd reach out to you and see if you're interested in breaking this story. Thank you.

• 4:27Speaker 00

  Was Harambe Cincinnati?

• 4:29Speaker 05

  Oh, wow.

• 4:31Pablo Torre?

  On May 28th.

• 4:33Speaker 00

  Oh, my God.

• 4:34Pablo Torre?

  2016.

• 4:35Speaker 00

  Oh, my God.

• 4:36Pablo Torre?

  Exactly 10 years ago, at the Cincinnati Zoo.

• 4:41Speaker 07

  Outrage over an incident at the Cincinnati Zoo when a three-year-old boy fell into the gorilla enclosure Saturday. For 10 agonizing minutes, onlookers watched, including the boy's mother, who cried out to him. Mommy's right here. At one point, the 420-pound male silverback named Harambe grabbed the boy's ankle and dragged him through the water. Mommy loves you. I'm right here.

• 5:04Speaker 00

  Unfortunately, we only have just a little bit of a window of what happened, right? What I really want to see is how the heck this child ended up at the top of the barrier, through the brush, and into the moat. We don't have that yet.

• 5:14Speaker 06

  The bottom line is that once that little boy was in the hands of that gorilla, unfortunately, that's a death sentence for the gorilla. Did the zoo make the right call?

• 5:22Speaker 01

  The gorilla's behavior was textbook protective behavior for a gorilla. They run around with their kids like that in the wild. The kids know to jump on the back. Any gorilla expert should know that gorilla was not acting violently towards that child.

• 5:35Pablo Torre?

  And after all that attention, all that news coverage, of course, came the memes.

• 5:42Speaker 00

  This is an interesting sign. What does this mean?

• 5:45Pablo Torre?

  Uh, I'm sure you all heard about Harambe the gorilla. He was murdered in the Cincinnati Zoo. And I'm just saying, like, [bleep] out for Harambe. That's a rallying cry. Yeah.

• 5:52Speaker 00

  So you're [bleep], you pull it out for Harambe?

• 5:55Speaker 01

  I mean, if Harambe was here, he'd be out right now. You know, you could see some people that are running up right now. Yeah, for Harambe! Okay, thank you. Yeah, for Harambe! All right. Get out for Harambe, you know what the [__] it is. Hey, get out for Harambe! The death of this gorilla has given me a lot of joy. I hate to say it. Oh, tremendous. Not in a bad way. Yeah. Like, RIP Harambe, for real. But it's been really funny.

• 6:20Speaker 05

  You could have given me 10,000 tries. This is, I did not think this is going to be disgusting.

• 6:26Speaker 00

  No chance. Why us?

• 6:27Speaker 05

  Rest in peace, Harambe.

• 6:29Pablo Torre?

  Well, one reason why is that Deezus, personally...

• 6:33Speaker 05

  I did not shoot him.

• 6:35Pablo Torre?

  ...happened to tweet quite a bit about Harambe, according to our records.

• 6:39Speaker 00

  I bet you did.

• 6:40Speaker 05

  2016? Oh, yeah. My only wish was Harambe was alive to see us go to state win. He was a big fan. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Had a lot going on in 2016. Or maybe not that much going on in 2016.

• 6:50Pablo Torre?

  And when we tell the young people of America what 2016 was like, it's really important to, like, educate them.

• 6:59Speaker 00

  Sure.

• 7:00Pablo Torre?

  Barstool made an empire out of Harambe's stuff. I remember seeing on Pardon My Take, which was, I think, like, the, one of the main, like, centers of Harambe content. They were, like, fantasy drafting, and Joe Burrow drafted Harambe as a defensive end for the Bengals.

• 7:19Speaker 06

  You gotta take Harambe, right?

• 7:20Speaker 05

  Mm-hmm. Yeah.

• 7:22Speaker 06

  I mean, the strength to weight ratio is just way higher than humans. I mean, that's a easy seven sacks a game, I'm sure.

• 7:31Pablo Torre?

  We are all of the sports internet. And Harambe was our gorilla. Deezus, there are some headlines here that I'd like you to help us remember.

• 7:44Speaker 05

  Okay. Thousands of Americans vote for a dead gorilla.

• 7:47Speaker 00

  Basically.

• 7:48Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 7:49Pablo Torre?

  Which brings us to the next headline.

• 7:51Speaker 05

  Would Donald Trump have killed the gorilla? Harambe's death was the beginning of the fall of society?

• 7:57Speaker 00

  I'd hear that out. I would hear that out.

• 7:59Pablo Torre?

  I don't want to be numb. To the idea that would Donald Trump have killed the gorilla? Was a headline.

• 8:06Speaker 00

  In what sense are they asking? Like, I don't think the president authorized the shot.

• 8:11Pablo Torre?

  Be president to be.

• 8:13Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 8:14Pablo Torre?

  This was, this was a.

• 8:15Speaker 00

  Oh.

• 8:16Speaker 05

  Yeah, back then it was like, back then it'd be like, oh my God, we don't really know Donald Trump. We're like, would he possibly?

• 8:21Speaker 00

  We knew Donald Trump.

• 8:22Speaker 05

  Now?

• 8:23Speaker 00

  We knew Donald Trump.

• 8:24Speaker 05

  He'd pull out a penknife, dig his eyes out and gleefully say, I was the biggest gorilla ever. They would have voted for me. But we didn't know that back then. We were young city bumpkins. We knew nothing about primates.

• 8:34Pablo Torre?

  Donald Trump, according to CNN, said that a Cincinnati Zoo probably had no choice but to kill a gorilla. It was a very tough call.

• 8:41Speaker 01

  It was amazing because there were moments with the gorilla, the way he held that child. It was almost like a mother holding a baby. Looked so beautiful and calm.

• 8:52Speaker 00

  What? Donald Trump said that?

• 8:54Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 8:55Speaker 00

  Appeared beautiful and calm?

• 8:57Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 8:58Speaker 00

  That, I don't like the way that feels.

• 8:59Speaker 05

  He's also really big with the gorillas. The gorillas would have voted for him 10 times.

• 9:04Pablo Torre?

  But this, all of this, the news cycle that was Harambe, I really don't want to dwell on this too much.

• 9:11Speaker 00

  Which usually means he does.

• 9:14Pablo Torre?

  There is also this headline.

• 9:15Speaker 00

  Elon Musk drops rap song eulogizing Harambe the gorilla.

• 9:20Pablo Torre?

  You remember this?

• 9:21Speaker 00

  No, I don't. And please don't remind me of it.

• 9:36Speaker 05

  Wow, they weren't kidding. Drake has showed no growth on Iceman. What is this?

• 9:41Speaker 00

  You said, let's not dwell, so let's not dwell.

• 9:45Pablo Torre?

  For the last four months, we have been unfortunately dwelling.

• 9:48Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 9:48Pablo Torre?

  We've been trying to figure out, in fairness, like, is Jeff the whistleblower? Is he full of [BLEEP]? Because what he has told us of this scoop, of these videos that he's promising, is, quote,

• 10:00Speaker 06

  This may ruin Harambe's reputation, but it may change the world's feelings about zoos.

• 10:08Pablo Torre?

  End quote.

• 10:09Speaker 00

  So is this, this is gonna demonize Harambe? It's, what are they gonna show? That he reached across and brought the child into the? What could the tapes possibly show?

• 10:19Speaker 05

  They show Harambe's final words, with or without gang violence.

• 10:25Speaker 00

  Right, unless it's a video of Harambe just looking in the camera and being like, "Fuck this kid."

• 10:29Pablo Torre?

  This kid.

• 10:29Speaker 00

  And grabbing the kid.

• 10:30Pablo Torre?

  This kid specifically.

• 10:31Speaker 00

  Otherwise, I don't know what he could possibly do to change my...

