The White Lotus Director Mike White Reveals Baby Monkey Abuse in Thailand, Where New Season Is Set

For Immediate Release:
February 21, 2025

Contact:
Sara Groves 202-483-7382

The White Lotus creator Mike White—who filmed the show’s third season on the Thai island of Ko Samui —is calling on Thailand’s prime minister to end the use of forced monkey labor following the release of never-before-seen footage inside the “schools” where endangered baby pig-tailed macaques are torn away from their mothers, chained for years, and driven insane by endless confinement—all so that they can be forcibly trained to pick coconuts.

“I have just finished filming season three of The White Lotus on Samui. It’s a beautiful place, but I was shocked to learn from my friends at PETA that there and elsewhere in Thailand, monkeys are forced to work for the coconut industry,” White writes to Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra. “I urge you to end this exploitation of our fellow primates and ensure that Thailand’s entire coconut industry transitions to humane harvesting methods that don’t rely on forced monkey labor.”

PETA Asia investigators documented that baby monkeys—who were abducted from their families in nature or bred on site and taken from their mothers when they were as young as 3 months old—were tethered on short ropes and chains, kept in flooded or trash-strewn areas with no shelter from extreme weather, and denied comfort, enrichment, or adequate socialization. Many of them were tied to tiny cages on which their skin was chafed raw from the metal bars. Monkeys paced neurotically and some ran frantically while attached to tethers, repeatedly choking themselves on their collars.

PETA notes that the schools—which are promoted to tourists on the Thai government website—put on deceptive coconut-picking “demonstrations” for visitors that involve adult monkeys who have been abused and broken. PETA is calling on the Thai government to shut down these schools.

“Thailand’s coconut-picking training schools are cesspools of misery, where baby monkeys are snatched from their mothers, deprived of everything that’s natural and important to them, and chained until they lose their minds,” says PETA Executive Vice President Tracy Reiman. “PETA is calling on consumers to buy canned coconut milk only from countries where monkey labor isn’t used, such as India, Indonesia, and the Philippines, and urging the Thai government to shut down these abusive training schools.” 

PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to abuse in any way”—points out that Every Animal Is Someone and offers free Empathy Kits for people who need a lesson in kindness. For more information, please visit PETA.org or follow PETA on X, Facebook, or Instagram.