Robert Irwin, 22, says his mom was the reason he and his sister were able to manage the loss of their dad, Steve Irwin.
On Thursday’s episode of “Not Gonna Lie with Kylie Kelce,” Irwin, the winner of this year’s “Dancing With the Stars,” recalled dedicating one of his performances to his mom, Terri Irwin, whom he called “the guiding force behind everything that we do.”
“She’s been the glue to hold us together through the most challenging times in our lives, particularly when my dad passed,” Irwin told podcast host Kylie Kelce.
The DWTS performance, set to Phil Collins’s “You’ll Be in My Heart” from the “Tarzan” soundtrack, was his way of publicly thanking her, he said.
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“It felt like this moment to say thank you to not only my mom, but to all of the single parents of the world, all of the moms out there who I feel like don’t always get that recognition and celebration that they deserve,” Irwin said.
While dealing with her grief and raising two young kids, his mother also made sure that the conservation work they were involved in continued, he said.
“It was my mom and dad creating this legacy. And then when he passed, she was the one person to pick up all the broken pieces and to say, ‘I’m going to make sure everything that he lived for continues on,'” Irwin said.
Irwin was only 2 years old when his father died in 2006, after a stingray barb pierced his chest while he was filming a documentary at the Great Barrier Reef.
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“I feel like my mom showed us the power of unity. When you lose someone very close to you, it really reveals the people around you,” Irwin said, adding that while some people react really well to loss, others don’t as much.
“We just felt like our tight-knit little family, the three of us — my mom, my sister, and I — we just became this little bubble of love,” Irwin said.
At Queensland’s Australia Zoo, which his family manages, Irwin says they still feed the same crocodiles his dad once did.
“I feel the closest to my dad when I’m in there with his crocodiles, and I’m feeding them,” Irwin added.
During the DWTS episode in which he dedicated his performance to his mom, Irwin said that as he grew older, he realized just how hard things must have been for her.
“I’ve never been able to capture the feeling of gratitude that I feel for her. At every milestone, I just wished that my dad was there. She was there, and that was enough,” Irwin said.
In a September interview with People, Irwin said he feels closer to his late father than ever, partly because there’s so much footage of him from his television show, “The Crocodile Hunter,” which aired from 1997 to 2004.
“I’ll often come across archive footage that I haven’t seen before,” Irwin said. “And all of a sudden, his memory just starts flooding back. So it’s weird that decades later, after losing someone when I was 2 years old, I almost have an even greater picture of the person he was.”
