Robert Irwin: Finding Strength in the Vulnerability of Grief

Robert Irwin was just two when his dad, “Crocodile Hunter” Steve Irwin, died. Now 22, Robert talks with Anderson about growing up with grief and how he's able to still "feel" his dad. For more of “All There Is with Anderson Cooper” visit cnn.com/allthereis. Host: Anderson Cooper Showrunner: Haley Thomas Producers: Chuck Hadad, Grace Walker, Emily Williams, Madeleine Thompson Associate Producer: Kyra Dahring Video Editor: Eric Zembrzuski Technical Director: Dan Dzula Bookers: Kerry Rubin and Kari Pricher Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:01Anderson Cooper?

  Welcome to All There Is. Wherever you are in the world, or in your grief, I'm glad you're here. I'm glad we're together. Today, my guest is Robert Irwin. You may remember him from Dancing With The Stars last year, or remember his dad, Steve Irwin, the crocodile hunter. Robert was just two when Steve was killed by a stingray while diving. I've been thinking a lot about kids and loss, and how the death of a parent early on can completely change the trajectory of one's life. It certainly did with me. And I worry at times about not making it to see my two little boys grow up to be men. I think I will, but I like to talk to them a lot about how, even though my dad died when I was 10, I feel him in my heart now,

• 0:44Anderson Cooper?

  and how I believe he's with me and with them, and happy to see them growing up. I was really moved by an Instagram post I saw this week from James Van Der Beek's daughter Amelia. She's just nine years old, and her dad died last month on February 11.

• 1:01Speaker 01

  Today is my dad's birthday, and

• 1:08Speaker 01

  the number one thing for somebody's passing is to talk to them, and let your emotions out. If you miss them, you can cry. You can talk to them. I talk to my dad every day. And I start with a sentence, and I say, "Hi Dad, I miss you, and I love you so much, and I'll never stop loving you." And I just tell him about my day, how I'm feeling, and I tell my family how I'm feeling. And I know he can hear me, but I can't hear him. My mom can.

• 1:54Speaker 01

  And you just, you have to feel them in your heart because they're in your heart. They're watching over you.

• 2:01Anderson Cooper?

  There's no way when I was that age, I could have said something like that so soon after my dad's death. Years before, my childhood nanny, May McLinden, died after suffering from Alzheimer's. She told me about something I said to her just days after my dad's funeral when I was 10. I was hugging her and I said, "Don't worry, May. Everything will be all right." She started to cry when she was telling me this story. "You didn't understand," she told me. "It wouldn't be all right. Nothing would be ever again." And she was right. In a moment, my conversation with Robert Irwin.

• 2:38Speaker 02

  Every day, animals across the country face abuse and neglect. And every day, the ASPCA shows up to rescue animals in crisis. But they can't do it alone. Visit aspc.org/need. Become a donor today to provide the care and shelter these animals urgently need. And for a limited time, the ASPCA will send you a free gift as a special thank you. Visit aspc.org/need.

• 3:09Anderson Cooper?

  My conversation today is with Robert Irwin. He's a conservationist, a photographer, and he helps his family manage the Australia Zoo, which is where he lives in Queensland. He's 22 years old and is probably best known in the US for winning Dancing with the Stars last year. Robert grew up in the public eye. His dad, Steve Irwin, was known around the world as the Crocodile Hunter. He was killed in 2006 by a stingray while diving for a documentary. I spoke with Robert a couple of weeks ago. You were two years old when, when your dad died. I assume you don't have, or do you? Do you have any kind of sense memories of him?

• 3:49Speaker 03

  It's an interesting thing. To me, my dad is almost more of a, a feeling than a memory, if that makes sense. Like, the memories that I have of him are so incredibly vague, but they're there. And I, I think... One of the greatest gifts in my life is the fact that my entire existence and my childhood growing up with dad was all captured on camera. I mean, it is all there. And I mean, you you watch dad for two seconds and you get a pretty good picture of the sort of passionate individual that he was. And my mum tells the story of when she was in labour, like getting ready to give birth to me, right? And my dad was filming a documentary at the time, gets

• 4:34Speaker 03

  the call, absolutely races over there with the entire camera crew and films in the room, like while I'm being born. So I literally have that footage.

• 4:45Anderson Cooper?

  I watched that.

• 4:46Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 4:46Anderson Cooper?

  I actually watched it online. And what a blessing to have video of the moment your dad first lays eyes on you.

• 4:56Speaker 03

  Isn't it amazing thing how that can just spark that? I mean, for me, it'll be certain moments that I will see on on on camera. There's footage of my dad putting a coat on me, right? Putting like an overcoat that had a picture of a moose on it. And I don't know what it was, but I'm watching this video. I was about two years old in the video. And I just see the picture of the moose and and him putting the jacket on. And it still just hits me. I'm just like, whoa, I remember that. I don't know what it is. It's that little moose jacket. For some reason, that moment in time just all of a sudden comes flooding back. And I'm just hit with this like, that's what he felt like. I remember feeling warm. I remember feeling protected. And I remember just feeling like, that's what he felt like

• 5:40Speaker 03

  to me. I just saw a piece of footage of him when he was around my age. He was in his kind of mid twenties. And that was very surreal to me, seeing him speaking at my age and going, wow, I'm I'm sort of stepping through life now, uh, in a similar way that he did. And it's, yeah, it's powerful. It really is.

• 6:02Anderson Cooper?