• 10:35Pablo Torre?

  Ooh.

• 10:35Speaker 00

  Wow.

• 10:36Pablo Torre?

  Well...

• 10:36Speaker 00

  I hated that look.

• 10:38Pablo Torre?

  Luckily...

• 10:39Speaker 00

  Great.

• 10:40Pablo Torre?

  This is a show where we do find out.

• 10:42Speaker 05

  Let's go.

• 10:43Speaker 00

  I can already hear the "Wiccy wiccy wiccy wiccy wiccy wiccy wiccy wiccy wiccy" get your little theme song play.

• 10:48Pablo Torre?

  I love the a cappella.

• 10:51Speaker 05

  You gotta hire her like Rockabilly from Caravaggio.

• 10:57Speaker 05

  Pablo, Pablo.

• 11:02Speaker 00

  That was good.

• 11:19Pablo Torre?

  This message is brought to you by Apple Card. With Apple Card, you earn unlimited daily cash back on everyday purchases, like groceries, or merch, or tickets to the game. Plus, it can be used anywhere MasterCard is accepted. No matter your team, no matter where you shop, Apple Card is here to help you tackle game day. Apply in the Wallet app on your iPhone today. Subject to credit approval. Apple Card is issued by Goldman Sachs Bank, USA, Salt Lake City Branch. Terms and more at applecard.com.

• 11:52Speaker 02

  I've got big news. I switched to Verizon and got the new iPhone 18 Pro. Shh. I can keep my old phone. And I also get the latest iPhone every year. Shh, anything else? Verizon let me choose Apple Watch Series 12 or iPad on them. Everybody, listen up. Shh. Switch to Verizon and get the new iPhone 18 Pro now. No trade-in needed. And the latest iPhone every year with Simplicity Plan. Plus, choose Apple Watch Series 12 or iPad on us. Simplicity Plan with Simplicity Pro required. Plan and device payment purchase are separate agreements with separate terms. Service plan for Watch or iPad required. Additional terms apply for all offers.

• 12:22Speaker 03

  At Humana, our Medicare Advantage plans are easy to understand and easy on your wallet. Like offering more benefits than you'd get from original Medicare alone. And including dental, vision, and hearing coverage in every plan. And the best part is every plan has a $0 or low monthly plan premium, which makes it easier to save, too. So this Medicare planning season, plan well with Humana. Learn more at gethumana.com. Humana is a Medicare Advantage, HMO and PPO organization with a Medicare contract. Enrollment in any Humana plan depends on contract renewal.

• 13:00Pablo Torre?

  This is a story about two characters that I have come to really appreciate.

• 13:06Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 13:07Pablo Torre?

  This is a story about two parallel timelines, two primate species, two arguably parallel dimensions. And our first character is a 64-year-old man named Jeff McCurry, aka Jeff the Whistleblower.

• 13:21Speaker 06

  I know it sounds, you know, like I'm fooling myself or whatever, but I'm just being honest. I crazy [BLEEP] finds me. I was, congratulations to you, Pablo. I consider you in that list now. It's like, I met Pablo and the [BLEEP] wins a Pulitzer Prize.

• 13:43Speaker 06

  I was literally sitting in my chair thinking, man, 10th anniversary is coming up. I need to reach out to somebody. And I found and chose you. And you got back with me in minutes. I was like, holy [BLEEP]. This was the right person to contact. So it was a match made in heaven.

• 14:04Pablo Torre?

  So describe the visuals on Jeff.

• 14:06Speaker 00

  As soon as you see behind Jeff, there are three-by-three, square-shaped, just portraits of Harambe.

• 14:14Pablo Torre?

  In different poses.

• 14:15Speaker 00

  But some of them look a lot alike. Like, I would not have hung up the one on the top left next to the one in the middle top, because it looks too similar from far away. Those should be in separate parts of your wall collage.

• 14:28Pablo Torre?

  The top middle one, that is like the photo.

• 14:33Speaker 00

  The one you've all seen that's been memed to high heavens.

• 14:35Pablo Torre?

  Yeah. More importantly, though, what we're not noticing, and I just realized it right now.

• 14:40Speaker 00

  What's that?

• 14:40Pablo Torre?

  The Harambe lapel.

• 14:42Speaker 00

  Yeah, when you say, "we're not noticing," I- Had seen it. It is like a um.

• 14:46Pablo Torre?

  What is Jeff wearing?

• 14:47Speaker 00

  Now, it's almost like on a Adidas tee that would have, where it would have the stripes down the top of the shoulder.

• 14:53Pablo Torre?

  Look at our drag race on.

• 14:54Speaker 00

  Oh, it's his whole, oh my god. Sorry, it's a Harambe jersey. He plays for the Harambe's.

• 14:59Pablo Torre?

  It's a Mitchell and Ness throwback from 1986 where Harambe paid for the Pittsburgh Pirates.

• 15:04Speaker 00

  Does it actually say on the front?

• 15:07Pablo Torre?

  It says Fred Nats. This is the Fredericksburg Nationals, a single A affiliate of the Washington Nationals. Okay. And they had a Harambe night.

• 15:15Speaker 00

  Great.

• 15:16Speaker 05

  Oh.

• 15:17Pablo Torre?

  And it got delayed because of COVID.

• 15:19Speaker 00

  But they still did it.

• 15:20Pablo Torre?

  Well.

• 15:21Speaker 00

  You have to do it. You gotta go through with it.

• 15:23Pablo Torre?

  Limited edition merch.

• 15:24Speaker 00

  What am I gonna do with all these Harambe jerseys?

• 15:27Pablo Torre?

  It was the five year anniversary back then, and the proceeds were gonna go to the Dutch Gorilla Foundation. This was gonna be this whole game worn auction thing, and it all got derailed because of.

• 15:39Speaker 00

  A global pandemic?

• 15:40Pablo Torre?

  A global pandemic.

• 15:41Speaker 00

  That'll happen.

• 15:42Pablo Torre?

  But I think we should let Jeff explain what his sort of motive was when it comes to his friend.

• 15:49Speaker 06

  This is my way of honoring Harambe, wearing and displaying him as much as I can. So when your podcast gets out there and anybody that sees it, they'll, you know, they'll have to look at Harambe also too, not just me. It's odd to say, but I was friends with a gorilla, you know?

• 16:09Pablo Torre?

  Worst T-Pay song ever.

• 16:13Speaker 00

  I was friends with the gorilla. He eating.

• 16:17Pablo Torre?

  Speaking of someone who knows how to auto tune.

• 16:20Speaker 00

  He grabbing that kid. I'm friends with the gorilla.

• 16:24Pablo Torre?

  But then, on Christmas Eve, 1985, when Jeff was 24 years old, he was hit by a drunk driver. He broke every bone in his body. He was in a coma for almost two weeks, but. This sort of like silver lining is he got a disability payout, meaning he essentially retired at 24. And in his late 30s, he sees an ad in the school paper for a photographer position.

• 16:51Speaker 05

  Mm hmm.

• 16:52Pablo Torre?

  Photo editor says.

• 16:53Speaker 06

  You got a camera? I'm like, yeah. He goes, he has me two rolls of film. He says, you're our new sports photographer.

• 16:59Pablo Torre?

  Hmm. And what he says is that he got invited into these worlds, dugouts, courtside. It's how he learned how to build trust with his subjects. My point is that this is actually something of a sports story.

• 17:17Speaker 06

  Being a photographer in general, people invite you into the world. But being a sports photographer, you get invited into worlds where nobody else is allowed.

• 17:29Pablo Torre?

  While all this is happening, Jeff is still in extreme pain. Right? He's taking 120 pain pills a month. It's this combo of oxy and Tylenol. They don't even allow this stuff anymore. But then Jeff McCurry and Katie Nolan, you will now, I think, realize why you are also here for this episode.

