Let’s talk about Sonny. No, not a human—Sonny is a monkey. But not just any monkey. He is a Java macaque who lived with Dwyane Wade’s former Miami Heat teammate, Mike Miller, and his wife in Orlando, Florida. Their bond wasn’t just about laughs and Instagram moments; it was a full-blown family dynamic.

Interestingly, owning a monkey in the U.S. isn’t just rare—it’s almost a hidden world. There are reportedly only around 15,000 pet primates across the country. And with good reason. According to the two-time NBA champ himself, the challenge of raising one is no joke. “A lot of work,” Miller said, comparing it to raising a child. And thankfully, his wife took on the lead role in caring for Sonny.

“You have to change his diapers, give him his bottle, and he wakes up in the middle of the night. There’s all that kind of stuff,” Miller explained, describing real-level, sleepless nights. Almost like a human baby. Times have changed: Sonny no longer roams the Miller home. He now resides in a sanctuary.

For Mike Miller, Sonny was more than a novelty. He was a full-fledged family member—a “Java” (long-tailed) macaque legally classified as Class III wildlife under Florida law. This meant Miller and his wife first had to secure a Permit to Possess Class III Wildlife for Personal Use (PPNC) from the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC).

Still, Miller can’t help but smile when he looks back. “Me and my wife, both we love animals,” he said on Podcast P with Paul George. “And so we got out, I was always like, yo, I’m going to do, I’m going to get a monkey. Everyone thought it was crazy, but it was the best pet, like way smarter than any of my friends. Like it was, he was, he was elite.” 

But unfortunately, the bond had to take a backseat when life stepped in. “You know, I miss Sonny, but he was super protective of us. And when I had my first son, um, we had to get, we had to give him to a sanctuary. So I hadn’t seen Sonny in a minute. I miss my dawg,” he shared. Yet, the updates never stop coming. “He’s still alive. We get, we get reports. He’s about 107.” Clearly, a joke about how the monkey looked way older than it was supposed to.

Dwyane Wade’s ex-teammate caught Sonny riding a dog

For Mike Miller, Sonny was more than a monkey. “Smarter than most people he ran with,” as Miller proudly said. Sonny could even open doors by himself, and that particular skill once turned an ordinary evening into neighborhood comedy gold. Before heading out for dinner, Miller and his wife placed Sonny in a room and left their two massive Great Danes outside. They figured all was well. They were wrong.

Later that night, chaos unfolded. “About an hour and a half later, my wife gets a call from one of our neighbors, ‘Your monkey is riding your dog around the neighborhood… We come home—and if I’m lying, I’m dying—we pull down the street, and Sonny is riding our Great Dane down the road,” Miller shared during his appearance on Mike & Mike back in 2016. That moment was wild enough to become legend among Miller’s stories—and possibly in the neighborhood, too.

As a Florida teenager, he’d observed exotic-animal facilities near Ocala and dreamed of having a monkey of his own. Once drafted fifth overall by the Orlando Magic and signing a reported four-year, $10.86 million rookie-scale contract, he had both the means and the legal clearance to realize that dream. But with two Great Danes already in the house, he wasn’t looking for a typical pet. “It was always something I wanted,” Miller admitted.

Eventually, he made it happen. During his Rookie of the Year campaign, he and his wife went all in—got licensed through the state, tracked down a professional breeder in Missouri, and brought Sonny home. And just like that, life got a whole lot more interesting.