Pablo Torre Finds Out - Exclusive: The Harambe Tapes, Revealed

Episode Date: May 28, 2026

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 to watch the Harambe tapes and more• Subscribe to "Casuals with Katie Nolan" Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome to Pablo Torre finds out. I am Pablo Torre, and today we're going to find out what this sound is. I'm accusing myself in this conversation because I think it's bullshit. Pablo, that you are trying to capitalize off a dead gorilla. We would never do that. Right after this ad. 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. I hate it as always.

I'm terrified. I hate it as always. You have folders in front of you? I see them. I have what has been alleged to be a shit-eating grin on my face. That is how much I'm enjoying having... I don't know. Are we going to like it as much as you like it?

I can't totally be sure. Great. I do know that Deez is nice, Katie Nolan, you are both my friends. For now. For now. And also animal people. What's going on? Yeah.

Uh-huh. And we do like dogs. You have dogs. Yeah. Shout out, Myrtle. Something to happen a couple months ago in Prospect Park? because the dog came at me. You're saying.

It's about something that we got at our tip line. Here, Pablo Torre finds out. Fans, whistleblowers, they will dial. 513-8-5-Pablo. Is that in area codes with Ludacris? Oh, good. That's how I reference everything. That's how I referenced everything.

It's a few. 5-1-3-3-2. I got a ho. I don't know if Ludacris has hose in Cincinnati, Ohio. No, I think famously does. Benaddy. But this is the area of code we were randomly assigned by Google. But cosmically recurs.

Interesting. Because this was earlier this year. We got a tip. Hi. My name is Jeff McCurry. I'd like to see if you would like to show the world the secret videos that the Sidpanizu 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. Was Harambe, Cincinnati? Oh, wow.

On May 28th, Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Exactly 10 years ago at the Cincinnati Zoo. 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 Tarambay grabbed the boy's ankle and dragged him through the water. Mommy loves you. Right here. 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. 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? 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. And after all that attention, all that news coverage, Of course. Came the memes.

This is an interesting sign. What does this mean? I'm sure you all heard about Harambe the gorilla. He was murdered in the Cincinnati Zoo. And I'm just saying like, d'i out for Harambe. That's a rallying cry. So you're, you pull it out for Harambe?

I mean, if Harambe was here, it'd be out right now. You know, you could see some people that are running up right now. You know for Harambe. Okay, thank you. Yeah, for Harambe. All right.

D-ed out for Harambe. You know what the fuck it is. Hey, d' out for Harambe. To 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 is for real. But it's been really funny. You could have given me 10,000 tries. This is, I did not think this is what would be discussing. No chance. No chance. Why us? Rest and peace, Harabi. Well, one reason why is that Deezis, personally...

I did not shoot him. Happened to tweet quite a bit about Harambe, according to our records. I bet. I bet you did. 2016? Oh, yeah. My only wish was Herbri was alive to see this go to the state win. He was a big fan.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. That a lot going on in 2016, or maybe not that much going on in 2016. And when we tell the young people of America what 2016 was like, it's really important to, like, educate them. Barstool made an empire out of Harambe's stuff. I remember seeing on Pardon My Take, which was, I think, like, 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. You got to take Harambe, right? Yeah. I mean, the strength to weight ratio is just

way higher than humans. I mean, that's an easy seven sacks, a game, I'm sure. We are all of the sports internet. And Harambe was our gorilla. Deez us, there are some headlines. that I'd like you to help us remember. Okay. Thousands of Americans vote for a dead gorilla. Basically. Yeah. Which brings us to the next headline.

Would Donald Trump have killed the gorilla? Harembe's death was the beginning of the fall of society. I'd hear that out. I would hear that out. I don't want to be numb to the idea that would Donald Trump have killed the gorilla was a headline. In what sense are they asking? I don't think the president authorized. the shot.

Be president to be. Yeah. This was a... Yeah. Back then it was like... Back then it would be like, oh my God, we don't really know Donald Trump. We're like, would he possibly...

We knew Donald Trump. Now, we're like... We knew Donald Trump. He pulled 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. Donald Trump, according to CNN, said that a Cincinnati Zoo probably had no choice with the killer gorilla. It was very tough. of call. 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.

Look so beautiful and calm. What? Donald Trump said that? Yeah. Appeared beautiful and calm? Yeah. I don't like the way that feels. He's also really big with the guerrillas. The gorillas would have voted for him ten times.