• 17:45Speaker 02

  You know him?

• 17:46Speaker 06

  One time I walked in the doctor and she looked at me and she goes, wait a minute, Jeff, you're a [BLEEP] zombie. And then it dawned on me 10 years after. It's like, wait a minute, you idiot. You're having trouble sleeping. You never smoked weed because it helped you. It made you tired. Try that. And so I tried it and it just changed my life tremendously. And I had a doctor that I saw regularly and I went in, saw him one day and he's like, Jeff, what happened? You're so much better. And this was before legalization was very common and everything. And I'm like, you know, it's illegal. I don't know if we should talk about it.

• 18:28Speaker 06

  He goes, well, whatever it is, keep doing it because it definitely made you better. And I'm like, okay.

• 18:34Speaker 05

  Not the guy in Cincinnati with the white ponytail and the minor league jersey finding the benefits of weed. Who could have seen that coming? My God.

• 18:43Pablo Torre?

  No.

• 18:45Speaker 05

  Jeff?

• 18:46Pablo Torre?

  Discovered the beauty of the natural world in this way.

• 18:51Speaker 06

  And so I started growing for myself and got really good at it. I had a friend selling a house out in the country, out Rabbit Ash, Kentucky. If you've ever heard of it, they used to have a, their mayor was a dog for many years. Got them lots of.

• 19:05Pablo Torre?

  Wait, hold on, hold on. I'm sorry. This is, I, I.

• 19:12Pablo Torre?

  This is the town where the mayor was a dog.

• 19:16Speaker 06

  Absolutely. Yeah. He got reelected three or four times.

• 19:20Speaker 05

  Yeah. If you don't smoke weed and you're watching this, this is what it's like to smoke weed. You have a guy who was best friends with a gorilla, talking about a small town that had a dog as a mayor. That's called indica. There's a lot going on right now. You're listening to this podcast. You are not passing any drug tests for the next three days.

• 19:36Pablo Torre?

  Whistleblower Jeff buys a house in Rabbit Ash to start growing weed. And I just need to establish people who are doubting us. The dog mayor thing was real.

• 19:47Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 19:48Speaker 07

  We report today from Rabbit Ash, Kentucky, where at least 10 dogs, a cat and a donkey are running for mayor. Alas, Goofy became the nation's first elected official to be euthanized. But satisfied voters elected another dog, Junior, who himself recently went to that Big Bone Buffet in the sky. CBS News Chief Washington correspondent Bob Schiefer is keeping a close eye on the election.

• 20:15Speaker 05

  Well, Bill, it seems pretty obvious to me that this dog vote may be split 10 ways. And of course, that could greatly benefit the candidacy of Travis the Cat. The split does not seem to be helping Higgins, however, who may want to consider defining himself as a donkey rather than a jackass. But I do have to say, I admire his honesty.

• 20:38Speaker 00

  Dude, this is a different Dog Mayor than I was even thinking of. This is sick. I'm obsessed with this.

• 20:42Pablo Torre?

  That was on CBS News.

• 20:43Speaker 00

  Yeah, no, I want to watch only stuff like that.

• 20:45Speaker 05

  Barry Weiss is never reaching this level.

• 20:47Speaker 00

  No chance. The dogs splitting it 10 ways, helping out the cat.

• 20:52Speaker 05

  There's graphics involved, there's deep dives.

• 20:54Speaker 00

  Maybe don't go by jackass, go by donkey. Perfect.

• 20:58Speaker 05

  Also, we can euthanize mayors because, I mean, Eric Adams dodges a bullet.

• 21:01Speaker 00

  That is truly... I can't believe that next dog got into the job knowing how the last one left office.

• 21:06Speaker 05

  I'll do a better job.

• 21:07Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 21:08Pablo Torre?

  This is where Jeff moves. He moves to, yeah.

• 21:11Speaker 00

  Rabbit's hash. Rabbit hash?

• 21:14Speaker 05

  Rabbit hash.

• 21:15Speaker 00

  Rabbit hash. Which is funny because my mom's always complaining that the rabbits are eating her weed. She has to put like specific, like a cage around her weed plant so that the rabbits don't eat it.

• 21:26Speaker 05

  And rabbit hash sounds like just the worst weed you've ever smoked.

• 21:29Speaker 00

  Yeah. Oh, dry.

• 21:30Speaker 05

  What is this, CB9? Like...

• 21:32Pablo Torre?

  These are all issues that I think Jeff was probably personally familiar with.

• 21:36Speaker 00

  Yeah, and the mayor was working on.

• 21:38Speaker 06

  So I bought a house from a friend down there and filled it up with marijuana plants and was growing and thinking, okay, I'm gonna, you know, do this and make some money off of it. But before I made money off of it, regrettably, a friend of mine's brother-in-law, who we had let go to the place because it had a creek on the property and he would fish there. And he got pissed off at my friend's wife on Thanksgiving. And so he called Crime Stoppers twice and told them, you know, exactly where I was. And that's how I got, you know, arrested.

• 22:18Pablo Torre?

  The federal government alleges in its 2005 indictment here that we obtained, that quote, "You did knowingly and intentionally manufacture and possess with intent to distribute approximately 350 plants of marijuana."

• 22:31Speaker 06

  450, actually, wasn't it?

• 22:35Pablo Torre?

  He's like, "Check the stats."

• 22:36Speaker 00

  Check the stats, my average is much higher than that.

• 22:39Speaker 05

  Scoreboard.

• 22:41Pablo Torre?

  Fact-checking wise, Jeff is, it turns out, correct. They found apparently 100 extra plants at the address next door. This all coming, by the way, from this count that was dismissed as part of his plea deal. All you gotta know for right now is that Jeff goes off to federal prison and we are going to turn our attention...

• 23:02Pablo Torre?

  To Brownsville, Texas.

• 23:06Speaker 00

  We have the winner of our contest. It's the naming the baby with the Gladys Porter Zoo, and it's the baby gorilla. Tell us about it.

• 23:12Speaker 06

  Well, every morning I like to get up and run on my treadmill, and I listen to music. And I was listening to a particular reggae song, and the performer kept singing this word, Harambe, Harambe. And halfway through the song, she explained what it was, and it means to pull together, to help each other, sharing and caring, and come together.

• 23:30Speaker 00

  Wow, so hence the name. And we've got the baby gorilla right there, Dan. That's the child you just named. Harambe. Harambe is her name. Once again, what does it mean again?

• 23:39Speaker 06

  It means pulling together, coming together, sharing and caring about one another.

• 23:42Speaker 00

  And what is it, like Swahili?

• 23:43Speaker 06

  It's a Swahili word, yeah.

• 23:45Speaker 00

  Oh, wow, this is so, so fantastic. Congratulations to you. A free membership to Gladys Porter Zoo. We also want to... They put so much spice on the name the first time they said it.

• 23:53Speaker 05

  This is...

• 23:54Speaker 00

  Harambe.

• 23:55Pablo Torre?

  They rolled that.

• 23:55Speaker 00

  Harambe.

• 23:56Pablo Torre?

  Rolled that R.

• 23:57Speaker 05

  This seems like a Different Strokes reboot that should never have aired, like...

• 24:00Speaker 00

  Harambe.

• 24:01Pablo Torre?

  A very special episode of Pablo Torre Finds Out. Describe, describe. Please describe, Katie.

• 24:07Speaker 00

  He looks like a cutie pie. He's just, he looks a little confused. He's just a baby, a tiny little baby, Harambe.

• 24:15Speaker 05

  He looks cute the way all of you were lying and saying Punch looked. Remember that little monkey?

• 24:20Speaker 00

  Punch the monkey. Punch was cute. What are you talking about? Excuse me, I don't think we need to...

