Bindi Irwin Speaks on Estrangement From Paternal Grandfather
Bindi Irwin (Photo: Getty Images)
Dancing With the Stars champion and 17-yet-somehow-wise-beyond-her-years-year-old girl Bindi Irwin opens up in a new interview about her estrangement from her grandfather, the father of the late Steve Irwin.
“Everyone deals with grief differently,” Irwin told The Daily Mail Australia. “When my dad passed away, he chose to distance himself from everything that dad loved the most.”
In an interview following Irwin’s DWTS triumph, Bob Irwin, her grandfather, said he was “enormously proud” of Bindi, but that the two were not in touch.
“At the moment we’re really just respecting his wishes because he hasn’t had anything to do with us for a long time and he decided his own path,” Bindi continued. “That’s important, so good for him.”
Bindi was just 8 years old when her father Steve Irwin died in 2006 after being stabbed by a stingray while shooting a wildlife documentary. The last time Bindi saw her grandfather was two years later when an animal hospital was dedicated to Bob Irwin’s late wife Lyn at the Australia Zoo, the Irwins’s wildlife park/home. Later that year, Bob severed ties with the organization and now runs the Bob Irwin Wildlife & Conservation Fund.
Though things are less than copacetic within the Irwin clan, Bindi is maintaining the relationships she forged during Dancing With the Stars. Her dance partner Derek Hough recently visited her in Australia, where then Irwins named a koala at the Australia Zoo after him.
Derek Hough and Bindi Irwin at the Australia Zoo (Photo: Instagram)
Bindi also recently resolved some other drama in her life. A California judge agreed this week to allow Irwin to receive the $350,000 she earned appearing on DWTS. Irwin’s salary was held up in court, after a Los Angeles County Superior Court judge ruled that she could not be paid since she was a minor and had not produced a form, signed by her late father, giving up his rights to her money.