But this, all of this, the news cycle that was Harambe, I really don't want to dwell on this too much. Which usually means he does. There is also this headline. Elon Musk dropped rap song Ulogizing Harambe the Gorilla. Do you remember this? No, I don't. And please don't remind me of it.

Wow, they weren't kidding. Drake has showed no growth on Iceman. What is this? You said let's not dwell, so let's not dwell. For the last four months, we have been unfortunately dwelling. Yeah. We've been trying to figure out, in fairness,

like, is Jeff the whistleblower? Is he full of shit? Because what he has told us of this scoop, of these videos that he's promising, is, quote, This may ruin Harambe's reputation, but it may change the world's feelings about zoos. End quote.

So is this going to demonize Harambe? Yeah. What are they going to show that he reached across and brought the child into the... What could they? tapes possibly show. They show Harembe's final words with or without gang violence.

Right, unless it's a video of Harambe just looking in the camera and being like, fuck this kid. And grabbing the kid. Otherwise, I don't know what he could possibly do to change my... Wow. I hated that look. Luckily, this is a show

where we do find out. Let's go. I can already hear the Wicagucka-kid your little theme song play. I love the a cappella. You got to hire her, like, rockabilly from Carver San Diego. Pablo, Pablo. That was good. This is a story about two characters that I have come to really appreciate.

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. I know it sounds, you know, like I'm full of myself or whatever, but I'm just being honest, crazy shit finds me. Congratulations to you, Pablo. I consider you in that list now. It's like I met Pablo and the Sava wins a Pulitzer Prize.

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 shit. This was the right person to contact. So it was a match made in heaven. So describe the visuals on Jeff.

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

The top middle one, that is like the photo. The one you've all seen that's been memed to high heavens. Yeah. More importantly, though, what we're not noticing, and I just realize it right now, what's that? The Harumbe lapel. Yeah, when you say, we're not noticing.

I had seen it. It is like a... What is Jeff wearing? Now, it's almost like on an Adidas tea that would have... Where it would have the stripes down the top of the shoulder. Look at our drag race on.

Oh, it's his whole... Oh, my God. Sorry, it's a Harambe jersey. He plays for the Harambees. It's a Mitchell and Ness throwback from 1986 where Harambe paid for the Pittsburgh Pirates. Does it actually say on the front?

It says Fred Nats. This is the Fredericksburg Nationals, a single-A affiliate of the Washington National Okay. And they had a Harambe night. Great. And it got delayed because of COVID.

But they still did it. Well, you have to do it. You got to go through it with it. Limited edition merch. What am I going to do with all these Harambe jerseys? It was the five-year anniversary back then, and the proceeds were going to go to the Dutch Gorilla Foundation. This was going to be this whole game-worn auction thing.

And it all got derailed because of... A global pandemic? A global pandemic. Yeah. That'll happen. But I think we should let Jeff explain what his sort of motive was when it comes to his friend. This is my way of honoring Arambay wearing and displaying him as much as I can. So when your podcast gets out there and anybody that sees it, they'll have to look at Arambe also too, not just me.

It's odd to say, but I was friends with a gorilla. Worst T-Pay song ever. I was friends with the gorilla. He eating. Speaking of someone who knows how to auto tune. He grabbing that kid. I'm friends with the gorilla. 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. Photo editor says,

You got a camera? I'm like, yeah, he has me two roles of film. He said, you're our new sports photographer. 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. 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. 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. You know him? One time I walked in the doctor and she looked at him and she goes, wait a minute, Jeff, you're a fucking 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 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, you know, 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. He goes, well, whatever it is, keep doing it because it definitely made you better. I'm like, okay. Not the guy in Cincinnati with the white ponytail and the minor league jersey finding the benefits of weed. Who could have seen that come in?

My God. No. Jeff discovered the beauty of the natural world in this way. 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 of rabbit hash 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 nations. Wait, hold on. Hold on. I'm sorry. This is, I, I know. This is the town where the mayor was a dog.

Absolutely. Yeah, he got reelected three or four times. Yeah, if you don't smoke weed and you're watching this, this is what is like to smoke weed. You have a guy who is 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. Whistleblower, Jeff, buys a house in rabbit hash to start growing weed. and I just need to establish people who are doubting us. The dog mayor thing was real. Yeah. We report today from Rabbit Hash, 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, Jr., 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. Well, Bill, it seems pretty obvious to me that this dog vote may be split ten ways, and, of course, I 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. Dude, this is a different dog mayor than I was even thinking of. This is sick. I'm obsessed with this. That was on CBS News. Yeah, no, I want to watch only stuff like that. Barry Weiss is never reaching this level.

