{"id":319872,"date":"2026-03-09T01:03:12","date_gmt":"2026-03-09T01:03:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/319872\/"},"modified":"2026-03-09T01:03:12","modified_gmt":"2026-03-09T01:03:12","slug":"punch-the-monkey-met-lisa-from-blackpink","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/319872\/","title":{"rendered":"Punch The Monkey Met Lisa From Blackpink"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Japan&#8217;s Ichikawa City Zoo is the latest zoo to benefit from one of their animals having a viral moment online. This time the animal star is Punch, a baby snow monkey who started getting a lot of attention earlier this year due in part to his sad origin story: He was abandoned by his mother shortly after his birth last summer, and in her absence Punch got attached to a stuffed orangutan toy from IKEA. Other macaques at the zoo, oblivious to the outcast&#8217;s rising fame, have been documented bullying poor Punch. But in recent weeks, the folks at Ichikawa say Punch has been doing a much better job socializing, he&#8217;s clinging to his plushie less often, and he&#8217;s even able to go a full day without getting bullied. Now Punch is hanging out with real-deal celebrities.<\/p>\n<p>Yesterday Lisa from Blackpink posted photos on her Instagram stories of herself visiting the macaque exhibit at Ichikawa City Zoo, holding up an orangutan plushie in Punch&#8217;s honor. Lisa is not the only musician to proclaim solidarity with Punch; like from the massive queues of visitors outside of the zoo, David Byrne and Noah Kahan held some Punch-honoring plushies on the latest Graham Norton. Judas Priest\u2019s Rob Halford has also showed off <a href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/p\/DVnWc9bFO6y\/?img_index=2&amp;igsh=dGVrY3VvYnl2bTR1\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">his Punch merch<\/a>. I hope all the other monkeys are jealous and regret ostracizing their most famous peer. See for yourself below.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-2491633\" alt=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/lisa1.jpeg\"   loading=\"lazy\"\/><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-2491634\" alt=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/lisa2.jpeg\"   loading=\"lazy\"\/><script async src=\"\/\/www.instagram.com\/embed.js\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Japan&#8217;s Ichikawa City Zoo is the latest zoo to benefit from one of their animals having a viral&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":319873,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[156,157,111,139,69],"class_list":["post-319872","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-entertainment","tag-music","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/319872","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=319872"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/319872\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/319873"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=319872"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=319872"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=319872"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}