  One of the early discoveries I had from somebody on this podcast was that you can still have a relationship with somebody who has died.

• 6:08Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 6:09Anderson Cooper?

  And that relationship can change over time.

• 6:11Speaker 03

  Yeah, and that's I I do feel that. And that was, like, for me, growing up, my greatest fear, and it still is my greatest fear, is

• 6:22Speaker 03

  Is forgetting what he feels like or what he felt like. And that was something that that would for a long time, really, really keep me up at night. But I I think one of the greatest sort of saving graces in keeping him alive, I guess, in my life is my mum. I mean, she is, I think, the reason why I have such a clear picture of the person that that he was. I have all of that footage, all of these photos that I can pull from, which I'm so grateful to have that resource. But also my mum to tell stories and to spark those memories and to keep him alive. Like when we were young, growing up, you know, my my mum and dad created this this legacy of conservation. I mean, my dad was the most passionate human being on the planet.

• 7:07Speaker 03

  And it's it's hard not to, I mean, you you remember someone who is living life and a hundred and ten percent. He was so devoted as a father that you can't not remember that. I mean, that's just sort of inbuilt. I feel like that's his passion is factory settings. But it was my mum that not only carried on this legacy that he created that then fell apart the instant that he passed away. She picked up all the pieces and carried on his work, all of the conservation work that we do. But also she kept him alive in our household. I remember one thing that we would do almost every morning. And I I would wake up and I'd go, I want to see a daddy doco.

• 7:46Speaker 03

  So mum would put on a documentary of my dad, you know, in some far flung wild region of the world, doing what he did best. And almost every morning from the age of about three to maybe, maybe eight or nine, I would just sit there and I'd watch him. And dad was and is my hero, absolutely. I feel closest to him when I'm continuing what he loved, when I'm talking about wildlife, when I'm in there, you know, feeding the same crocodiles that he rescued from the wild that were going to be poached or or hunted. And and he would save them and give them a second chance at Australia Zoo. And now I get to go in there and feed them. And it's it's that is what keeps me closest to him is when I'm keeping his work going.

• 8:30Anderson Cooper?

  It's interesting because he actually spoke about that in in a video. And he talks about the idea of you and your Citric continuing on his work. Let's play that.

• 8:39Speaker 04

  Is there anything in this world that would want to make me give away what I'm doing now?

• 8:47Speaker 04

  Yes, yes, there is. When my children can take the football that I call wildlife conservation and run it up. When they're ready to run up our mission, I will gladly step aside. And I guarantee you it'll be the proudest moment of my life and my job will be done. Then and only then will I know that I have achieved my ultimate goal. To be able to stand aside and let them run up my mission.

• 9:21Speaker 03

  Yeah, that's. I remember the first time I saw that video, I'd still, I'd still, um.

• 9:29Speaker 03

  Yeah, it's still, it's still heavy to watch that. But I remember the first time I saw it and, and I went. Wow, like my, my dad created this, this roadmap. That I feel like I kind of get to, to follow and every year I feel like I understand him more. And when I watch that, I just go, wow, that is, that's why I'm here. That's the honor of my, of my lifetime is to continue that work. But it's hard to put that into words when you watch something like that. When you're literally watching someone who you've lost, like looking at you through the screen saying, I believe in you to keep this going. I believe in you to keep this message alive.

• 10:14Speaker 03

  And I saw that video a few years ago for the first time. And I was like, wow, okay, I'm, I'm on the right track, you know, this is what I meant to be doing.

• 10:21Anderson Cooper?

  You were growing up without a dad. He was obviously a very big presence in everything around you, the videos you watch. But, but did you feel the absence of him?

• 10:33Speaker 03

  Uh, completely and totally. I absolutely did. I, I feel like growing up without that father figure is very hard. And, and I, I, growing up, I never really. There was nobody really that that that took that role, you know, I I know a lot of people that have lost, you know, that sort of figure very early on and and kind of family members and whatnot can kind of fill that sort of role. But I feel like that was my mum to me, like she kept our family together one hundred percent for my sister and I. But growing up, you know, it was comforting the fact that I had his presence around, that

• 11:13Speaker 03

  I could that I could see him in in videos and and pictures and I could, when I walk around, you know, our our place here at Australia Zoo, when I'm in the place that he built. I mean, some of my early memories were of a morning, we would go around and do the park checks and I would go around on his motorbike. I'd sit on the front of the handlebars, we'd go and get an ice cream and we'd go and do the morning park checks. So being here in the place that he built, it's like I I feel him so completely, but it's impossible not to feel that that equal sense of emptiness of of him not being here.

• 11:53Speaker 03

  I I remember my my sister got married here and, you know, her grief journey is very different to mine because I don't have many memories of dad. My my struggle is the fear of kind of losing those memories of him. My sister has so many memories with him and that's hard because she had more time and it's almost like that grief is processed differently because, you know, they my my dad and my sister were so incredibly tight.

• 12:20Anderson Cooper?

  Is it more tinged with sadness for her, do you think?

• 12:23Speaker 03

  I think so. I think it stings more.

• 12:26Anderson Cooper?

  Because she knows what she's missing.

• 12:28Speaker 03

  Yes, I think it almost stings more. I think it's, for me, it's like a blanket that's suffocating me. For her, it's more of a stab. Do you know what I mean? It's like it's kind of a crazy way of putting it, but but, you know, it's I think it's it's processed differently.

• 12:42Anderson Cooper?