No chance. The dogs splitting it 10 ways, helping out the cat. There's graphics involved. There's deep dives. Maybe don't go by jackass, go by donkey. Also, we can euthanize mares because, I mean, Eric Adam Dodson bullet.

That is truly. I can't believe that next dog got into the job knowing how the last one left office. I'll do a better job. Yeah. This is where Jeff moves. He moves to, yeah. Rabbits hash.

Rabbit hash. Rabbit hash. Rabbit hash. Rabbit hash. Which is funny because my mom's always complaining that the rabbits are eating her weed. She just to put like specific, like a cage around her weed plant so that the rabbits don't eat it. And rabbit hash sounds like just the worst weed you've ever smoked. Yeah.

Oh, dry. It's like, what is this? CB9? These are all issues that I think Jeff was probably personally familiar with. Yeah. and the mayor was working on. 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 going to, you know, do this and make some money off of it. But before I made money off it, regardless of 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 mine. friend's wife on Thanksgiving, and so he called crime stoppers twice and told him, you know, exactly where I was. And that's how I got, you know, arrested. 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. 450, actually, wouldn't it? He was like, check the stats.

Check the stats, my average is much higher than that. Scoreboard. 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 got to know for right now is that Jeff goes off to federal prison, and we are going to turn our attention to Brownsville, Texas. 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. 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, haramba. And halfway through the song she explained what it was and it means to pull together to help each other, sharing and coming together. Wow, so hence the name. And we've got the baby gorilla right there, Dan. That's the child you just named. Aramba. Aramba is our name. Once again, What does it mean again? It means pulling together, coming together, sharing and caring about one another. And what is it like Swahili? It's a Swahili word.

Oh, wow. This is so, so fantastic. Congratulations to you. They put so much spice on the name the first time that said it. This is. Arambe. They rolled that Rambi. This seems like a different strokes reboot that should never have aired.

A very special episode of Pablo Torre finds out. Describe, describe. Describe. He looks like a cutie pie. He looks like a cutie pie. He looks a little. confused. He's just a baby, a tiny little baby. Harambe. He looks cute the way all of you were lying and saying Punch looked. Remember that little monkey?

Punch was cute. What are you talking about? Excuse me. I don't think we need to... That's what's in the file. Punch was a federal agent. Punch was so cute. Notice he's disappeared. We haven't heard from Punching months. 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. He got into it. He found a girlfriend. He went all right. Oh, shoot. Oh, shoot. I think we can all agree that Punch the Monkey was no Harambe. Lots of imitators. No duplicators.

There you go. And by the way, the name, meaning pulling together, coming together, sharing and caring about one another. How can it mean all those things? Well, this is an ape that was named after a song by Bob Marley's widow. You know, Miranda, first of all, the arambe is this what you believe word from South Africa? Hello. And Arambe relates to us for us. Herreme means working together

Pulling together Hearing and sharing Reaching out touching you problems I'm saying your sisters I'd like to apologize Because she does say it means all those things I needed to hear it from the primary source No it's good

That's the due diligence that we want I didn't trust that guy to be getting it right I trust her 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. That's a lot of DNA. It's a lot. Same species, if you've ever seen Coco, another famous gorilla who learned sign language.

That's also Western Lowland Silverback Gorilla. And, yeah, I loved eat fruit. You know, one expert we talked to, like in Western, lowland gorillas in the wild, to basically vegetarians living in a salad bowl. And so Harambe, born May 27th, 1999 to Mother Kayla with a younger brother, Makoko. This is an uplifting story. Mm-hmm. You know, which worries me.

This is the story of Harambe, who's, I think, name, image, and likeness from the very beginning was very intentional. Mm-hmm. A value to the local news in Brownsville, Texas. less uplifting is this article, Katie, in your folder from the Houston Chronicle in early 2002. 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 Parder's Zoo. in Brownsville.

The gorillas were all groggy and unresponsive. The zoo identified the gorillas killed as 10-year-old Kayla, her 11-month-old son Makoko, and a two-year-old female named Uzzi. This was Harambe's family. Oh. Wow. Okay.

Oof. It was a toxic gas leak, a space heater melted near a chlorine tank at the zoo. his mom, Kayla, his little brother, Makoko, another pregnant gorilla. 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. Three guerrillas remembered during service at Brownsville Zoo. This is a quote, to see the gorilla's 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. Notably, no guerrilla therapists? The grief counselor is a human grief counselor. For the zookeepers.

