Bindi Irwin Recalls a Dreamlike Childhood Memory With Her Dad Steve Irwin: ‘The Magic Was Alive’
It was important to the late Steve Irwin to teach his daughter Bindi Irwin, now 25, all about wildlife conservation when she was a kid. But he also taught her to find magic in the world. The Australia Zoo CEO recently shared a heartwarming memory with her dad, who died in 2006, and it sounds like she had a fairytale childhood!
In an interview with Entertainment Tonight, Bindi shared that she used to love “looking for fairies” with her dad on their conservation properties. “Looking back now — I don’t want to take away from the magic — but he may have had a certain watch that perfectly reflected the sunlight and made the magic come to life and it was really special because I would look for fairies and I would name them,” Bindi said.
“Dad made sure the magic was alive,” she added. It sounds so special, and we love how he did this little thing with his daughter that are now memories she will always cherish.
Bindi told SheKnows in September that some of her “best memories” as a kid were playing with her family. “It was so incredibly special that [my parents] always set aside time to just have fun,” she said. Bindi went on, “I was always running around in the creek or running around with animals or climbing a tree. … I feel very, very blessed that I got that time with my family to run around as a wild child. And it was so much fun! It’s so much fun to have parents that just jump in with you and go.”
“I think my dad was a very good example,” she continued. “What you saw on television was really him. He just had this hurricane-like energy; he would always just pick us up and off we’d go on an adventure together. And it was the very best.”
Now that Bindi is a mom herself to 3-year-old daughter Grace Warrior, she is passing down her own love of wildlife. She told SheKnows last week that Grace’s “thing” is animals. “She likes to become an expert on animals,” she said. “So her new thing is facts. So, she’ll say something like, ‘Koalas eat eucalyptus. That’s a fact.’ And it’s so cute, ‘cause it’s like, you know what? You can’t teach that. That is just who she is.”
In the interview with ET, Bindi shared, “Grace finds everything extraordinary, and I think that’s so special.”
“That’s a great way of putting it, magic in the ordinary! Wow!” her brother Robert, 20, said.
Their mom Terri Irwin chimed in, “And, see, your dad never lost that. He stayed three years old for his whole life, and that was his secret to success. So, may we all be like Grace and marvel at everything always.”
Before you go, click here to see Bindi Irwin’s sweetest mommy milestones!