  Was there a time as a kid, my mum had

• 12:47Anderson Cooper?

  Difficulties talking about my dad and and sort of my mom didn't have much experience being a parent. She didn't have much of a childhood herself and parents, but she would with the time she would occasionally try to talk about my dad. I was it hurt me so much that he wasn't there and I felt the loss so keenly. I could not even speak about him. I would just try to I would shut down. She would try to tell a story. I would kind of politely listen, but I just wanted her to stop. Were you able to obviously you're watching videos as a kid. Were you able to talk about him, ask about him without a hitch in your voice?

• 13:25Speaker 03

  I kind of wanted to know everything about my dad. I remember being really, really young. I remember like kind of the first, I guess, link for me realizing that he wasn't around was his motorbike. He would always get around on his motorcycle, right? All the time. And I remember every day I would wherever I was, you know, in in the zoo or whatever I was doing, I would hear the motorbike and I'd be like, that's him. And I remember like when that all stopped, you know, I remember you didn't hear the ring of the motorbike around Australia Zoo anymore. And I remember being so confused. When I was about three to four, I spent almost a year having no idea how to fix a motorcycle. Every day with dad's tools at his motorbike,

• 14:09Speaker 03

  trying to fix his motorbike, going, I need to get this thing running again, so that he can come and start riding it again. Like, what's going on, you know? And that, I think, was I I remember my mom, how she would explain things very delicately as to as to why fixing that motorbike wasn't gonna change anything. But she did so in a way with such care that that that meant a lot to me. And I never realized, you know, you don't get it until you're older that she's going, obviously, through her own incredibly powerful grief journey. But she was always very open and and would share stories. And I needed that. I think as a kid, I needed to feel that closeness with him, because I felt like that

• 14:54Speaker 03

  was missing. And for me, I craved every new story I got about him. I I craved just more and more of an understanding of of who he was as I grew up. And then, you know, There were those sort of times when you're a teenager, when you're a, when you're a young boy and you're kind of becoming a man and that, that's very difficult to navigate without, without dad around. And my mum was unbelievable in that, in that period of time, unbelievable. Some of the stories that she would share, it was very hard for her to share and very hard for her to talk about. But I always loved that she embraced that. And she would

• 15:37Speaker 03

  always tell me, growing up, there is so much power and so much strength in vulnerability. And there is so much strength in letting yourself feel it and sit in it. It's, it's, it's not just okay to sit in it. I believe it's necessary to sit in it. And she certainly showed me that. What was your transition between internalizing all of this, if you don't mind me asking?

• 16:03Anderson Cooper?

  Yeah.

• 16:04Speaker 03

  And because a friend of mine described it as like, grief will never go away. It's a shadow that's, that lives in your soul, but eventually it can walk beside you, which is basically saying it won't consume you anymore. Eventually you can live with it, acknowledge it, and have it as part of your life, walking beside you instead of within you. How did you make that transition to embracing it and taking it on board and feeling it and processing it? Cause it sounds like that was hard to do as a kid.

• 16:35Anderson Cooper?

  Yeah, I mean, I'm, I'm 58 and I only started doing it about five, five years ago. So I'm literally kind of taking baby steps into it and learning as I go. But I've recently, you know, been going through letters my dad wrote that friends and family members of his sent to me over the years.

• 16:53Speaker 03

  Isn't it amazing how, how far after you're still discovering things?

• 16:57Anderson Cooper?

  Oh, it's incredible. Yeah.

• 16:58Speaker 03

  Isn't that incredible?

• 16:59Anderson Cooper?

  Yeah, I'm, I'm, I know him. I'm learning all these things about him still and it's, it's great. And to me, what has happened is Andrew Garfield, the actor, was on the podcast and he used a phrase which I'd never heard before, which is the wound is the only route to the gift. And the wound is the grief, the wound is, is the pain of it. I, if you avoid that, you don't get the gift. And the gift is feeling them alive inside you again, feeling them again. And so I've recently, only recently started to get the gift of feeling my dad. And

• 17:34Anderson Cooper?

  It's a beautiful, it's an incredible feeling.

• 17:36Speaker 03

  Isn't it crazy to how, 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. And you, there have been times in my life where there's like cer- certain moments that I, that just, it just hits you and you're just like, boof. And I know for me, like, one of those moments was when I, when my sister got married, cause she always planned on my dad obviously walking her down the aisle. And she, she got married, what, four ye- five years ago now. And, and I walked her down

• 18:16Speaker 03

  the aisle. And I remember feeling like, this isn't my job. This isn't, this isn't my job. Like that, and, and there's this weird sort of imposter syndrome. But I was like, this is, this is, what's, what's going on? But I kinda went, no, no, it's, it's, I, I kind of get to, you know, I almost felt a responsibility. It was like, this is what dad was supposed to be doing. So I gotta make the most of it. I gotta do this for him. I need to enjoy this for him. I remember walking her down the aisle on that night, just being like, like, I, I downloaded, like, I dumped so much emotion. I was just sitting in my backyard on the ground, just like dumping so much emotion. I think because, yeah, that, that there are, there are these little moments that you just go, woof. I'm a very sentimental

• 19:01Speaker 03

  person. And my dad was like, he was kinda like Indiana Jones, right? When you walked into his office, it was like a museum. I mean, he's got like, Maasai spears on the wall, and he's got like swords from, like, like, he, like.

• 19:18Anderson Cooper?

  It's exactly what you would imagine his office to be.