• 24:23Speaker 05

  That's what's in the file. Punch was a federal agent.

• 24:26Speaker 00

  Punch was so cute.

• 24:27Speaker 05

  Notice he's disappeared. We haven't heard from Punch in months.

• 24:29Speaker 00

  Well, Punch made a human friend, and then I think everything was... There was also a lot of misinformation around Punch that got really weird really quick.

• 24:35Speaker 05

  He got into it, he found a girlfriend, he went all right.

• 24:37Speaker 00

  Yeah, oh, shoot, oh, shoot.

• 24:40Pablo Torre?

  I think we can all agree that Punch the monkey was no Harambe. Lots of imitators.

• 24:44Speaker 00

  No duplicators.

• 24:46Speaker 05

  There you go.

• 24:46Pablo Torre?

  And by the way, the name, meaning pulling together, coming together, sharing and caring about one another...

• 24:50Speaker 00

  How could it mean all those things?

• 24:52Pablo Torre?

  Well, this is an ape that was named after a song by Bob Marley's widow. Do you know Harambe, please? First of all, Harambe is a Swahili word from South Africa. And Harambe relates to a spouse or sister.

• 25:27Speaker 00

  I'd like to apologize. Because she does say it means all those things.

• 25:31Pablo Torre?

  Footnote cited.

• 25:31Speaker 00

  I needed to hear it from the primary source.

• 25:34Pablo Torre?

  No, it's good. That's the due diligence that we want.

• 25:36Speaker 00

  I didn't trust that guy to be getting it right. I trust her.

• 25:40Pablo Torre?

  I should say that Harambe, for those not familiar with his personal species, Western Lowland Silverback Gorilla, shares about 98.3% of its DNA with us humans.

• 25:51Speaker 00

  That's a lot of DNA.

• 25:52Pablo Torre?

  It's a lot. Same species if you've ever seen Coco, another famous gorilla, who learned sign language. That's also a Western Lowland Silverback Gorilla. And, yeah, he loved to eat fruit. You know, one expert we talked to liken Western Lowland Gorillas in the wild to basically vegetarians living in a salad bowl. And so Harambe, born May 27, 1999, to Mother Kayla with a younger brother, Makoko. This is an uplifting story.

• 26:20Speaker 00

  Mm-hmm.

• 26:21Pablo Torre?

  You know?

• 26:22Speaker 00

  Which worries me.

• 26:23Pablo Torre?

  This is the story of Harambe, whose, I think, name, image, and likeness, from the very beginning, was very intentional.

• 26:31Speaker 00

  Mm-hmm.

• 26:32Pablo Torre?

  Of value to the local news in Brownsville, Texas. Less uplifting

• 26:40Pablo Torre?

  is this article, Katie, in your folder, from the Houston Chronicle in early 2002.

• 26:46Speaker 00

  Okay, this headline says, "Chlorine Gas Kills Gorillas at Valley Zoo." Subhead, "Firefighters Found Three Gorillas Unconscious And Several Others Suffering From Chlorine Inhalation." Three Western Lowland Gorillas died, and a fourth was in serious condition Sunday after a chlorine gas leak at the Gladys Porter Zoo in Brownsville. The gorillas were all groggy and unresponsive. The zoo identified the gorillas killed as 10-year-old Kayla.

• 27:16Speaker 00

  Her 11-month-old son Makoko and a two-year-old female named Uzuri.

• 27:24Pablo Torre?

  This was Harambe's family.

• 27:26Speaker 05

  Ho.

• 27:27Speaker 00

  Oh.

• 27:28Speaker 05

  Wow.

• 27:29Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 27:31Pablo Torre?

  It was a toxic gas leak, a space heater melted near a chlorine tank at the zoo.

• 27:36Speaker 00

  Oh.

• 27:37Pablo Torre?

  His mom, Kayla, his little brother Makoko, another pregnant gorilla.

• 27:40Speaker 00

  We just melt them in this story?

• 27:41Pablo Torre?

  Yeah, Harambe was like two and a half. And this AP story, Katie, the next one from the memorial service. It puts, again, just like a more vivid sense of what Harambe was like growing up.

• 27:57Speaker 00

  "Three gorillas remembered during service at Brownsville Zoo." This is a quote, "To see the gorillas so sad just sitting there, you can tell that there is a sorrow. There is something that they are missing." Mayor Blanca S. Vela said. "Grief counselors have visited with zookeepers and those close to the animals." Oh my God.

• 28:18Pablo Torre?

  Notably, no gorilla therapists?

• 28:21Speaker 00

  The grief counselor is a human grief counselor?

• 28:23Pablo Torre?

  For the zookeepers.

• 28:24Speaker 00

  For the zookeepers.

• 28:25Pablo Torre?

  And those close to the animals.

• 28:27Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 28:28Pablo Torre?

  But again, the question of like, okay, so what do we do with?

• 28:31Speaker 00

  Their grief.

• 28:32Pablo Torre?

  What do we do with them? What is in the mind of a gorilla?

• 28:35Speaker 05

  Was Harambe just there staring at the caskets, just like crying?

• 28:39Pablo Torre?

  Also, 2013, Harambe's father dies of heart disease. Two years later, 2015, teenage Harambe is on the move. This according to a press release thesis.

• 28:51Speaker 00

  Oh, in your folder.

• 28:52Speaker 05

  In my folder.

• 28:53Speaker 00

  Your turn.

• 28:54Pablo Torre?

  From the Cincinnati Zoo.

• 28:58Speaker 05

  New rookie silverback in gorilla world for spring training.

• 29:02Pablo Torre?

  Sports story. This is sports. He's traded from Texas to Cincinnati, Ohio, as the Cincinnati Zoo's curator of primates, who declined our interview request.

• 29:13Speaker 00

  Uh oh.

• 29:14Pablo Torre?

  Described in this introductory video.

• 29:18Speaker 01

  At 16 years old, as Harambe is now, it was time for him to kind of go out and find his way elsewhere, just like a young silverback might do in the wild. For many years, young silverbacks roam around by themselves until they can get enough size and enough experience to impress females to come and join him. So Harambe coming here is kind of like a rookie silverback in training. We've got a couple of good females for him to be with, and it's going to be a fun summer of introductions for Harambe, Chewie, and Mara.

• 29:47Speaker 05

  Okay, alright. A little NBA drafty.

• 29:49Speaker 00

  Couple of fun females for him to just to see.

• 29:53Pablo Torre?

  Spring training before mating season is what brings Harambe to Cincinnati. And the press release, by the way, Deezus, further clarifies the process.

• 30:03Speaker 05

  Harambe, large for his age at 419 pounds, will be placed in a social group with two 19-year-old females. A typical gorilla group includes one silverback male and several females.

• 30:15Speaker 00

  Oh, okay.

• 30:16Speaker 05

  So the three will be together for social interaction and companionship.

• 30:20Speaker 00

  Okay, that's one way to put it.

• 30:22Pablo Torre?

  Okay, the polycule gorilla, gorilla, gorilla polycule.

• 30:26Speaker 05

  Just monkeys with the party full you coming through today.

• 30:31Speaker 00

  Living in a compound.

• 30:32Pablo Torre?

  Harambe was not quite at breeding maturity just yet. He was 16, but he's a star prospect.

• 30:39Speaker 05

  He is.

• 30:39Pablo Torre?

  His measurables really strong. Spring 2015, it's April, and said prospect encounters a certain sports photographer.

• 30:51Speaker 00

  Oh, that's right.

• 30:52Pablo Torre?

  Turned weed horticulturalist, who had recently gotten out of federal prison after growing, what he told us was, 450 marijuana plants. Although Jeff did want to make something very clear about that experience.

