3 months ago
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Robert Irwin has won Dancing with the Stars.
Battling through a heated, three-round, three-hour live season finale in Los Angeles on Tuesday evening (Wednesday AEDT), Irwin ultimately overcame a rib injury to beat fellow celebrity contestants Jordan Chiles, Alix Earle, Dylan Efron and Elaine Hendrix in the months-long quest to secure the coveted Len Goodman Mirrorball trophy.
Robert Irwin and Witney Carson have won Season 34 of Dancing with the Stars.Credit: Disney
The 21-year-old Wildlife Warrior, whose emotional turn on the American reality competition captured hearts and minds across the globe, has been heavily favoured to win the Season 34 championship since the moment he started rehearsals – after stopping to visit his father’s star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame – in August.
It was the unexpected elimination of frontrunner Whitney Leavitt (of Secret Lives of Mormon Wives infamy) last week, however, that telegraphed victory was firmly within Irwin’s grasp.
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After his plethora of performances in this week’s finale, including the judges’ choice quickstep to Are You Gonna Be My Girl by Australian rockers Jet, the fan-favourite, go-big-or-go-home freestyle routine performed to Avicii’s The Nights and Sydney-born Sam Sparro’s Black & Gold, and the “instant dance challenge” – where Irwin and his professional dancer partner Witney Carson were told the style and song minutes before performing an unrehearsed routine – Irwin’s triumph was a no-brainer.
Although Irwin entered the contest with no prior dance experience, he did not come unprepared. That he has “win” in his name (handy for his #TeamIrWINit social media campaign), and a roster of heavy hitters (including sister Bindi Irwin and … Prince William?) ready and willing to be deployed to court audience votes, were only two weapons in his stacked arsenal.
It also helped that Irwin leant into his post-Bonds ad sex appeal and ripped his shirt off mid-salsa, while simultaneously managing to maintain his family-friendly image. (The latter thanks to countless interviews exalting his late father Steve Irwin’s legacy, and having his mother, Terri Irwin, as well as his sister on-hand to make choreographed cameos on the dance floor.)
Just how many of the record number of public votes Disney/American Broadcasting Company says this season has attracted is due to the Irwin marketing machine is impossible to quantify.
What’s undeniable is that before Television City Studios’ cameras started rolling for September 16’s premiere, Irwin already had a main character storyline locked and loaded.
His poetic victory, now confirmed after being written in the stars, comes exactly 10 years after Bindi, then aged 17, won Season 21 in 2015, securing a record-breaking eight perfect scores with professional partner Derek Hough in her pursuit.
But to ignore the stops Irwin has pulled out in the ballroom these past two months is to do him, and his dancing skills, a disservice.
For almost every thirsty comment about his tanned abs on social media was praise for how seriously he was taking the boogie – he actually points his toes! His movements are sharp and precise! His technique is clean! – so much so that tabloids ran stories alleging he had been taking dance classes in secret for two years.
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That conspiracy theory took flight nine weeks into the 11-week season, when Irwin and Carson earned 40 out of 40 points from judges Hough, Carrie Ann Inaba and Bruno Tonioli, and guest judge Tom Bergeron.
It was the first perfect score of this year’s competition, and was earned by Irwin and Carson for their foxtrot to Leona Lewis’ Footprints in the Sand.
That performance was inspired by Bindi and Hough’s freestyle routine to the same song a decade earlier, so it was only fitting that Irwin called in the big guns to stick the landing.
Bindi’s on-stage sway with her brother at the end of his November 13 foxtrot had Bergeron almost in tears, and Hough calling Irwin “this generation’s beacon of hope”. But Irwin’s dancing hasn’t completely escaped critique.
Although Hough told Irwin that “every fibre of [his] body dances” after his Viennese waltz to Prince’s WOW one week later, the judge took issue with his frame. He ultimately gave Irwin and Carson a nine (out of 10), making them one point shy of a perfect score. (Though they did earn 30/30 points that week for their jive to Baby I’m a Star).
Terri’s cameo on the dance floor in Week Five – when Irwin’s contemporary routine to Phil Collins’ You’ll Be in My Heart was performed to honour his mother – also wasn’t enough to secure Irwin a perfect score.
Two couples – Irwin and Carson, and Alix Earle and Val Chmerkovskiy – walked away with 35/40, and Dylan Efron’s routine to brother Zac Efron’s song Rewrite the Stars secured him Dedication Night’s highest score: 36/40.
What Irwin wrote on Instagram two weeks later, ahead of his Halloween Night performance, signalled why the competition means so much to him regardless of scores, or if he and his other “protective older sister” (Carson) won the trophy on November 26.
“Wish I could tell this kid that one day he’d finally get to live out that dream! Beyond grateful for this experience, it has already been everything I hoped for and more,” Irwin wrote alongside a photo of his 11-year-old self holding Bindi’s Mirrorball Trophy. “Lots more fun ahead! See you tonight!”
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