In one of the most delightful developments of 2025, Robert Irwin has taken on national treasure status thanks to his star turn on Dancing With The Stars US.
Since the show premiered, Australians and Americans alike have rallied behind the late Steve Irwin’s son in huge numbers, everyone enamoured by his undeniable charm.
Every Wednesday at midday, Aussies crowd around phone screens or laptops at work to watch the 21-year-old conservationist dance with his partner, Witney Carson, on the hit American show.
And if you needed any further proof of just how hard people ride for Bob Irwin, you only needed to tune in this week.
For Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Night, the duo performed a hot Paso Doble to ‘Icky Thump’ by The White Stripes, who are among this year’s inductees.
It was another pretty outstanding dance by Robert who doesn’t have any kind of background as a trained dancer like some other contestants do (Alix Earle, we love and are looking at you).
The judges also showered the pair with compliments. “The thunder from down under has unleashed a grandiose paso doble,” Bruno Tonioli said. “The matador, the cape, was not messing around.”
Derek Hough told Robert, “You didn’t just dominate, you owned this arena!” While Carrie Ann Inaba noted that he was “in the zone at the right moment.”
Even guest judge, Flavor Flav, was an instant fan, calling him“the brand new Fred Astaire”.
And yet, when it came to scoring the dance couple, only Bruno and Flavor Flav gave them 10s. Derek and Carrie Ann, meanwhile, both gave them 9s.
Not a bad score by any means, but fans were outraged.
On an Instagram video of their dance, viewers took to the comments to air their grievances with Derek and Carrie Anne.
“This deserved all 10’s, with CariAnn’s blatant bias, she [should] cut him a break!! It’s time for her to go. Even the audience has taken to booing her ridiculous criticism,” one angry viewer said.
“Where Robert’s 10 at Derek Hough!?” another asked.
“Best dance of the night. Derek is gonna really make me extremely angry if he doesn’t give Robert a 10 next week. Favouritism much?” one commenter remarked.
“Judges gotta get their scoring right,” another said.
“For the love of god stop underscoring Robert!!!!” one exclaimed.
Safe to say, if the judges don’t give Robert and Witney a perfect score next week, they might just riot.
