In an attempt to counter criticism that deceased Croc Hunter Steve Irwin's young daughter is being pushed into showbiz and not being allowed a normal childhood, Irwin family manager John Stainton on Tuesday said 8-year-old Bindi Irwin likes doing what she does and is not forced into doing anything that she doesn't want to. Irwin died in September last year at the age of 44 of a stingray barb while filming a documentary underwater.
“My criterion is if Bindi doesn't want to do it that day, if she wants to go to the zoo or the beach, then that's what we're doing. That is the priority; it's what she wants to do. There's no pressure on her to do anything at all,” Stainton asserted in a radio interview. The 8-year-old Australian nature enthusiast will be the star of a 26-episode show called
Bindi, the Jungle Girl, which will run on the Discovery Kids channel.
In addition, she is slated to give a speech at the National Press Club luncheon on January 19 in Washington DC, along with her mother Terri who is under fire for allegedly pushing Bindi into the limelight after her famous husband's death. Irwin's daughter will urge for wildlife conservation in her speech while Terri will relate her husband's experiences, achievements and aspirations in her talk.
During her American tour, Bindi is also slated to promote Australian tourism in Los Angeles and New York under Tourism Australia's 'G'Day USA Week' and is scheduled to make appearances on talk shows like
The David Letterman Show and
The Ellen DeGeneres Show. Also, she will perform stage shows called
Bindi and The Crocmen in collaboration with children's entertainment band The Wiggles for American audiences.
Her itinerary, which critics have panned as too hectic for a child her age, includes a dinner with Australian actor Russell Crowe, actress Naomi Watts and media mogul Rupert Murdoch. But Stainton said Bindi is free to opt out of any of the scheduled events if she chooses to. “If she decides she doesn't want to do the
Letterman Show, which tapes at 5 o'clock in the afternoon, if she's tired or she doesn't want to do it, there's no pressure on her to do anything at all,” he said, but admitted that events where Terri and Bindi have to relive their lives with Irwin are difficult on them.
“This next week, for Terri, is going to be harder than for anyone because there will be a lot of interviews. They tend to dwell back on stuff that's really going to be sensitive. You can't keep reliving it, reliving it without it hurting,” Stainton said.
Even before her first solo TV appearance on
The Rosie O'Donnell Show in 1999, Bindi had appeared several times alongside her father in his shows since she was two. She made it to the cover of an Australian magazine, becoming the youngest cover face for that magazine. Her speech at her father's memorial before a 5,000 strong crowd was watched by as many as 300 million TV viewers globally. It was voted the television moment of the year by an Australian poll.
Meanwhile, Steve Irwin's documentary Ocean's Deadliest, during the filming of which the Croc Hunter was stabbed by the bull ray, will air on Discovery channel on January 21, media reports have said. The footage will not include his death, the only surviving tape of which was turned over to Terri recently.