• 19:21Speaker 03

  Literally, his office was like Indiana Jones. And I remember, I would often, and my mum was great about this. It was kinda locked up the other side of, you know, but she would go, no, go in there. It was a big office. And I would sometimes, you know, just walk in and everything was left pristine, exactly the same, right? Nothing was touched. And sometimes I would just walk in and I felt like I was in like, I don't know, like sacred ground. Don't touch anything. Don't breathe on anything. And I would kinda just look, just, just on my own to just sort of get, I don't know, feel him again. And then one day I went, you know what? I don't think he's gonna mind. So I started taking stuff. I went in and there's all of his shirts on the,

• 20:04Speaker 03

  you know, on the, on a rack that he used to wear, all his car key shirts. I looked at that and I went, I wonder if that fits me. So I popped it in the wash. I put it on. I'm like, yep, that fits. And I'm like, great, I'm gonna start wearing his shirts. He's got, uh, he had a, he had a watch on the, on the table that was sitting there, always told the same time. And I went, I'm gonna get that thing working again and got it working and started wearing it. And I went, you know what? Like, what's stopping me from doing that? And now it's like this really powerful thing. It's like, almost like it was, that was like this stepping off point to be like, he's this almost like untouchable part of my life that is like held stale in time.

• 20:44Speaker 03

  But then I kinda went, no, no, no, no, I can, I can embrace that. I can bring that in, into my world. So that was kind of really, that was really powerful to me. It was.

• 20:55Anderson Cooper?

  Yeah, I understand that.

• 20:56Speaker 03

  Do you know what I'm, you know what I mean?

• 20:58Anderson Cooper?

  Yeah, and it also gives new life to these, these things which become, you know, draped in memory and maybe sadness and, and, you know, are frozen in time, as you say, and it, it brings them alive again.

• 21:13Speaker 03

  Brings them alive again.

• 21:14Anderson Cooper?

  Alive in a way.

• 21:15Speaker 03

  His, his, his watch was actually a very interesting story. When my dad passed, he was on a shoot with a man by the name of Philippe Cousteau. The Cousteaus, of course, an incredible, an incredible family, an incredible conservation legacy in their own right. Uh, and when he was on that shoot and, you know, everything happened, Philippe got dad's watch and through various channels managed to get that watch back to us. And I think that was important for him because I, I, I think there was a certain connection that, that he had to his dad through, through a watch that, that he wore. And so he had sort of a similar kind of story and he thought, well, this is important that

• 22:01Speaker 03

  something of his ends up back with, with the family. And that was just sort of locked away in a safe for a long time and in his office. And I dug the watch out, I cleaned it up, I fully restored it and I started wearing it again. And it was, it was wonderful, right?

• 22:20Speaker 03

  Well, a couple of months later, I was in L A for an annual gala. I'd just turned eighteen, I think. And I went, I wanna kind of symbolize this moment. I'm gonna go out and I'm gonna get my own watch. I'm gonna go and I'm get a diving watch that's really nice. I'd saved up for a long time and I'm gonna, I'm gonna get this. I went and I bought that watch. I walked out of the store and I felt so proud. And I went into the grocery store to just, I don't know, get a glass, get, get a bottle of water or something. And in the line is Philippe. He's in the line at the grocery store.

• 22:57Anderson Cooper?

  What? Wow.

• 22:59Speaker 03

  The day I bought this watch.

• 23:02Anderson Cooper?

  By the way, in L A, you don't meet other humans you know in the grocery. You don't meet humans, people in cars.

• 23:07Speaker 03

  No, you don't, exactly. And I'm in the line and I look up and he looks at me and, and he just goes, woof. And, cause I hadn't seen, I don't think he'd seen any of our family since that had happened. And I just, I looked like I'd seen a ghost and I'm like, whoa. And, and we just got to talking after that about, about everything. And I think he was what wearing, what I think was his, his dad's watch. And I'm, I'm wearing this watch that I just got and I, I sort of tell him that story. And, and it was a powerful thing, like, but that's just so dad. I mean, my dad is just like, he lived such a full and incredible life that like there are still all of these amazing things I'm discovering

• 23:51Speaker 03

  and these, these epiphanies that I'm having because of him. You don't wanna get too caught up in material possessions, but all of a sudden, when you lose someone, material possessions become really important, like really important. Not for what they are, but what they represent.

• 24:08Anderson Cooper?

  There's actually a video from TikTok, I think, that you made about one of your dad's shirts.

• 24:13Speaker 03

  Yeah. G'day, it's Robert. Every show day on Dancing with the Stars, I have two good luck charms that I bring with me. And I wanted to share it with you. And these two things are a way to keep me close to home and to what's most important to me. This ring and this shirt. So I wanted to start with the shirt. This is my dad's shirt. I was going through his stuff and I found this shirt. It's absolutely tattered and had holes and all sorts in it and missing buttons. So I went and got it all fixed up, new buttons attached, everything all patched back up again and all the holes repaired. Kind of got it back up to scratch and I like that it still looks and feels like him. I mean, each one of the tears and the holes and the missing buttons tells another story.

• 24:58Anderson Cooper?

  I love that you found this shirt and you basically had it patched back up.

• 25:02Speaker 03

  Yep.

• 25:03Anderson Cooper?

  And, and was that the shirt you were talking about?

