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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