Texas Longhorns assistant football coach Jeff Banks and his stripper ex-girlfriend have tied the knot three years after being sued by the parents of a child who the stripper’s pet monkey bit at a neighborhood haunted house display.
Banks posted several Instagram messages noting that he and his longtime girlfriend, Danielle Thomas, were recently married.
Thomas was a professional stripper several years ago and danced under the name “Pole Assassin.”
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The nuptial announcements are not the first time that Banks and “Pole Assassin” have been in the news.
Back in 2021, the couple was sued by neighbors Amy and Casey Clinkenbeard, who claimed that Thomas’s pet monkey had bitten their child.
The lawsuit claimed that Thomas told children the monkey was trained to give people high fives. But when the Clinkenbeard’s son tried the trick, the monkey bit him.
“Instead of giving a high five, Danielle Thomas’ monkey aggressively bit down on [the boy] C.C.’s hand and refused to let go,” the family’s filing reads. “C.C. was forced to manually pry the monkey’s jaw open. There was so much blood that C.C. was unable to see the full extent of the injury.”
The family added that they fled the party and went to a neighbor’s house — who was a doctor — to have the wound investigated and treated. But the boy had to undergo a series of painful rabies shots after Banks and Thomas refused to talk to them about the attack, the Clinkenbeards said.
The lawsuit further alleged that Thomas went on a local radio station, defamed them, and embarrassed them publicly.
With the lawsuit behind them, though, Banks and Thomas got married on July 20 in Austin, Texas, according to the online posts.
It is unclear if the troublemaker monkey was invited to the wedding.
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