• 25:06Speaker 03

  Yeah, that, that, that was it. I had it all completely. It was in ruins, you know, and but I love that everything told a story. When I took it in, they were like, oh, we can patch it up so it looks brand new. I'm like, no, no, no, no. I want it to look how it did. Just stitch it all back up again because each tear was like legit. That was a crocodile. That was saving a koala. That was, you know, when he was in East Timor, you know, like it was all something.

• 25:27Anderson Cooper?

  And you know the stories of, of the tears.

• 25:29Speaker 03

  Exactly, exactly. And I was like, okay, this is like, I'm putting on a piece of heritage. But it was funny because I actually found that right before I went to do Dancing with the Stars, which was an absolute leap out of anything close to what I had done. I mean, it's a far cry from being out in the Australian bush, you know? And I wanted something that kept me.

• 25:50Anderson Cooper?

  You pretty much kicked ass on it, as I recall.

• 25:51Speaker 03

  Oh, thank you, mate. Thank you very much. It was the lucky shirt. I was like, I need something that keeps me up close to home. So there were two things. It was that shirt that I would wear to every show day, every rehearsal. The other thing I had was a, a ring that I wore that was, I, I found the, the keys to my original childhood home that we all lived in. My dad set a keys. I got them melted down and put them into a ring uh with, with one, six, three, eight etched on it. One, six, three, eight is that, one, six, three, eight Stevo and Wade. That's where, that's where we live. That's the zoo. And so I had that etched on my finger, on my ring. And like, those were just two ways to kind of keep me close, but I find that very important. Those little things that keep you close to them.

• 26:33Anderson Cooper?

  We're going to take a break. We'll have more of Robert Irwin.

• 26:36Speaker 02

  Before we get into the show, here's something worth your time. Every day, animals across the country face abuse, neglect and cruelty. And every day, the ASPCA shows up.

• 26:50Speaker 02

  They rescue animals in crisis and provide lifesaving medical care. They help animals recover and they give them the second chance they deserve. But they can't do it alone. Every rescue, every medical treatment, every safe place to heal depends on people who choose to help. If you'd like to be part of that work, visit aspc.org/need. Become a monthly donor today and you'll help support these lifesaving rescue efforts and provide the care, shelter, and love these animals urgently need. And for a limited time, the ASPCA will send you a free gift as a special thank you. Again, that's aspc.org/need.

• 27:37Speaker 05

  I'm Dr. Sanjay Gupta, host of the Chasing Life podcast. We're going to talk about rethinking how we die. How we think about death in the first place greatly informs how we live. Our guest is Dr. B.J. Miller. He's a hospice and palliative care physician.

• 27:55Speaker 06

  We are aging as a people. This is a worldwide phenomenon that we are aging and therefore getting closer to the end of life on some level as a group. It's not at all surprising that you'll see a revving up of interest, services, and also sort of anxiety that pushes us away from the subject and makes us cling to life.

• 28:15Speaker 05

  Listen to Chasing Life, streaming now, wherever you get your podcasts.

• 28:22Anderson Cooper?

  In a moment.

• 28:26Anderson Cooper?

  Welcome back to more of my conversation with Robert Irwin. It's nice to me that you can speak about him kind of without really a hitch in your voice. He seems to be for you this energy source as opposed to something which is hobbling you.

• 28:44Speaker 03

  He's a good feeling. He's a feeling I want to have around. I, and to honestly, I think the journey that I went on, on Dancing with the Stars, which was, sounds so completely weird that that would be the journey that does it, but that was sort of the first time I'd ever properly sat in it and really embraced.

• 29:08Speaker 03

  Grief and ended up kind of going through a bit of a grief journey quite publicly on the show. And it was very strange, but that was like this catalyst to, you know, we did a couple of dances that were sort of paying homage to to dad and to a story of grief and a story of gratitude to my mum for how she helped me navigate this. And it was the first time I'd ever like properly kind of bared my soul to everybody. And it gave me this new sense of confidence because I was willing to be really vulnerable about it. I had kind of allowed myself to really sit in it. I cried a lot during that period. And it's like now, really only in the last few months, I can, I can talk with this sense of, there's

• 29:50Speaker 03

  like, there's no fear, because I'm like, I know that if I talk about it a lot and I, you know, I get done with this chat and I'm like, oh, feeling low. It's like, you know what, it's okay. I can cry it out. I can acknowledge it. I can talk to people about it. I can, it's fine. It's okay. That's, and everybody's going through that. So it's almost, it gives you this newfound sense of confidence to talk about it and this ability to talk about it. And yeah, dad to me feels like he feels warm. When I think about him, it's warm. It didn't used to be, but it feels good. It feels something that I, that I want to be there. And I feel like I've kind of repaired a lot of the pieces that were, that

• 30:33Speaker 03

  were bringing me down. Figuratively and literally, I just restored his motorbike. You know, the, the one that I was talking about when I was a little kid that I was just sort of obsessed with.

• 30:46Anderson Cooper?

  You just restored it?

• 30:47Speaker 03

  It sat in the shed for ages, a long, long, long time. And one day I just woke up and went, screw it. I'm gonna, I'm gonna get it running again. And it was a big restoration process. And now it's running again. And now that's how I get around Australia, is how, how he did on his motorbike. And I just went, you know what, I'm gonna embrace it. Instead of going, every time I looked at that motorcycle, it was just like.