For the zookeepers. And those close to the animals. Okay. But again, the question of like, okay, so what do we do with... Their grief. What do we do with them? What is in the mind of a gorilla?

Was Harambe just there staring at the caskets just like crying? Also, 2013, Arambay's father dies of heart disease. Two years later, 2015, teenage Harambe is on the move. This according to a press release, Deez us. Oh, in your folder. Your turn. From the Cincinnati Zoo. New rookie silverback in Gorilla World for spring training.

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. Uh-oh. Described in this introductory video. 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... 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, Chewy, and Mara. Okay, all right. A little NBA drafty. A couple fun females for him just to see. Spring trading before mating season is what brings Harambe to Cincinnati. And the press release, by the way, Dizis, further clarifies the process.

Harembe, large for his evening. at 419 pounds, we'll be placed in a social group with two 19-year-old females. A typical gorilla group includes one silverback male and several females. Oh, okay. So the three will be together for social interaction and companionship. Okay, that's one way to put it. Okay, the polycule. I heard.

The gorilla. Rila polycule. Just monkeys with the party full, you coming through today. Living in a compound. Rambay was not quite at breeding. maturity just yet. He was 16, but he's a star prospect. He is. Measureable's really strong. Spring, 2015, it's April, and said prospect encounters a certain sports photographer. Oh, that's right. Turned weed horticulturalist, who had recently gotten out

a federal prison after growing, what he told us was 450 marijuana plants, although Jeff did want make something very clear about that experience. Yeah, I pled guilty and went to a federal prison camp in West Virginia and spent 10 and a half months there. I literally had my own golf cart. I could drive down the road. So the 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 horror.

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. 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. 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 on 53 years old, whether he would work for free. And Jeff becomes a sports photographer turned weed horticulture list 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. By providing or allowing use of photographic files by the Cincinnati Zoo and Botanical Garden, no one ever talks about the botanical garden. No, it's off of the gardens. 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. Oh, Jeff keeps receipts. Again, name image and likeness. Yeah. And on April 15th, 2015, Jeff's camera discovers a glorious prospect.

Oh. Oh, shut out. This is... Shout out Harambe. 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 players

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. Wow. Wow. On opening day. Okay. 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. This is like the worst version of the blind side I've ever seen. 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. Herombe wanted a friend. And I was like, damn, 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. He said, remember my prison experience?

I thought he was going to bring, like, a cup of soup and a deodorant to remember me? Like, yo, go looking out my OG. I do want to acknowledge the proud tradition in American culture and Hollywood entertainment of, like, guerrilla 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 guerrillas up to. And what Jeff says is that Harambe was really smart. 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 shit. 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 composed. Yeah. Yeah, you sure. Oh, my God.

Oh. Yeah. Look at the arch. I don't know what I'm allowed to say, but. I thought you say he was a silver back gorilla, not a bad bitch. Damn. Damn, damn. All right?

The camera is on. Yeah, this angle. The back. The shoulders, it's the shoulders and the arms that make me feel safe. Yeah. It's just me. Yeah, Tyros sending him to the next round. Yes.

Sturdy. Sturdy. A sturdy, remarkable gorilla. Oh, Harambe. Pop that thigh. That's what Myrtle does when she wants you to scratch the inside of her thigh. That's her favorite. She'll just pop it out like that.

Look, I should say Jeff admits that it is, again, it is odd that he became friends with a gorilla. He acknowledges that. Good. Oh, good. 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, bottle fed him, changed his diaper. Humans! Like, 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. He ignored his two girlfriends. They would be on different sides of the exhibit. He didn't seem interested in him at all. He reminded me in my uncle Jim in so many ways where, you know, who's my favorite uncle when growing up,

he was always the uncle that gave us kids shit, you know, always teasing us. 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.

This is really sweet. I keep forgetting Harambe definitely dies, so this isn't going to stay happy the whole time. Well, what happens to get to the point? 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. Oh my God. Jeff pulled up, as he often did, two guerrilla world. And as I'm taking pictures, all of a sudden, this boy grabs my shirt

and pulls me, and I look over. he's standing on the fence on top of the fence. And he almost fell in. I looked at him. I said, get down! You know, screamed at the kid. And then dad is standing right behind him. He looks at me giving me this, you know, dagger eyes, like, how dare you yell at my kid.