• 31:05Speaker 06

  Yeah, I pled guilty and went to a federal prison camp in West Virginia and spent 10 and a half months there. And I literally had my own golf cart. I could drive down the road. So, point is, all of us in the camp were always on our best behavior. It was like, hey, guys, we got this place. And there was no guards, there was no nothing. We were just there. And it's just, stay out of trouble, guys, and we'll leave you alone. And, you know, it was the best possible prison experience anybody could have, and it's still horrible.

• 31:41Pablo Torre?

  When Jeff got out, he wanted to go where all people do with newfound freedom, suburban Cincinnati. And he found freedom in his camera. And so, one day during the spring training of 2015, Jeff goes to the Cincinnati Zoo, and he begins to take photos at Gorilla World.

• 32:01Speaker 06

  And somebody from the zoo came over to me and I said, "Oh, did you get a picture of that?" I'm like, "Oh, yeah, maybe."

• 32:08Pablo Torre?

  And just like how he became a sports photographer back at the school paper, he gets enlisted. The photos were so good, and the zoo had staff photographers who were getting paid, that they said to Jeff, who was working while living off of his insurance payout, he's now 53 years old, whether he would work for free. And Jeff becomes a sports photographer turned weed horticulturist turned volunteer gorilla photographer. And it's important to note, for legal reasons, Katie, in your folder, that we reviewed Jeff's contract with the zoo.

• 32:42Speaker 00

  "By providing or allowing use of photographic files by the Cincinnati Zoo and Botanical Garden," no one ever talks about the botanical garden, you know what I mean?

• 32:50Speaker 05

  No, it's not for the gardens.

• 32:51Speaker 00

  "You represent, acknowledge, and warrant that said files are your original work and that you are the sole owner of all rights, title, and interests." Oh, I see what's happening here. Okay. So basically, signed in this contract, they said, "These things belong to you." You signing here means they belong to you. Which means if somebody were to get access to them, it would be him who would need to give you the authorization to air it somewhere.

• 33:21Pablo Torre?

  Ooh, Jeff keeps receipts. Again, name, image, and likeness.

• 33:26Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 33:27Pablo Torre?

  And on April 15th, 2015, Jeff's camera...

• 33:32Pablo Torre?

  This covers a glorious prospect.

• 33:35Speaker 05

  Oh.

• 33:36Speaker 00

  Aw, shut out.

• 33:38Pablo Torre?

  This is-

• 33:39Speaker 00

  Shut out Harambe.

• 33:40Pablo Torre?

  This is the photo. The one that, yes, we've been seeing, that has been viral all over the world many times over. It was Harambe in mating season. This is the same Harambe photo from Jeff's minor league baseball jersey on an NFL player's custom cleats, on all those memes, on all the RIP Harambe t-shirts. And he took it when Harambe was 16 years old on the first day they met.

• 34:07Speaker 00

  Wow.

• 34:08Pablo Torre?

  On opening day.

• 34:10Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 34:11Pablo Torre?

  And so, when you see that photo and you think of Harambe's backstory, you know, I think it's fair to assume like, yo, this is psychology of a damaged, broken gorilla who is orphaned because a gas leak killed his family and plunged his life into total chaos, forcing him across the country to be used as like this, I don't know, reproduction vehicle.

• 34:35Speaker 05

  This is like the worst version of The Blind Side I've ever seen, like.

• 34:39Pablo Torre?

  And so, what becomes clear is that Harambe, in Jeff's view, wasn't personally so much searching for a mate for all this stuff that would attend the life of a glorious prospect. Harambe wanted a friend.

• 34:56Speaker 06

  And I was like, Damon Harambe, I'll hang out with you. I'll be your friend. And so, that's kind of how it started. And so, Harambe and I started hanging out. Whenever I would go, I'd stop by and remembering my prison experience, I remembered how great it was to get a visitor. If I could cheer you up for a few minutes in your day, make it better, you know, I'd go and hang out with him and he seemed to bond with me. He, you know, would come up to me as close as he could and, you know, pose for me and do all kinds of things for me, you know.

• 35:33Speaker 05

  He said, "Remember my prison experience?" I thought he was gonna bring like a cup of soup and a deodorant to Harambe, like, yo, look at that, my OG.

• 35:41Pablo Torre?

  I do want to acknowledge the proud tradition in American culture and Hollywood entertainment of, like, gorilla psychological analysis. So King Kong, Gorillas in the Mist, Congo, Mighty Joe Young. We have often sort of like, thought and talked about like, what are these gorillas up to? And what Jeff says is that Harambe was really smart.

• 36:03Speaker 06

  But it also made his life, I think, more hard, knowing, you know, the situation he was stuck in. He was quiet. He didn't like to be yelled at, for sure. Anybody would yell at him, he'd walk away. You know, he'd go and hide, you know, go into his caves like, you know, I don't have to put up with this [BLEEP].

• 36:24Pablo Torre?

  Harambe, by the way, as the subject in Jeff's sort of photographic line of sight, the same camera that he'd use to photograph athletes. Harambe could pose.

• 36:36Speaker 00

  Yeah. Yeah, he sure. Oh, my god.

• 36:39Pablo Torre?

  Oh, look at the arch.

• 36:40Speaker 00

  I don't know what I'm allowed to say, but...

• 36:43Speaker 05

  I thought you said he was a silverback gorilla, not a bad bitch.

• 36:47Speaker 00

  Damn, damn, damn, damn.

• 36:48Speaker 05

  Because damn, alright? The camera is on.

• 36:50Speaker 00

  Yeah, this angle.

• 36:51Pablo Torre?

  The back, the back is the shoulders.

• 36:53Speaker 00

  It's the shoulders and the arms that make me feel safe.

• 36:56Pablo Torre?

  Yeah.

• 36:56Speaker 00

  Um, it's just me.

• 36:58Speaker 05

  Yeah, Tyra's sending him to the next round.

• 37:00Pablo Torre?

  Yes.

• 37:00Speaker 00

  Sturdy.

• 37:01Pablo Torre?

  Sturdy.

• 37:01Speaker 00

  A sturdy, remarkable gorilla. Oh, Harambe! Pop that thigh. That's what Myrtle does in shows. She'll just scratch the inside of her thigh. That's her favorite. She'll just pop it out like that.

• 37:14Pablo Torre?

  And look, I should say Jeff admits that it is, again, it is odd that he became friends with a gorilla. He acknowledges that.

• 37:23Speaker 00

  Good, oh, good.

• 37:25Pablo Torre?

  But the thing that helps explain it that I didn't know, of course, until we went so deep in the weeds on this. When Harambe was orphaned, he actually wound up being taken in by humans. His caretakers at the zoo in Texas, the ones that cut his umbilical cord, bottled fed him, changed his diaper. Humans! Like, this is, this is who dealt with him for his whole life. And so, we've been asking ourselves the question, like, how do you fact-check this friendship with a gorilla? And in Jeff's view, his scouting report, teenage Harambe was, quote, "a natural-born ham."

• 38:01Speaker 06

  He ignored his two girlfriends. They would be on different sides of the exhibit. He didn't seem interested in them at all. He reminded me of my Uncle Jim in so many ways where, you know, he's my favorite uncle. And growing up, he was always the uncle that gave us kids, you know, always teasing us. And, you know, the fun uncle, you know, the one in Harambe seemed like that where he, you know, he would do things to try and get me excited or to make, you know, expressions that, you know, just to get a reaction out of me. And I say, we talked all the time, you know, and he just grinned like there was no tomorrow.

• 38:42Speaker 00

  This is really sweet. I keep forgetting Harambe definitely dies, so this isn't going to stay happy the whole time.

• 38:47Pablo Torre?

  Well, what happens to get to the point Katie is making is that Jeff and Harambe are clearly friends and they, according to Jeff, they loved each other. And so one day, exactly 10 years ago, this is Saturday, May 28th, 2016. This is the day after Harambe's 17th birthday.