• 31:12Speaker 03

  It was horrible. I just looked at it and I almost had like disdain for this inanimate object because that was like, that was my, as a young toddler, that was like my conduit to him. That was my connection to him. Cause I remember I'd always hear the motorcycle first and then I would see him. It was like this, so I'd look at that motorbike and I'd just go, screw you. You know what I mean? Like, I don't know. There was like this animosity. And then I fixed it up and started riding it. I ride it every single day. And now it's t- when I get on that motorbike, I'm like, hell yeah. I'm like, yep, sweet. Hell yeah. I, I hear that engine running and I'm like, send it. I put it in the top gear and I'm like, and it's almost like this way to be like, screw you. It's fine. I got this, man. I got this.

• 31:57Anderson Cooper?

  Is there something you've learned in your grief that would be helpful for others?

• 32:01Speaker 03

  I think the strength in vulnerability is so important. And that's like this epiphany that I've had in, in the last kind of six months. Um.

• 32:14Speaker 03

  And it's, and it's so, it's so simple. And I think it's what, what, what everybody says, but you, but when you really actually feel it and allow yourself to feel that, i- it's different. Like, I remember my whole life, I kept my dad a- a- alive in my life, thanks to my family. I had this footage. I had, I talked about him a lot. I felt like I'm doing all right. But last year, I sort of addressed the fact of like, am I doing all right? Or am I just convincing myself so hard that I'm doing all right? Is that what's happening? And I didn't realise until I really drilled down into it, that there was an extra little chamber in there that hadn't been unlocked yet, that I had to unlock. And I'd

• 32:58Speaker 03

  never really let myself fully sit in it. And I sort of had this epiphany that I'd never really properly said thank you to, to my mum for how she had gotten us through this time. And so I started like, looking at grief through the lens of gratitude for the people around me that helped me through. And also sort of acknowledging.

• 33:25Speaker 03

  Within myself that it was okay, I'd never really processed it and I'd never really drilled into it. And when I started looking at it through that lens of wow, like, thanks, thanks mum and I'm really sorry what you had to go through. And, and we had some conversations last year that were really, really hard, that were really raw and were really, um,

• 33:53Speaker 03

  very emotional. And that helped a lot and I think

• 33:58Speaker 03

  we don't always have someone to lean on in grief. We don't. Sometimes we have to be that person, you know, and I, I think the most important thing is to really have kindness in, in yourself to first and foremost realise your grief journey is completely incomparable. You cannot compare it to anybody else. As long as it's not harming yourself or anyone around you, that is the right grief journey. And allow yourself to sit in it, allow yourself to, to, to, to be there. And yeah, you, you have to fully and one hundred percent embrace it. But for me, completely embracing grief was actually, um,

• 34:39Speaker 03

  yeah, really trying to, to say thank you to my mum. And, and I, it's, it's such a weird thing. I, I don't know why this was such a pivotal, pivotal moment. But it's the truth. The moment that kind of like shifted things for me was on Dancing with the Stars, I did this dance that was a contemporary routine to a song by Phil Collins. That was basically like the physical representation of how my mum pulled me out of some pretty dark spots. And it was a dance that I did with my dance partner, Whitney.

• 35:23Speaker 03

  And then at the end, my mum came in and we had like this, you know, really, really nice moment there at the end. And it was the hardest dance we did. It was so completely physically exhausting. I had an injury at the time. It was, oh, it was a hell of an effort to get through. And then that moment of mum coming out on stage, we sort of had this hug. And then that night, it was my sister, my mum and I were all sitting around the dining room table and we just sort of like, we just grief dumped. And that was like this pivotal moment where it was like, okay, the bit that I was missing was saying thank you to the person that got me through grief. That was the bit that was missing. So my message would be,

• 36:03Speaker 03

  don't expect to have it figured out. Don't expect to know, sometimes you don't even know yourself what you need to fully process it. But you really owe it to yourself to, to, to think about it, to let it consume you, but to sit in it, to acknowledge it, to let in the people around you that want to help, but to realise that this is an individual journey that only you can take.

• 36:28Anderson Cooper?

  Do you talk to your dad?

• 36:32Speaker 03

  Yeah, there are, um.

• 36:39Speaker 03

  There are moments where.

• 36:42Anderson Cooper?

  If it's too personal, it's, it's fine.

• 36:44Speaker 03

  It's fine. It's really not. There are moments where

• 36:49Speaker 03

  I'll, I'll sit and it's, I'm always closest to dad when I'm in, in the middle of nowhere, you know, when I'm out in the bush. And there are absolutely moments where I'll, I'll be hit with this sense of it's, it's warmth. It's like something kind of wraps around me.

• 37:09Speaker 03

  And I will absolutely sit and just.

• 37:14Speaker 03

  And just say, how do I?

• 37:18Speaker 03

  How like, how do I go forward? You know, how, how do you?

• 37:23Speaker 03

  How do you move forward? Particularly for me, as a, as a young guy and in the public eye, going through all of the motions that we go through,

• 37:36Speaker 03

  being scrutinized so much. And my dad always being this constant thread in my life and people always talking about him. Sometimes one of the nicest things is to just sit.

• 37:51Speaker 03

  It, for me, it's in nature. And I just kind of let.

• 37:56Speaker 03

  I kind of just let it all go. I let it all sort of pour out and it feels like I'm kind of letting him in.

