What you need to know
Bindi Irwin’s daughter Grace is still best friends with Turtle.
On Sunday, Dec. 21, Bindi, husband Chandler Powell, and mother Terri Irwin posted a joint photo of their 4-year-old son posing with a giant turtle on Instagram. Grace, wearing a floor-length green ball gown, stroked the reptile’s head.
“Looks like our best friends are on the same page. So much love 💕,” the caption reads.
The post didn’t reveal who the turtle was, but Bindi, 27, previously told Entertainment Tonight that Grace is “best friends” with an Aldabra tortoise named Igloo.
Instagram users speculated in the comments that Grace was spending some quality time with the igloo. One user wrote, “Grace and Igloo are best friends ❤️🥹🥰🐢.” Another added: “I’m sure they can read each other’s minds 🥹❤️”
Another user commented on the girl’s fashionable outfit: “Oh my god ❤️❤️! What a gorgeous dress Princess Grace is wearing ❤️💚❤️💚.”
Terry Irwin/Instagram
On Nov. 28, the proud mom posted a video of Grace greeting the igloo for the first time after the family was in Los Angeles for several months supporting Robert Irwin’s Dancing with the Stars.
“HOM E. 🐢 The first thing Grace wanted to do? Meet her best friend, Igloo,” Bindi’s Instagram caption reads.
In the video, Grace hugs the turtle and says, “I missed you.” Then she excitedly fed the reptile.
“When you look at Grace, she’s running across a really big paddock. Turtles can’t run that fast, but Grace runs as fast as she can across the paddock to get to Grace, and she just sits there,” Bindi told Entertainment Tonight about her then-10-month-old daughter’s relationship with the igloo. “She tried to pet him but ended up hitting him in the head.”
“They love each other! It’s the funniest thing I’ve ever seen,” she said at the time. “I love that my daughter’s best friend is a turtle.”
Bindi Irwin/Instagram
In June, Bindi explained on the Not Gonna Lie with Kylie Kelce podcast that she and her husband slowly introduced Grace to animals such as turtles, wombats and echidnas. Bindi has been teaching Grace how to read animal signals and hopes to build on that.
“And that’s what my parents did for me. As I got older, it slowly progressed,” Bindi said. “And it becomes second nature.”
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Bindi said her daughter still wants to be “part of everything.”
“So when we’re feeding the alligators, she’s like, ‘Why can’t we be together?’” She’s crying, “I just want to feed the alligators! ”
She added that Grace is a “wild child” whose personality is similar to her father, the late Steve Irwin.
“I wasn’t expecting to have a little one. I thought, ‘Where did this come from?’ “Oh, Dad,” she said.
