Singer Michael Jackson enjoys a cup of tea with his pet Bubbles at Osaka City Mayoral Hall in 1987. Photo / Getty Images
Singer Michael Jackson enjoys a cup of tea with his pet Bubbles at Osaka City Mayoral Hall in 1987. Photo / Getty Images
With no public to please, he gets up when he wants nowadays, taking a leisurely stroll around his grounds with companions who haven't a clue that he used to be a superstar.
There are no fans to see the toll the years have taken - the grey beard on his chin and the small bald spot just above his brow.
Rarely has a showbusiness legend managed to slip so easily into blissful obscurity. His greatest exertion nowadays? The odd bit of painting.
Aged 34 and weighing 12½st, Bubbles is now the dominant male in a group of seven chimps. Photo / Getty Images
When, a few weeks ago, five abstract works by an artist known as Bubbles sold for nearly £3000 ($5270) at an art gallery in Miami, many were shocked to discover the painter was Bubbles of Michael Jackson fame.
Contrary to rumours, the ape wasn't long dead, preserved in formaldehyde by a German doctor.
Eight years after Jackson's death and nearly three decades after the "King of Pop" parted company with his once inseparable companion, the world's most famous chimpanzee is very much alive and well, living out of the public gaze in genteel retirement in Florida.
Nobody has asked him to do the Moonwalk (Jackson's famous backwards shuffle) for decades. Gone are the absurd showbiz trappings - a private bathroom, a wardrobe of glittering outfits, walk-on roles in pop videos and a place at the dining table with the Jackson family.
There were no Hollywood comforts when he moved in 2005 to his current home, the Centre for Great Apes, a private sanctuary in Wauchula, a remote, heavily forested corner of Florida.
Shockingly, the super-rich Jackson never gave the sanctuary's cash-strapped staff a penny - nor a banana - towards Bubbles's upkeep, let alone ever visited him.
Admittedly, the late singer's estate now sends some money every year and his fans post occasional gifts such as blankets emblazoned with Jackson's face.
But the cuddly primate, who was once dressed in identical outfits to the superstar, "is now just a normal chimp", says Patti Ragan, the sanctuary's founder.
"He has a chimp life," she says. "He loves to paint but, more than that, he loves to play with the other chimps.
"He particularly loves water - he adores playing with the hose or with the sprinklers in summer." Indeed, the impish ape often likes to take mouthfuls of water to spit at visitors.
A painting by Bubbles. Photo / Supplied
Aged 34 and weighing 12½st, Bubbles is the dominant male in a group of seven chimps - three males and four females. His best friend, Ripley, grooms Bubbles's fur and is his ally whenever squabbles break out.
The group sleep in an eight-room "night-house" on blankets, pine needles and hay. Their diet is fruit and vegetables (Bubbles likes mangoes best) as well as protein biscuits.
Gone are the days when he had access to the Jackson family freezer and gorged himself on Haagen-Dazs ice cream.
With Jacko, he always flew first class, went on world tours and made solo appearances on TV chat-shows. Bubbles had his own nanny and slept in pyjamas in a cot beside Jackson's bed.
Of course, animal rights campaigners wouldn't tolerate any of this now, but that was the Eighties, when such issues were not so controversial.
Bubbles is going nowhere today, first class or otherwise. He will spend his remaining years among this group of former circus and entertainment industry chimps and orangutans.
Having spent time in captivity, none can be released into the wild, as they wouldn't survive.
Bubbles could live for many more years. Indeed, the oldest chimp in the centre is 58. Ms Ragan describes Bubbles as 'brawny but tender'.
The only clue to his former life seems to be a strong dislike of being photographed. If he's really displeased, he will throw sand at anyone with a camera.
Bubbles didn't have glamorous beginnings. Born in 1983 at a bio-medical laboratory in Texas, he was sold at eight months to Jackson, who had him trained by renowned Hollywood ape trainer Bob Dunn.
Bubbles points at a photo of Jackson. Photo / Getty Images
Jackson, then 24 and at the height of his fame, moved Bubbles in with him at the Jackson family compound in Encino, California, plunging the hapless baby chimp into the First Family of Pop's bizarre existence.
The conventional view was that Jackson turned to animals, and particularly Bubbles, for comfort, companionship and unconditional love after a tough childhood at the hands of his abusive father/manager Joe Jackson.
In 1987, Bubbles appeared in the singer's video for his single Leave Me Alone, and sat in on the recording of Jackson's Bad album.
Chaperoned by trainer Bob Dunn, he flew with Jackson around the world - quarantine rules permitting - for much of the marathon album tour.
Although Jackson claimed he taught Bubbles to do the Moonwalk, Mr Dunn later admitted he did. Indeed, the trainer was clearly responsible for teaching Bubbles to do tricks.
A favourite with audiences was theatrically blocking his ears with his fingers at the mention of heavy metal music.
Significantly, Mr Dunn said Bubbles was occasionally scared by the scale of crowds.
