Robert Irwin Opens Up About the Emotional Role He Played in Sister Bindi Irwin's Wedding: 'This Isn't My Job'

Robert Irwin is looking back on the complicated emotions he felt while walking his sisterBindi Irwin down the aisle back in 2020.

The Dancing With the Stars champion, 22, was by his sister’s side when she tied the knot with husband Chandler Powell in an intimate ceremony at the Australia Zoo. During an appearance on CNN Podcast’s All There Is with Anderson Cooperon Wednesday (March 11), Robert reflected on how difficult it was knowing that he was taking the place of their father, the late Steve Irwin.

“Isn’t it crazy how that pain can feel, it sounds so weird, but it can feel so good when you’re actually embracing it. When you’re letting it kinda hit ya. Not detrimentally, but you’re letting it in and you’re feeling it,” Robert began.

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He continued, “There have been times in my life where there’s like certain moments that just, it just hits you and you just like, oof. And I know for me like one of those moments was when my sister got married.”

Reflecting on the private ceremony, which took place at the early on in the COVID-19 pandemic, Robert explained that Bindi had always planned on having their father walk her down the aisle, but that changed after his tragic passing in 2006.

“She she got married what four years,  five years ago now, and I walked her down the aisle and I remember feeling like this isn’t my job, this isn’t this isn’t my job…There’s this weird sort of imposter syndrome,” Robert said.

He added, “I almost felt a responsibility. It was like, ‘This is what dad was supposed to be doing. So I got to make the most of it. I got do this for him. I need to enjoy this for him.'”

Robert noted that the night after the ceremony he remembers how he “dumped so much emotion.”

“I was just sitting in my backyard on the ground, just like dumping so much emotions. I think because yeah, there are these little moments that you just go, ‘Oof,'” he concluded.

You can hear all that Robert Irwin had to say below.