Robert Irwin’s headline-making run on Dancing With the Stars Season 34 comes a decade after older sister Bindi Irwin waltzed to victory in the ABC show’s 21st season — and a decade after a bizarre court case nearly took the elder Irwin out of the competition.
On November 5, 2015, which is 10 years ago now, a Superior Court of Los Angeles judge rejected Bindi’s contract for a lack of proof that her and Robert’s father, the zookeeper Steve Irwin a.k.a. TV’s “Crocodile Hunter,” was actually dead.
Of course, it was worldwide news when Steve died in 2006 at age 44 after being barbed by a stingray off Australia’s northeast coast. Steve was snorkeling at Batt Reef near Port Douglas, Queensland, when a stingray attacked him, its barb puncturing his heart and lungs, and Irwin was pronounced dead shortly thereafter, per People.
“I have the best daddy in the whole world, and I will miss him every day,” Bindi said at his memorial service, held at the family’s Australia Zoo in Queensland two weeks later, per The Guardian. “When I see a crocodile, I will always think of him, and I know that daddy made this zoo so everyone could come and learn to love all the animals. I don’t want daddy’s passion to ever end — I want to help endangered wildlife just like he did.”
So why was Steve’s death a matter of contention in Bindi’s Dancing With the Stars run? And given all the press coverage around that family tragedy, was a judge really not aware that Steve had died?
Here’s how it went down: On November 5, 2015, TMZ reported that an L.A. Superior Court judge had rejected Bindi’s DWTS contract, which producers had submitted for review. Forbes noted at the time that unemancipated minors can’t sign a contract themselves in most states, and that California, in particular, requires minors’ contracts to be approved by a court. Parents who want their children’s earnings staying with their children, as Terri did, can sign a quitclaim to waive any rights to the money, as Terri did, according to Forbes.
Bindi’s DWTS contract said Bindi was guaranteed base pay of $125,000, plus $10,000 per week if she got to third and fourth weeks, $15,000 for the fifth week, $20,000 a week for sixth and seventh weeks, $30,000 a week for the eighth and ninth weeks, and $50,000 per week for the 10th and 11th weeks, per TMZ. At the time of the legal hitch, Bindi had already earned $230,000, and she would eventually earn the maximum $360,000.
“This is a standard contract for the show,” Entertainment Tonight’s Cameron Mathison, who competed in DWTS Season 5, explained. “In fact, it’s the same deal I got when I was on the show.”
Terri Irwin, Bindi and Robert’s mother and Steve’s widow, signed away her rights to Bindi’s potential winnings, but the L.A. Superior Court judge wanted assurances Steve had no rights to the money either, TMZ reported.
“Petitioner has failed to show that the minor’s father has irrevocably and perpetually released, relinquished, and quitclaimed to the minor any interest he may have to the minor’s earnings under the contract,” court documents read, per Entertainment Tonight. “Without a showing that the minor is entitled to her earnings under the contract, the court is unable to find that it is in the best interest of the minor to be bound by the terms of the contract.”
In an explainer about the legal obstacle, though, Snopes pointed out the judge wasn’t necessarily insensitive to the Irwin family or ignorant about pop culture headlines so much as bound by stringent contract laws. As the site explained, contract law in California protects minors working in entertainment with a high standard of proof. In Bindi’s case, that standard of proof likely required a death certificate and not, say, a media report, Snopes noted.
And until that proof was provided, Bindi was blocked from participating in Season 21, according to Time. Dancing With the Stars’ lawyers must have cut through the red tape quickly, though, since Bindi stayed in the competition, and she and pro partner Derek Hough ended up winning the season late that month. And when TMZ caught up with the teen at LAX several days later, Bindi said the contract issue had been sorted. “We’re all good,” she said. “Yeah, we’re all happy.”
Though Bindi said that she’d lose some of the winnings to taxes, she revealed the rest would go to a good cause.
“We donate everything back to wildlife conservation, so everything I make goes straight back to wildlife conservation,” she told TMZ. “So, it’s wonderful. It’s who we are and what we love to do.”
Dancing With the Stars, Season 34, Tuesdays, 8/7c, ABC and Disney+
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