However, chimps grow up fast and eventually it was impractical for the once-cute Bubbles to live in the Jacksons' suburban house.
Animal experts were sought for advice and Michael's sister La Toya said they were 'highly disturbed' at the way he was being treated.
Bubbles was fortunate. He went to be put in the care of Mr Dunn.
And so, by the time Jackson moved to his 2,700-acre Neverland ranch in 1988, Bubbles was no longer living with him.
However, that did not stop ludicrous claims that when the actress Elizabeth Taylor married for the seventh and last time (to construction worker Larry Fortensky) at the ranch in 1991, Bubbles was the ring-bearer.
Occasionally, the chimp would be taken to visit Jackson when the singer requested, but he had children by then and Bubbles was too dangerous to have around a young family. And so Bubbles' days on the A-list were over.
As Jackson's career nosedived amid a string of sordid legal cases over his deeply worrying relationships with young children, he admitted to interviewer Martin Bashir in 2003 that the chimp was no longer part of his life because he had become 'too aggressive'.
That same year, it was distressingly reported the chimp had even tried to kill himself.
Despite this, Bubbles was in good hands with Mr Dunn.
Indeed, there have been reports that other apes dumped after careers in showbusiness are put down or sold to medical research companies.
A few years later, his trainer decided to hand him to Patti Ragan, as the most famous resident at her Florida sanctuary.
Bubbles became part of a family once again - and this time it wasn't composed of the venal, publicity-crazed Jacksons.
Instead, his family comprised other apes. Ms Ragan says that, having mixed only with a single male chimp while living with Mr Dunn, Bubbles was very shy at first and was particularly nervous with female chimps.
As with other former pet chimps, he had to be taught how to socialise with his own kind, learning how to greet and groom others, to make up after fights and to share food.
"Bubbles had a lot of growing up to do," she recalls.
The sanctuary can't afford to care for baby chimps so all males are given a vasectomy, although of course that doesn't curtail their sex life. Bubbles 'has a number of females that he likes', says Ms Ragan diplomatically.
Jackson reportedly wanted to visit Bubbles in 2005, but never did. He may have been too busy or perhaps feared the reunion would be too emotional.
But at least he could have offered some money to the centre, which relies entirely on public donations.
Jackson's death from a drugs overdose in 2009 and the subsequent fascination with the more bizarre aspects of his life inevitably meant people wondered what had happened to Bubbles.
Many assumed he would have a role at the singer's funeral - perhaps even dressed as a pall-bearer.
In fact, on the day Jackson was buried, his once constant companion was 3,000 miles away in Florida, sitting in a tree listening to what animal park staff described as "calming flute music".
They said he wasn't invited to the funeral. That was good thing, as it was better he wasn't plunged back into the showbiz world.
Other rumours suggested that Jackson left money in his will for Bubbles. But the sanctuary said: "Michael always maintained ownership of Bubbles as he was his first and favourite chimpanzee, and he considered him as his son.
"But he didn't include him in his will. We still must raise funds from our supporters to provide care for Bubbles."
However, Ms Ragan says Jackson's multi-million dollar estate has since helped out - though it pays less than half of his annual £16,000 upkeep.
She says she has deliberately never shown Bubbles any photos of Jackson, fearing how he might react. She worries that the memory might make him depressed. This fear is supported by chimp experts in view of the fact that Jackson was the ape's "mother figure".
But perhaps it might set off bad memories for other reasons. For there have been persistent claims over the years that Bubbles was abused during the Jackson years.
The respected British primatologist Jane Goodall visited Neverland and has said the chimp was beaten, although she never accused Jackson of doing it himself.
Yet La Toya's ex-husband, Jack Gordon, alleged he once saw the singer "punch Bubbles in the face, kick him in the stomach". He added: "Michael used to say: 'He doesn't feel it. He's a chimpanzee. I have to discipline him.'"
And the singer Sheryl Crow recalled that, while performing on Jackson's 1987 BAD tour, she saw him poke the chimp with a ballpoint pen when he occasionally got out of control.
Although Ms Ragan abhors apes being kept as pets, she says there is no sign Bubbles was ever abused. "I wasn't there, but think he was very much loved because he has a very sweet nature," she says.
Despite all the fuss they used to make of Bubbles, surviving members of the Jackson family have only once bothered to visit him in Florida. In 2010, less than a year after her brother's death, La Toya went, for a TV documentary.
Embarrassingly, in front of the cameras, she broke down in tears, wailing: "I want to kiss and hug you, but I know I can't because you're so huge." She tried to coax a reaction out of him, saying through a metal fence: "Hi Bubbles, do you remember me?"
They had last seen each other 20 years previously and he did not react. At least he didn't spit water at her.
The encounter was reminiscent of the days when Michael had wanted to make Bubbles speak and asked doctors if it was possible to give him an operation to alter his vocal cords. The star wanted to know what his best friend was really thinking.
If they could converse now, however, one wonders whether the long-suffering chimp would have many kind words or thoughts for the man who turned him into a showbusiness clown.
