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Animal Practice’s Justin Kirk Doesn’t Condone Pet Monkeys, Okay?

Justin Kirk at the Cinema Society after party for
Justin Kirk. Photo: Nicholas Hunt/Patrick McMullan

Crystal the Monkey, star of NBC’s Animal Practice, is super cute (exhibit A through Z: this video). But before you go mail-ordering a Capuchin, Crystal’s human co-star Justin Kirk wants you to know something: “As adorable as she is, you should not be getting a fucking monkey as a pet,” he told Vulture at a screening of Butter hosted by the Cinema Society last night. “We’ve been a little embattled by this lately, so let me take this opportunity to say that Tom [Gunderson], her handler, and all the cast of Animal Practice, do not advocate having a monkey as a pet. This is our fear, that if the show is a success” — alas, not the case so far — “people are going to be getting a bunch of monkeys, and not knowing what to do with them.” As for whether Crystal has been throwing her feces around set, Kirk assures she has not been (she’s a lady, people). “But a snake pooped once on our show,” he said. “You wouldn’t think snakes would do that, but they do — and it was like an omelette.” In other words: Snakes make bad pets, too.

Justin Kirk Doesn’t Condone Pet Monkeys, Okay?