• 38:05Speaker 03

  And sometimes I sit and just go, what's next? How, how, how, how, how do I put one foot in front of the other? And there's no answer. But it almost feels like there's a resolution that comes out of that. Do you know what I mean? And it's like, you need to check in every now and again, there are these checkpoints I find like through life, where you're kind of going through the motions. And then sometimes something will just hit you and you need to just step away. You need to kind of just download and you need to let loose and you need to go, okay, I need to refocus. And, and, you know, on what, what is my grief journey? I don't know, it's, it's.

• 38:46Speaker 03

  There are, there are moments that I have found that feel like he's trying to say something.

• 38:53Speaker 03

  This is a moment that is very.

• 38:57Speaker 03

  It was one of the most beautiful things and it was really special. It's a, it's a, I'll try and make it, long story short. We do a crocodile research expedition in Northern Australia, right? Where we catch, tag and release crocodiles, which is all in the name of crocodile conservation to figure out their movements, their behaviors, and how we can better protect them. And this is something that my dad started about. Twenty, twenty-five years ago, there's about thirty people involved to capture a crocodile. When you're talking about a crocodile that's sixteen feet long, it is an absolute military precision exercise to catch and release a crocodile, right? This thing is a dinosaur. And it was my first time doing what's called the team lead of a capture.

• 39:39Speaker 03

  And to be team leader on a research expedition is a very, very, very big deal. It's like a rite of passage. I'm nervous, my heart is pounding. We do the capture and this bloke put me through it. He's death rolling, head shaking, a couple of really close calls on my behalf. We go to attach all of the satellite trackers, right? This, this satellite tracker that just sits here.

• 40:04Speaker 03

  And, and Toby goes to my mum, he's like, Terry, this crocodile's gotten a tracking device before.

• 40:11Speaker 03

  And we're like, that's, that's impossible. We've never, we've never caught this croc. Yeah, we put a little, a little microchip in them so that we can see if we've caught them before. No microchip. We've never caught this crocodile. He's not in any of the records. And while I'm sitting there laying on this crocodile, we, we, there's this very distinct marking in one of his scales. And I just had this like little epiphany. I went, hang on a minute. Let, let, let me check this photo. And there was this old, old photo that I remember of my dad with a giant crocodile that he'd caught like twenty years ago.

• 40:46Speaker 03

  And I look at the scale and this pattern and then I look at this. And then I look at where the tracker had used to be. And I'm like, yep, that is exactly how we attached it. It was a crocodile that my dad had caught twenty years ago. And the craziest bit is we managed to use like satellite technology to figure it out. And we caught him in the exact same spot that he did on an expedition completely randomly twenty years back. And I'm sitting, I'm laying on this croc and I feel his breath on my face. And I'm looking at this guy and he's looking at me and he's probably thinking, these bloody air ones. And he's like. And I'm like, whoa, I'm I'm one on one with this dinosaur that my dad first experienced.

• 41:29Speaker 03

  And I remember that being like, I felt like that was dad being like, this is your first time leading the team. Like, you're on the right track. Here's here's a little sign. I don't know, it felt like that to me.

• 41:41Anderson Cooper?

  That's awesome. I love that.

• 41:42Speaker 03

  It was cool. It was cool, man. It was really cool.

• 41:45Anderson Cooper?

  I I was thinking, I have a four and a little, almost six year old, and

• 41:49Speaker 03

  That's so cool, man.

• 41:50Anderson Cooper?

  The thing that I'm excited for you to experience is that when you have kids, I think you will experience what I experienced, which is looking at my kids. I came to understand what my dad saw when he looked at my brother and I. And I can't help but think that when you have kids, you will see them through your dad's eyes, just the way your dad looked at you. And you will come to under, not only will you have the joy of the kids, but you will come to understand your dad in a whole new way. Because you will have seen what he saw when he looked at you.

• 42:27Speaker 03

  Gosh, that must be powerful, man.

• 42:31Anderson Cooper?

  It's awesome.

• 42:31Speaker 03

  What is that? What does that feel like? How how do you even put that into words?

• 42:36Anderson Cooper?

  It's another way of feeling your dad, and it's another way of understanding him. Because the way you imagine your dad is that you see him through the eyes of a child, essentially. You see him through the eyes you have watched him on television all growing up. But suddenly, to see your own children through your eyes, as he gave you and your mom gave you, i- is to see him through the eyes of an adult in a different way. So it's something to look forward to.

• 43:04Speaker 03

  I think about that footage of my dad um in the in the room when I was born. And I and he and you you were saying, I think that you'd watched it. And I I watched that only recently for the first time. And he, my dad was like such a tough bloke, but also the most emotional guy in the world. And I remember like that's that's what really hits me is when I see my dad emotional. And in that footage, like he picked me up and he and he.

• 43:36Speaker 03

  Um. And he looked at me and he goes like, he, I think he said,

• 43:43Speaker 03

  I've realised this is what life is, this is what life is about. Like, this is, this is why I'm here, is what he said.

• 43:51Speaker 03

  And I, I, I, I look forward to that greatly because that's, that's all we've got is the people that we love. And

• 44:03Speaker 03

  that's why I feel so deeply that grief is okay to be felt, because it's just the continuation of that love. And, yeah, I, I look at that and I just, I feel so lucky that I, I know and I can quantify

• 44:18Speaker 03

  the love that he felt for me and for my family.

• 44:23Speaker 03

  And I really, really, really look forward to that moment. And I think that it's so healing to talk about it and it's so, so, so wonderful.