• 39:07Speaker 00

  Oh, my God.

• 39:08Pablo Torre?

  Jeff pulled up, as he often did, to Gorilla World.

• 39:13Speaker 06

  And as I'm taking pictures, all of a sudden, this boy grabs my shirt and pulls me. And I look over and he's standing on the fence, on top of the fence. And he almost fell in. And I said, get down, you know, screamed it. And then Dad is standing right behind him. And he looks at me, giving me this, you know, dagger eyes, like, how dare you yell at my kid. It happened so often, I had this standard speech. I said, sir, you don't understand. We're not worried about the gorilla killing your kid. Your kid is going to be dead when he falls 15 feet onto the cement down there.

• 39:54Pablo Torre?

  So that was the day Harambe died, but that was not even the kid.

• 40:00Speaker 00

  Hmm?

• 40:01Pablo Torre?

  That was earlier in the morning and Jeff McCurry was there and intervened and stopped it. But then.

• 40:09Pablo Torre?

  That afternoon, Jeff McCurry, volunteer sports photographer, left. He had to go to a basketball game. His friend's teenage daughter, it turned out, would be future WNBA player for the Toronto Tempo, Lexi Held.

• 40:21Speaker 00

  Shout out.

• 40:22Pablo Torre?

  And Jeff had to go take his camera elsewhere. And so Jeff heard the news pretty much like everybody else.

• 40:31Speaker 06

  So I went home and I'm downloading the pictures and going through them. And I have the TV on in the background, the news on. And all of a sudden it came on that they killed Harambe. I'm like, oh, what? You know, it's like, everybody asks, how'd you learn? It's like, I learned just like everybody else, on the news.

• 40:49Speaker 01

  Very emotional time at the Cincinnati Zoo. It's unprecedented. We have never had to kill a dangerous animal in the middle of an emergency situation.

• 40:59Speaker 02

  Cincinnati 911. Hi, my son's out in the zoo. Exhibit at the gorilla, there's a male gorilla standing over him. I need someone to contact the zoo, please.

• 41:07Speaker 01

  When it was determined that the child was being injured, not potentially injured, but was being injured, both down in the moat and then up on the ground,

• 41:17Speaker 01

  that we had to make a decision to shoot him, and we did.

• 41:20Pablo Torre?

  What was your reaction when you first saw that?

• 41:23Speaker 06

  Heartbroken. I mean, just like, you feel whenever a friend of yours died, you're just like, no, I can't believe I'm not going to be able to spend time with him ever again. And it was, you know, and then to find out that not only is he gone, but, you know, you literally shot him in the forehead. I'm like, oh, man, that's, that's just awful. At least it's quick, but I learned that from the car wreck. I don't have a fear of dying because I don't remember any of it.

• 41:57Speaker 06

  You wake up later going, what the hell happened? So I'm comfortable that Harambe, his last thought was, I've got this little boy and I'm protecting him. And then he was, you know, the lights were turned off.

• 42:12Pablo Torre?

  You may remember the debate about this. You know, it was like, who do you blame?

• 42:18Speaker 05

  Right.

• 42:19Pablo Torre?

  Now, I should say that amid all the literal and figurative litigation, like, no charges were filed against the mom, no charges filed against the zoo. Prosecutors concluded that their use of lethal force was necessary. And the aforementioned mom posted on Facebook a couple of days later thanking bystanders.

• 42:35Speaker 00

  As a society, we are quick to judge how a parent could take their eyes off of their child. And if anyone knows me, I keep a tight watch on my kids. Accidents happen, but I am thankful that the right people were in the right place today. Thank you to everyone that helped me and my son.

• 42:50Pablo Torre?

  She deleted that post later, as of course one does. The memes set in, the whirlwind sets in. And we did request an interview with the mother, the father, the boy in question, and a family spokesperson said, quote, "They're not interested in doing any interviews at this point. Actually, never." Which is fair. The boy, though, I'm happy to report.

• 43:15Speaker 00

  If you say graduated college, I'm leaving. That's, he can't be that big already.

• 43:19Speaker 05

  Have you watched this show? It can't be that simple. He's about to drop something that's gonna blow our brains. You know who the boy grew up to be? Wemby. And you'd be like, alright, that makes sense. That makes sense. Alright, Pablo.

• 43:32Pablo Torre?

  I am merely here to say he is now a sophomore in high school. He's an athlete, he does play basketball.

• 43:40Pablo Torre?

  He also plays football and he runs track.

• 43:42Speaker 00

  Multi-sport athlete.

• 43:44Pablo Torre?

  Most relevantly, perhaps, to this program, he even wrote a sports story for the school's news website.

• 43:49Speaker 00

  Whoa.

• 43:51Pablo Torre?

  A sports journalist whose privacy we will respect.

• 43:54Speaker 00

  Of course.

• 43:55Pablo Torre?

  As for the Cincinnati Zoo, they did not respond to our interview requests. And as for Jeff, he says that even though, of course, he lost his friend and he feels insane, you know, regret at not being able to say goodbye.

• 44:12Pablo Torre?

  He does not blame the mom of the kid in question. He says the exhibit should have been more safeguarded.

• 44:18Speaker 06

  And it was a zoo's fault because we knew that, that the kids were running wild. So that exhibit had to be bulletproof and it wasn't. And so that I've always thought, in my opinion, that made it all the zoo's fault and none of the mother's fault. She had three other kids, she looked over the other kids. And this little boy, he got through the barrier that should have been bigger and stronger. And, you know, it's, it happens so often.

• 44:47Pablo Torre?

  And so for the sake of being fair and balanced, we reached out to independent gorilla experts. Of course, there are lots of theories, like why couldn't you have tranquilized him?

• 44:58Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 44:59Pablo Torre?

  What if you like tried to offer a trade, like, you know, here's some food? Maybe he would have given up the kid and sort of relinquished, you know, his hold on him. Whether a trade of fruit for boy would have worked.

• 45:13Speaker 00

  I've done it.

• 45:13Speaker 05

  Fruit for boy. There used to be a party on the Lower East Side, back when New York was a real city.

• 45:18Pablo Torre?

  Meanwhile, Ron McGill.

• 45:20Speaker 06

  My name's Ron McGill. Until just about a week ago, I was the Communications Director, Goodwill Ambassador at Zoo Miami. I retired after 46 years.

• 45:28Pablo Torre?

  Friend of the show, friend of the Dan Lebatard Show, friend of Metalark Media. He says that, yeah, that would not have worked.

• 45:35Speaker 06

  Well, let's try to negotiate. Let's see if we can bargain. Let's see if we can give him some bananas and he'll give us the boy. This is just stupidity. You can't do that.

• 45:43Pablo Torre?

  And unfortunately.

• 45:45Speaker 00

  Shooting him in the head was the only way?

• 45:48Speaker 05

  What's even sadder is Harambe was just protecting that little boy that he wished someone protected him when he was a little boy.

• 45:54Speaker 00

  Oh no, are you doing that on purpose? It's very sad to me.

• 45:56Speaker 05

  It's very sad.

• 45:57Pablo Torre?

  And so what Jeff McCurry is left to do as Harambe's friend, and again, the guy who has this contract and these photographs, is protect his friend's name, image, and likeness. He was surprised, of course, by the virality of it. He wasn't trying to cash in. In fact, his whole thing as the de facto representative of Harambe's estate is to make sure that people honored him and did not use his NIL against what Harambe would have wanted.

• 46:27Pablo Torre?

  And so this photo, which got shared an estimated 25 billion times, this is the thing he trademarked. He also trademarked Harambe's name. Jeff McCurry is the guy who possesses all of this NIL. And in fact, when he saw that Pardon My Take was making all this money off of this t-shirt, Jeff McCurry sent a legal notice.