It happens so often. I had this standard speech. I said, sir, you don't understand. We're not worried about the guerrilla killing your kid. Your kid is going to be dead when he's. falls 15 feet onto the cement down there. So that was the day Harambe died, but that was not even the kit. Hmm?

That was earlier in the morning. And Jeff McCurry was there and intervened and stopped it. But then 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 WMBA player for the Toronto tempo Lexi held. Shout out. And Jeff had to go take his camera elsewhere. And so Jeff heard the news pretty much like everybody else. 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? What? You know, it's like, everybody has, how'd you learn? I was like, I learned just like everybody else. They on the news. Very emotional at the Cincinnati Zoo. It's unprecedented. We have never had to kill a dangerous animal in the middle of an emergency situation. Cincinnati 911. Hi, my size fell in the zoo exhibit as a gorilla. There's a male gorilla standing over him. I need someone to contact the zoo, please. When it was determined that the child was being injured, not potentially injured, but was being injured, both down in the boat and then up on the ground, um, that we had to make a decision to shoot him when we did.

your reaction when you first saw that? 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, 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, you know, I learned that from the car wreck. I don't have a fear of dying because I don't remember any of it. 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. You may remember the debate about this. You know, I was like, who do you blame? Right. Now, I should say that amid all of the literal and figurative litigation, like no charges are 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 days later, thanking bystanders. 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 happened, but I am thankful that the right people were in the right place today. Thank you to everyone that helped me and my son. 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. If you say graduated college, I'm leaving. He can't be that big already. Have you watched this show? It can't be that simple. He's about to drop something that's going to blow our brain. You know who the boy grew up to be? Whemby.

And you'd be like, all right, that makes sense. That makes sense. All right, Pablo. I am merely here to say he is now a sophomore in high school. He's an athlete. He does play basketball. He also plays football and he runs track. Multi-sport athlete.

Most relevantly, perhaps. to this program, he even wrote a sports story for the school's news website. Whoa. A sports journalist whose privacy, we will respect. Of course. 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. He does not blame the mom of the kid in question. says the exhibit should have been more safeguarded. 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. And so for the sake of being fair and balanced, we reached out to independent guerrilla experts. Of course, there are lots of theories.

Like, why couldn't you have tranquilized him? Yeah. What, if you, like, try 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. I've done it. Fruit for boy. They used to be a party on the Lower East Side. Back when New York was a real city. Meanwhile, Ron McGill.

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. Friend of the show, friend of the Dan Lebitard show, a friend of Metal Arc Media. He says that. Yeah, that would not have worked. 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. and unfortunately shooting him in the head was the only way

what's even sadder is Harembe was just protecting that little boy the wish he wished someone protected him when he was a little boy Oh, are you doing that on purpose? It's very sad to me. That's very sad. 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.

And so this photo, which got shared and 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 part in my take was making all this money off of this T-shirt, Jeff McCurry sent a legal notice.

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. Which led us to, of course, seek necessarily a response from PFT commenter, Big Cat, and their producer, Hank Lockwood. Just a little fill in on what happened in the summer 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 recusing myself in this conversation because I think it's bullshit. Pablo, that you are trying to capitalize off a dead gorilla. So, yeah, I'm not gonna 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. But I think, Hank, you came to terms to the photographer. We had a mutual agreement, and everybody's happy, correct? Yeah, sure. Say it like that. Yeah, yeah. The guy that took Durrombie pictures?

I'm not gonna say anything on the record, because I don't know the answer to that. answer to that. I'm going to say on the record it's been 10 years, so facts are fuzzy. I'm going to say, 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 follow my dog on Instagram, please. I got to say, like, on some level, they are fundamentally, of course, correct, right?

Like, the speed with which I responded to the voicemail we got. It's true. I smelled the clicks and the likes. Uh-huh. The internet, the intention economy, social media. I, of course, recognize that. People couldn't get enough harambe, and now there was 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. 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... Hold on I gotta get my DVD player out As I plug in a physical DVD player It's just gonna be a video of Harambe

Smoking a cigar or just like If you're watching this, I'm dead Do you know how to use this? Why do you look so new here? That's because... What's the last time of use? Very recently, actually. I made a friend of mine watch the first season of Halt and Catch Fire, which I have on DVD.

Oh, hold on. Oh, wow. Oh. All right, baby. And so we present to you the video of the world 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. Oh my god. Oh my god into his own hand. Uh, he is a...

Oh my god, he just pulled a poop out of his butt. Yeah, a very nice cob-sized poop. Green. Do not eat it. Do not! Yeah, he's protein maxing. Oh, my God. Oh, my God.

