Robert Irwin just took the DANCING WITH THE STARS: THE NEXT PRO remaining six contestants on an unexpected but not necessarily surprising field trip: the Australia Zoo.
“I wanted to kind of give them a day off to find a bit of inspiration,” Irwin, who won Season 34 of DWTS, told TV Insider. “I found, for me, when I was doing DANCING WITH THE STARS, I was out of my element, out of my comfort zone. What I did to kind of rejuvenate was just find any sort of green space, go on a hike, dive, just do something outdoors. And I wanted to give them that opportunity to spend a day with the koalas and the rhinos and giraffes in a beautiful botanic garden sanctuary that is the Australia Zoo.”
Irwin, who hosts THE NEXT PRO, brought contestants Nina Mayster, Allen Genkin, Erik Linder, Selena Hamilton, Adele Zaikman and AJ Pritchard to the zoo his family runs.
In a video posted on Instagram, Irwin greets the dancers with a snake around his neck. He then brings the group to meet a rhino.
“You can see the [rhino’s] undeniable power. He could be explosive, but he chooses not to be,” Irwin explained. “In a ‘wow’ moment, it’s easy to just go crazy, but you’ve still gotta have that real control and presence.”
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Irwin described the experience as “so special” and said that Mayster “had this out-of-body experience seeing a koala for the first time.”
“To watch that connection, to watch her face just light up, reminds me this is why I do what I do. It’s to give people that beautiful, heartwarming experience,” he added.
What Irwin does at the zoo and what the dancers do on the show, he said, are one in the same.
“[Dancers] are giving us this incredible artistic expression through passion and the love for the craft, and I get to do the same thing, but through nature and wildlife,” he told TV Insider. “It was very special. Dance and wildlife conservation couldn’t be more separate, but the people involved in these two walks of life are identical. It’s exactly the same. It’s passionate people that give everything to try and bring others on a journey. There are so many similarities, it’s really quite strange, actually.”
By trading the dance floor for the wild, Irwin reminded THE NEXT PRO contestants that passion, control and heart look the same whether you’re taming a rhino or nailing a routine.
THE NEXT PRO airs Mondays at 8/7c on ABC.
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