“It’s an animal, not a person. What she had with that monkey was not normal.”

It is not uncommon for people to replace the affection of a departed loved one with that of an animal, experts say.

Travis became both a surrogate child and spouse, following the deaths of her daughter in a car accident several years ago and her husband five years ago, friends and psychologists said.

Even if there was no monkey-panky, pals say they were intimate.