Do we like Bindi Irwin?
Our score: 8 out of 10. A clean harm record, a public yes to marriage equality and years of conservation work, with one criticised corporate tie-up in 2014.
Bindi grew up at Australia Zoo, the daughter of Steve Irwin, and has spent most of her life in the public eye. She starred in a wildlife show for kids as a child, then won season 21 of Dancing With the Stars in 2015 with Derek Hough. She later joined the family reality show Crikey! It's the Irwins in 2018.
Her big public stoush was in 2014, when she announced a youth ambassador role with SeaWorld on Good Morning America. Online critics, with the documentary Blackfish in mind, told her not to tarnish her father's name. She said she was “thrilled to be partnered up with SeaWorld” and saw it as following in her dad's footsteps. Where you land depends on whether you see a kids' nature initiative or a company in damage control.
On the harm check she comes up clean. During Australia's 2017 postal vote she tweeted “Love is love. Yes, Australia.” and urged followers to vote yes for marriage equality. That earned her an ally award at an Australian LGBTI awards night in 2018. We found no harmful words of her own, and nothing about the company she keeps worrying us.
The good stuff is mostly conservation. In 2014 the Australian Geographic Society named her Young Conservationist of the Year for her work as a global ambassador for Wildlife Warriors Worldwide. In 2020 she announced a book on the zoo's first 50 years, drawn from her father's journals and the archives.
Nothing new has turned up on her lately that we could verify from reliable reporting. A lot of the recent noise is old stories dressed up as fresh news, so treat anything dramatic from a content farm with suspicion. We found no court outcomes against her.
So would we support her? Yes. She's backed LGBTQ+ people in public, she's put her platform behind wildlife, and the one proper blemish is a corporate partnership she copped flak for a decade ago. That's a pretty short list for someone who's been famous since childhood.