• 46:54Speaker 06

  We agreed to a confidential settlement and they stopped selling them because they did not have permission. We're both very happy with the settlement is what I can say.

• 47:04Pablo Torre?

  Which led us to, of course, seek necessarily a response from PFT commenter Big Cat and their producer Hank Lockwood.

• 47:12Speaker 01

  Just a little fill in on what happened in the summer of 2016 when Hank made those t-shirts. This podcast probably wouldn't exist to this day if that gorilla hadn't gotten shot. But then Hank, being the savvy marketer that he is, jumped on the opportunity. Yeah, I just wanted to make a t-shirt, a funny t-shirt to wear to a music festival. Our t-shirt guy sent it to me three weeks too late, so I didn't even get to do that. But I took a picture and I didn't know what I created. I'm accusing myself of this conversation because I think it's bullsh** Pablo that you are trying to capitalize off a dead gorilla. So, uh, yeah, I'm not going to comment anymore. You're trying to get your views and your clicks off a gorilla. We would never do that. I'm doing clicks and likes, the internet game.

• 47:52Speaker 01

  But I think Hank, you came to terms with the photographer. We had a mutual agreement and everybody's happy, correct? Yeah, sure. Same like that. Yeah, yeah. The gorilla? Listen. The guy that took the Harambe picture? I'm not going to say anything on the record because I don't know the answer to that. I'm gonna say on the, I'm gonna say on the record, it's been 10 years, so facts are fuzzy. I'm gonna say, uh, you know, 10 years ago today, it was a very sad day in our lives. But we move forward and we find new animals to capitalize off and exploit. Yeah. So, uh, follow my dog on Instagram, please. Now watch PFT.

• 48:27Pablo Torre?

  I gotta say, like, on some level, they are fundamentally, of course, correct, right? Like, the speed with which I responded to the voicemail we got.

• 48:35Speaker 00

  That's true.

• 48:36Pablo Torre?

  I smelled.

• 48:37Speaker 00

  Waiting by the phone.

• 48:38Pablo Torre?

  I smelled the clicks and the likes.

• 48:40Speaker 00

  Uh huh.

• 48:41Pablo Torre?

  The internet, the intention economy, social media, I of course recognize that. People couldn't get enough Harambe and now there's the promise of, wait a minute, I could get exclusive bespoke? Secret Harambe. Especially because these are the videos that, according to Jeff McCurry, the Cincinnati Zoo tried to keep quiet for the last decade.

• 49:06Pablo Torre?

  And, look, I promised you guys that we would deliver on the lost Harambe tapes. And so for the last four months, we have been vetting, yes, the weirdest whistleblower in sports podcast history. And so I present to you now. Do I have the, uh, hold on. I gotta get my DVD player out. As I plug in a physical DVD player.

• 49:29Speaker 05

  It's gonna be a video of Harambe smoking a cigar or just, he's like, if you're watching this, I'm dead.

• 49:34Speaker 00

  Do you know how to use this?

• 49:34Pablo Torre?

  No.

• 49:35Speaker 00

  Why do you look so new here?

• 49:36Speaker 05

  That's because I.

• 49:37Pablo Torre?

  When's the last time you used?

• 49:38Speaker 00

  Very recently, actually. I made a friend of mine watch the first season of Halt and Catch Fire, which I have on DVD.

• 49:44Pablo Torre?

  Oh, hold on.

• 49:45Speaker 00

  Oh, wow.

• 49:46Speaker 05

  Oh.

• 49:48Pablo Torre?

  And so we present to you the video of the world's most famous gorilla that was killed on the world's most viral zoo video without any comment, but filmed with great care by Harambe's personal photographer and apparent best friend.

• 50:06Speaker 00

  Oh, my God.

• 50:09Speaker 00

  Oh, my God, into his own hand.

• 50:14Speaker 05

  Uh, he is a.

• 50:16Speaker 00

  Oh, my God, he just pulled a poop out of his butt.

• 50:18Speaker 05

  Yeah, a very nice cob-sized poop.

• 50:20Speaker 00

  Green. Do not eat it. Do not!

• 50:23Speaker 05

  Yeah, he protein maxing.

• 50:24Speaker 00

  God, oh, my God.

• 50:26Speaker 05

  See, a lot of people don't realize you create your own fiber. You don't have to go buy it from a store.

• 50:30Speaker 00

  Circle of life.

• 50:33Speaker 05

  There we go.

• 50:34Speaker 00

  Oh, holding it in his mouth while he does other stuff like it's a breakfast bar.

• 50:39Speaker 05

  There we go. We used to be real eaters.

• 50:41Speaker 00

  Like it's a Nutri Grain on his way out of the house for work. He had it hanging out of his mouth.

• 50:47Speaker 05

  Okay, it's important to always get a granola bar in before you work out.

• 50:52Speaker 05

  Harambe ate [BLEEP] his whole life. And it went out like this. Not Harambe eating the forbidden spinach wrap.

• 51:01Pablo Torre?

  It is so like, the shape of it is like.

• 51:05Speaker 00

  It's like a fro yo. It's like a poop berry. It's like a, um, the way he eats a little and then kind of like rolls it around in the front of his mouth like it's a piece of gum.

• 51:16Pablo Torre?

  It has a good mouth feel. No, and the thing is like, he's gleefully eating it. Like he's at a Michelin star restaurant. He's like, he's like, you know, do you have any, uh, you know, like a little, a little sauce on the side?

• 51:29Speaker 00

  I don't know, what is his, hold it in his mouth.

• 51:31Pablo Torre?

  A bordelaise sauce perhaps? Harambe got his own little portable empanada mamas back there.

• 51:37Speaker 00

  Do their taste buds work the same as ours?

• 51:40Pablo Torre?

  I mean, 98, over 98% of the same genetic code.

• 51:43Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 51:43Pablo Torre?

  Wow.

• 51:44Speaker 00

  And I see the resemblance a bit.

• 51:45Pablo Torre?

  That's fresh silverback.

• 51:46Speaker 00

  There's parts that I see.

• 51:48Pablo Torre?

  This is from seven months before Harambe's demise, his death, all the way up until two months before.

• 51:54Speaker 00

  That could have been the final shit he ate.

• 51:57Pablo Torre?

  And I think it's important, as we are again, trying to figure out why and what was Harambe thinking to hear from Jeff.

• 52:07Speaker 06

  So Harambe had this behavior that he would do regularly and he would only do it when we were alone because other people would scream at him and he didn't like screaming and I wouldn't scream at him out loud. I'd scream in him and, you know, mentally, telepathically, god damn it Harambe, stop. I don't want to see this. So anyway, one day I'm there and the lighting is just perfect. I'm there all alone, Harambe comes right up to me and he does this behavior. And so I was like, all right, you son of a bitch, I'll, I'll videotape it. So I videotaped him doing this and I'm looking at it and I was like, oh man, this is amazing. And I can't believe this.

• 52:50Speaker 06

  And so I pack up my stuff and I'm leaving and I ran into a VP. I said, hey, hey, come here, come here. I need to show you this video I just took of Harambe. You're not going to believe this. I don't know when it will happen or what, but this is going to make Harambe the most famous gorilla in the world when people see this video. And I showed it to him. And he just kinda went white.

• 53:14Pablo Torre?

  I cannot stress enough how much the zoo really did not want this.

• 53:18Speaker 00

  I can imagine.

• 53:20Pablo Torre?

  If you could read the email, please, from a communications executive at the Cincinnati Zoo, three months after Harambe's death.