• 44:37Speaker 03

  I just feel so blessed that I am in a position where that journey, and I feel like it's the same for you, the grief journey that we're taking, like, nobody's an expert, but that we're kind of figuring out as we go, that we can share that with people. And I, I just, yeah, I, I feel like that's kind of our job. Is we, we have experienced this, we have a platform, and how lucky is it that we get to take people on this journey? And that hopefully we can, we can help unify people through that, because it is so unifying. I always say it's like, it's a crappy club to be in, but there are so many, there are a lot of bonds I have in my life that have kind of been made through grief,

• 45:21Speaker 03

  through shared grief experiences to be like, yeah, that sucks, I feel that, you know, I've been there, you know what I mean? And that is often, it often binds us, it really does.

• 45:32Anderson Cooper?

  I, I mean, I say that all the time, which is, it is the most universal of human experiences and it, it feels so lonely and yet. It is and should be a bond.

• 45:44Speaker 03

  Exactly.

• 45:44Anderson Cooper?

  It's a bond that everybody, every person on the planet shares or will share at some point in their life and connects us with every person that has ever lived, because every person who's ever lived has experienced loss and experienced grief. Robert, it's really a, really a pleasure to talk to you. I wish you well.

• 46:03Speaker 03

  Been a great pleasure. Thank you.

• 46:07Anderson Cooper?

  Talking with Robert, I was really impressed with his ability to speak about his dad and how he's learned to live with his dad's memory, but not in his shadow. At 22, there's no way I could have spoken about grief in the way that he does, and I'm really happy that he's so willing to talk about his experiences in a way that I think can really help others. Coming up on the podcast, we're going to bring you a conversation with the Grammy-winning singer and songwriter and actress, Sarah Bareilles. She's been working on all new music that she says is inspired by grief, including a song that she wrote inspired by a conversation that Stephen Colbert and I had on this podcast. You wrote a song based on a particular episode with Stephen Colbert?

• 46:46Speaker 07

  Yes. I was walking around, I live in Brooklyn, I was walking around listening to the podcast, and I was so moved by the story Stephen shared about losing his father and his brother.

• 46:58Anderson Cooper?

  Yeah, Stephen's father and his two brothers, Peter and Paul, were killed in an Eastern Airlines plane crash when Stephen was 10 years old.

• 47:05Speaker 07

  Your connection in that conversation was just, I found it to be really, just really inspiring, and I came home and started writing a song about it. And then I was on a television show at the time called Girls 5 Eva, and our creator, showrunner is Meredith Scardino, who was the head writer at Stephen's show. And so I sent it to Meredith and I was like, is this weird? I wrote a song kind of about Stephen Colbert's, you know, experience as a child. Is it weird to send it to him? I have no idea. And she did, and she sent it to him, and we had this really beautiful exchange, and now I get to share that with you, and it's your story woven in there as well. And just this idea that, you know, you share your stories, if we just can continue to

• 47:47Speaker 07

  be brave enough to share the stories that we, that we've lived through, the connection, you know, is, is a part of the medicine.

• 47:55Anderson Cooper?

  I do think it's the only thing that really helps.

• 47:59Speaker 07

  100%.

• 47:59Anderson Cooper?

  At least for me, it's the only thing that truly helps. The podcast episode with Sarah Borealis will be out soon. Later this week, on Thursday, March 12th, I hope you join me at 9:15 PM for my live streaming show, All There Is Live. You can join, you can chat with others who are watching on our grief community page during the program. One of my guests on the program this week is a podcast listener, Jamie Woden. He was a writer on the TV show Golden Girls, and he talks about the sudden death of his husband, Nick, and also witnessing the physician-assisted death of one of his closest friends.

• 48:31Speaker 03

  We all got on the bed with her, and just as we got on the bed, Elton John's Tiny Dancer started playing. And just when it got to the chorus, "Hold me close," all of us started singing automatically. We did, we did, we were just, "Hold me close, you tiny dancer," and she was gone. And Anderson, I'm telling you now, that was the bravest decision I've ever seen anyone make and stick to. I'm in awe of what Nancy Lee Myatt did.

• 49:05Anderson Cooper?

  To watch, just go to CNN.com/AllThereIs, Thursday night, March 12th at 9:15 PM. And if you missed the live stream, it'll be posted the following day for a week on that site. Also, if there's something you've learned in your grief that you think would be helpful for others, leave us a voicemail at 404-827-1805. You can also send us a video message, email it to us at [email protected], or send it to us on Instagram at AllThereIs. Thanks so much for listening. Wherever you are in the world or in your grief, you're not alone.

• 49:38Speaker 03

  Get ready for election night. CNN is available to stream live now with an All Access subscription. Plus, get exclusive content and interactive Q and As with CNN's journalists. Subscribe now. Visit CNN.com/AllAccess. I'm Audie Cornish. I'm Ari Shapiro, and it's engagement party. It is engagement party. And we get to talk about what we're obsessed with, what we're engaged with, what we need to process with a friend. Rick Steves, what a legend. Rick, as somebody who has... Has traveled the world for many years. Do you notice cities looking more and more similar?

• 50:11Speaker 05

  Yeah, it's becoming more homogenized, especially in cities. If you want diversity, you go to small towns. And it's disappointing, but in a way it's reality. Everything is mass consumption, everything is efficiency. And when you have a chain, it's hard to compete if you're an individual mom and pop. And more and more people are traveling and people are driving that. So yeah, it's an interesting issue.

• 50:36Speaker 02

  Follow Engagement Party.

• 50:37Speaker 03

  Wherever you get your podcasts.