Chris Brown has been ordered to give up his pet monkey Fiji and to pay $35,000 U.S. to the facility where it has been living since it was seized by authorities.
A judge in Los Angeles accepted a deal in which the R&B singer agreed to enter a diversion program, to not visit Fiji without making special arrangements and to not attempt to buy a new monkey.
If Brown sticks to the conditions, charges related to owning a restricted species will be dropped in June.
California Department of Fish and Wildlife took Fiji from Brown in early 2018 after the singer posted photos of the capuchin on Instagram. He was charged with two misdemeanours and was facing six months behind bars.
Brown’s friend, Canadian singer Justin Bieber, had his pet capuchin OG Mally seized by German officials when he tried to bring it into the country without a permit. Bieber abandoned the animal, which now lives in a zoo.
Earlier this year, Bieber told Vogue: “If you had the money that I had, why wouldn’t you get a monkey? You would get a monkey!”