Influencer fights to get pet spider monkey back after DWI crash leads to police seizure

Instagram influencer Brandi Botello is asking her fans for help after police seized her pet spider monkey, Jorgie Boy, following a drunk driving crash in Dallas, Texas.

In November 2024, Brandi Botello, who has over 43,000 followers on Instagram where she shares her life with her pet monkey, was part of a drunk driving crash as she was “passed out” drunk in the passenger seat with her spider monkey, Jorgie Boy.

According to Dallas Police, an officer responded to a single-vehicle accident on Saturday, November 9. The driver was arrested on a charge of driving while intoxicated, police said in a statement.

While police did not identify the driver in their statement, Botello claimed she’d been charged with DWI despite saying she was not the one who had been driving, according to NBC Dallas-Fort Worth.

She said the driver was a male acquaintance who was charged with public intoxication. “He was very drunk,” said Botello.

Instead, Botello said that while she’d been intoxicated, she was passed out in the passenger seat holding the nearly 3-year-old spider monkey when the police arrived at the scene. However, she does admit to moving into the driver’s seat after the initial crash.

Jorgie Boy was taken to a sanctuary

During the incident, police seized Jorgie Boy from Botello’s care as she was taken to hospital. He was taken to Irving’s Animal Control Department, where he was diagnosed with rickets, which they described as “a bone disease caused by inadequate nutrition.”

He is now receiving care at “an undisclosed wildlife sanctuary in Texas,” Dallas Police said. However, it now looks like Botello is not getting him back.

The Dallas Morning News reported that the sanctuary, which it identified as Funky Monkey Ranch, said that Jorgie Boy weighed 6 pounds, less than half of an average spider monkey. They also claimed that he had tiny fractures in his bones, and elevated liver and pancreatic levels.

The sanctuary’s owner said the monkey would not be returned to its previous owner, the Morning News reported.

While it is legal in Texas to own some exotic animals, including monkeys, with permits, the city of Irving, where Botello lives, prohibits ownership of wild animals.

However, this hasn’t stopped Botello from trying, as she has turned to her Instagram followers for help. She wrote on Instagram that “this ugly depressing lonely feeling I have is the worst” but said she is “not going to stop trying!”

“He means more to me than anything in this world I’m not going to let one little mistake break me I’m willing to change anything and everything for him,” she wrote.

“Being at the wrong place at the wrong time is a real thing,” Botello continued. “I owned up to it … I know I’m a good mom … WE ALL KNOW that!”

She has also started a GoFundMe fundraiser which has over $3,790 donated to it at the time of writing, slowly getting closer to the $20,000 target.