• 53:26Speaker 00

  Hi Jeff, a while ago, we talked about the possibility of you selling your Harambe videos and donating the proceeds. That is very generous, and before, everything spiraled out of control, seemed like a good idea. Now, with all the memes and global interest in Harambe, we would really not like the videos to be made public. They would only make media attention unbearable and prolong this ordeal for all of us. So we would appreciate it if you did not move forward with plans to make the videos available. Thanks for all that you do for us. We really appreciate your time and talent. I've even stopped taking photos around here, cuz I know yours will be better.

• 54:08Pablo Torre?

  Wow.

• 54:08Speaker 00

  Thanks. And now, listen. I do kinda see where they're coming from on that. That if everyone wants to know already about Harambe, and what they find out is that he's eaten it straight from the tap, I just think that it would have become an even, somehow, even bigger phenomenon.

• 54:34Pablo Torre?

  The scientific term for the practice of eating your own [BLEEP].

• 54:37Speaker 05

  It's nasty. It's called nasty.

• 54:39Speaker 00

  Let's guess the root word. It's gotta be, uh, opathy? Is the end of it an opathy?

• 54:46Pablo Torre?

  Coprophagy.

• 54:48Speaker 00

  Okay, close.

• 54:50Pablo Torre?

  Coprophagy, C-O-P-R-O-P-H-A-G-Y. And scientific papers, research, independent gorilla experts say this is rare in the wild. But gorillas in captivity will more frequently eat their own [BLEEP] out of stress and boredom.

• 55:10Speaker 00

  That's even sadder. I do not like, I do not like that. He's only eating his own [BLEEP] cuz we locked him up.

• 55:15Pablo Torre?

  When we showed the poop tapes to independent experts, aforementioned a panel of gorilla... Scientists such as Dr. Ian Redmond.

• 55:23Speaker 01

  My name's Ian Redmond. I'm a naturalist by birth, a biologist by training, and a conservationist by necessity.

• 55:32Pablo Torre?

  He said, "Look, either Harambe could have used more food and was just hungry, or Harambe just wanted to get a reaction." Amid all this stress and anxiety, Harambe wanted to capture the attention of humans.

• 55:52Speaker 01

  Possibly the reaction of the humans to that might reinforce that. When I do this, the humans all make funny noises and, you know, so the human, that's gross, response, "Yeah!" might be a curious feedback mechanism. When I do this, they do that. So I'll do it again and watch them do that again.

• 56:20Speaker 00

  A ham. He did say that he's a ham. And what is the... That is, if humans fully committed to the bit, the hammyest thing that guy at a wedding could do is poop in his hand in the middle of the dance floor and then start eating it.

• 56:34Speaker 05

  That's the next level crowd work right there.

• 56:35Speaker 00

  It is. It is.

• 56:37Pablo Torre?

  Is this gorilla psychologically broken? And/or is this gorilla expressing something that we too can recognize? It's important to see that Jeff, in his point of view, had a personal perspective.

• 56:56Speaker 06

  The zoo was always talking about how they want to do all this enrichment for the animals and this and that and the other. It's like, "Yeah, that's great. You're trying, but they're in prison. There's just nothing you can do to change that that's not healthy for them. That's not good for them. It's mentally damaging, you know, to anybody that has a brain, any creature that has a brain."

• 57:30Speaker 02

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• 58:00Speaker 03

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• 58:38Pablo Torre?

  It's a look, I am not trying to turn this into a big, like, anti-zoo thing. I'm actually conflicted about, like, what? What do we do? What do we do with this? Right? Like, here is this video that we got, and I could not be more enthusiastic about immediately seizing upon it. And I'm trying to be journalistically fair and, again, climb into the mind of a gorilla and figure out, like, do we show this? How do we contextualize it? How do we scientifically sort of validate this? And I was thinking about, like, okay, so this gorilla that was stressed and anxious and cooped up and was misread by all sorts of people.

• 59:21Pablo Torre?

  What he was trying to do, if nothing else, what everybody agrees on on all sides of the story is that he was trying to get the attention of humans.

• 59:33Pablo Torre?

  And I was like, I know what that feels like. The whole idea of like, this is a story about an animal that shares over 98% of its DNA with humans. And what this video says is not, you should think of Harambe differently necessarily. It's that you should maybe see him like, we kind of see ourselves.

• 59:57Speaker 00

  Is Pablo about to eat his own [BLEEP] in this studio?

• 59:59Speaker 05

  It's not even that. It's not even that. You know what? Like, I usually don't beef. I get this invite from Pablo.

• 1:00:05Speaker 00

  I know.

• 1:00:05Speaker 05

  Thought I was a friend. Thought I was gonna come in here, a good time, some chuckles maybe.

• 1:00:09Speaker 00

  Same.

• 1:00:09Speaker 05

  Katie's gonna be there? Great time. Oh, great. My soul has been crushed.

• 1:00:13Speaker 00

  I know.

• 1:00:14Speaker 05

  I have no idea what I'm gonna see when I look in the mirror now. I'm just gonna be in a blank stare on the train. I don't know if I should cry, be outraged. Am I a prison abolitionist? Are guerrillas not getting enough [BLEEP]? I don't know what's going on right now. Do I have to do something for inner-city guerrillas? Do I gotta find the kid that fell in this? Why would you put this mental anguish on me?

• 1:00:32Speaker 00

  Why is this coming across my desk?

• 1:00:33Speaker 05

  Okay. Also, you had to read more.

• 1:00:35Speaker 00

  I know.

• 1:00:36Speaker 05

  So there was like, he can't be, he can't handle this information. So now, now I'm gonna be like, they don't even trust me. Now I'm gonna go home and eat my own [BLEEP].

• 1:00:44Speaker 00

  Now I'm sad about a 10 years ago tragedy again. God forbid anybody goes like, what's wrong with you? You having a tough day? And I have to go, please, don't ask, cuz would you believe it's Harambe? And they would go, geez, she's one of those. Ay, ay, ay, get over it. You know what I mean? But it's, you brought this all freshly back up. What if he's just a goof? He was just goofing. He was just trying to be a silly goof to get you to laugh. All Harambe wanted was for you to laugh and for that little kid to please get out of... He was like, I'm gonna get you out of here. I gotta drag you, but get out of here. You don't wanna be stuck in here. You'll start eating your own butt. Get out. He was probably trying to take the kid out so the kid would not have to eat his own poop for his own enjoyment. And what did that get him? A bullet between the eyes.

• 1:01:29Pablo Torre?

  And the thing I am left realizing, as Jeff offers one more thought, is that apparently, there is something that he did wanna tell Harambe.

• 1:01:40Speaker 06

  I always, you know, wish I could tell Harambe. It's like, damn, you became, you know, everybody loved you so much, you broke the internet.

• 1:01:51Speaker 00

  Harambe was a complex animal with a really tragic backstory that just wanted to make people laugh.

• 1:02:01Speaker 05

  We didn't know him. But in learning about him, do we not learn more about ourselves?

• 1:02:06Speaker 00

  Whoa.

• 1:02:07Speaker 05

  And we have to ask ourselves this question.

• 1:02:09Speaker 00

  What do you think it tasted like?

• 1:02:10Speaker 05

  Who's a real primate? Oh, I mean, he was eating good, too. He was eating good, too. So you know it was like a neutral loaf. It probably had some good chunks in there.

• 1:02:17Pablo Torre?

  So much fiber.

• 1:02:18Speaker 05

  I'm sure not too much sodium, you know?

• 1:02:20Speaker 00

  Oh, yeah, a good balance.

• 1:02:21Speaker 05

  A good balance, maybe some chutney.

• 1:02:24Pablo Torre?

  I don't know how to end this episode.

• 1:02:26Speaker 05

  I think that was it right there.

• 1:02:37Pablo Torre?

  This has been Pablo Torre Finds Out, a Meadowlark Media production. And I'll talk to you next time.

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