See, a lot of people don't realize you create your own fiber. You don't have to go buy it from a store. The circle of life. There we go. Oh, holding it in his mouth while he does other stuff. Like it's a breakfast bar. There we go. We used to be real eaters.

Like it's a nutra grain on his way out of the house for work. He had it hanging out of his mouth. Okay. It's important to always get a granola bar in before you work out. Harambe ate shit his whole life. It's only fitting. It went out like this. Not for Harambe eating the forbidden spinach wrap.

It is so, like, the shape of it is like... It's like a froyo. It's like a poop berry. It's like a... 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. You have 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, you know, like a little sauce on the side? I don't know. A borderline sauce, perhaps? Harambe got his own little portable empanada mamas back there. Could their taste buds work the same as ours? I mean, 98. Over 98% of the same genetic code.

Yeah. Wow. And I see the resemblance a bit. That's fresh silver back. There's parts that I see. This is from seven months before Harambe's demise, his death, all the way up until two months before. That could have been the final shit he ate. And I think it's important, as we are again trying to figure out why and what was Harambe thinking to hear from Jeff.

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 at screaming him and you know mentally telepathically god damn it rambi 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 rambes comes right up to me and he does this behavior and so i was like all right you'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.

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 Arambay. 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 grill in the world when people see this video. And I showed it to him. And he just kind of went white.

I cannot stress enough how much the zoo really did not want this out there. I can imagine. If you could read the email, please, from a communications executive at the Cincinnati Zoo three months after Harambe's death. 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 because I know yours will be better. Wow. Thanks. And now listen, I do kind of 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 a even, somehow, even bigger phenomenon. The scientific term for the practice of eating your own shit is nasty. It's called nasty. Let's guess the root word. It's got to be opathy. Is the end of it an opathy?

Caprophagy. Okay. Close. C-O-P-R-O-P-H-E-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 shit out of strife. That's even sadder. I do not like that. He's only eating his own shit because we locked him up. When we show the poop tapes to independent experts aforementioned a panel of guerrilla

scientists such as Dr. Ian Redmond. My name's Ian Redmond. I'm a naturalist by birth, a biologist by training, and a conservationist by necessity. 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. 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. might be a curious feedback mechanism.

When I do this, they do that. So I'll do it again. And what's them do that again? A ham. He did say that he's a ham. And what is the, that is the, if humans fully committed to the bit, the hamiest 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. That's the next level crowdwork right there.

It is. It is. Is this gorilla psychologically broken and or is this gorilla expressing something that we two can recognize? It's important to see that Jeff, in his point of view, had a personal perspective. 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 to anybody that has a brain, any creature that has a brain. And so look, I am not trying to turn this into a big, like, anti-Zoo thing. I'm actually, like, conflicted about, like, what do we do? What do we do with this, right? Like, here's 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. what he was trying to do if nothing else

what everybody agrees on and all sides of the story is that he was trying to get the attention of humans 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. Is Pablo about to eat his own shit in the studio?

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. I know. I thought I was a friend. I was going to come in here a good time. Some chuckoos, maybe. Katie's going to be there? Great time. Great. My soul has been crushed. I know. I have no idea what I'm going to see when I look in the mirror now. I'm just going to 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 shit? I don't know what's going on right now. Do I have to do something for inner city gorillas? Do I got to find a kid that fell in this? Why would you put this mental anguish on me? Why is this coming across my death? Okay. Also, you had to read more.

I know. So it was like, he can't be, he can't handle this information. So now I'm like, they don't even trust me. Now I'm going to go home email. 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, because would you believe it's Harambe? And they would go,

geez, she's one of those. I 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 going to get you out of here. I got to drag you, but get out of here. You don't want to 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. And the thing I am left realizing, as Jeff offers one more thought, is that apparently there is something that he did want to tell Harambe. 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. Harambe was a complex animal with a really tragic backstory that just wanted to make people laugh.

We didn't know him. But in learning about him, do we not learn more about ourselves? Whoa. And we have to ask ourselves this question. What do you think it tasted like? Oh, I mean, he was eating good, too. He was eating good, too.

So you know, it was like a neutral loaf. It probably has some good chunks in there. So much fiber. I'm sure not too much sodium. You know. Oh, yeah, a good balance. Good balance. Maybe some chutney.

I don't know how to end this episode. I think that was it right there. This has been Pablo Torre finds out. A Metal Arc Media production. And I'll talk to you next time.