Petition calling for Rita De Crescenzo's social media accounts to be suspended nears 30,000 signatures as animal welfare groups warn of "copycat" behaviour.Neapolitan TikTok star Rita De Crescenzo, who has around two million followers, is at the centre of a growing backlash after posting videos showing her cradling a baby primate she says she bought during a holiday in Egypt.  In the clips, filmed partly in a hotel room in Sharm el-Sheikh and shared on Instagram and TikTok, De Crescenzo is seen bottle-feeding the animal, dressing it in pink baby clothes, bathing it under a tap and carrying it in her arms like an infant. She has referred to the monkey, thought to be a vervet or similar small primate, as "Mimì" or "my daughter", and has said she bought toys for it, including a Mickey Mouse doll.   The footage has provoked a wave of criticism from animal rights campaigners, wildlife experts and political figures, alongside warnings from a leading infectious disease specialist over the health risks of close contact with wild animals. Petition nears 30,000 signatures A petition launched on Change.org by the science outreach platform Officina Scientifica calls on Meta and TikTok to suspend De Crescenzo's accounts, arguing that primates are protected under the CITES convention on international trade in endangered species and that keeping one privately breaches both Italian and Egyptian law.   At the time of writing - Thursday morning - the petition was heading towards 30,000 signatures. The campaign highlights what it calls a "concrete risk of copycat behaviour", warning that De Crescenzo's massive following could normalise the buying of wild animals as holiday souvenirs and further fuel demand in a trade that already threatens wild primate populations.   Campaigners point out that this would not be the first time content from De Crescenzo has triggered mass imitation: in January 2025, videos she posted promoting cut-price coach trips helped draw more than 10,000 day-trippers to the Abruzzo ski resort of Roccaraso in a single weekend, overwhelming the town and prompting its mayor to call the resulting chaos a matter of public safety. Animal welfare groups react Wildlife experts have called for the monkey to be seized, noting that Egyptian law heavily restricts the private ownership, sale and purchase of primates, and urging the Egyptian authorities to investigate where the animals were bought, their origin, and whether the transaction was legal.   They have also noted that the young monkey had been separated from its social group at a very early age, something with lasting psychological and developmental consequences for the species.   Italian law, specifically a 1996 ministerial decree, bars ordinary citizens from keeping monkeys as pets, with exceptions limited to zoos, wildlife recovery centres and other institutions authorised by the environment ministry. Breaches can lead to the animal's seizure by Italy's forestry police and substantial fines. Infection risk Infectious disease specialist Matteo Bassetti, a prominent Italian science communicator, said importing a monkey from abroad was "against the law" and warned that De Crescenzo's behaviour posed "an enormous risk to herself and the community from an infectious disease point of view".   Speaking in a video shared by Green MP Francesco Emilio Borrelli, Bassetti listed a series of potential zoonotic diseases the animal could carry, including monkeypox, Ebola, Marburg virus and bacterial infections such as salmonella. "These are called zoonoses - infections transmitted directly from animals to humans," he said, adding: "Animals should live with animals, and people with people... ignorance risks harming not just that person's health, but everyone else's too."   Borrelli, who first amplified Bassetti's warning, condemned what he called the "irresponsibility" of an influencer buying a newborn monkey in Egypt. De Crescenzo defiant Facing mounting criticism, De Crescenzo has repeatedly defended her decision in recent days, insisting "the monkey is mine and it's staying with me".   She has said she felt sorry for the animal, describing finding it "in a box" on the street and rejecting accusations of wrongdoing: "Everything I do turns into an uproar. I'm not to blame. I like animals and I took her in."   Photo Rita De Crescenzo - TikTok screenshot