Robert Irwin has had his eye on the mirrorball for longer than you might think.
The 21-year-old Australian wildlife conservationist has been stealing hearts on this season of Dancing with the Stars — along with his partner Witney Carson — but a resurfaced video from 2015 shows just how eager a participant he is.
In a clip that’s going viral on X, an 11-year-old Robert is asked by New Zealand TV host Dominic Bowden if he’d ever “consider doing Dancing with the Stars.”
“Would you? As a celebrity, would you do it?” Bowden asked Robert in the clip.
“Definitely. I would love to!” an excited 11-year-old Robert replied. “That would be so much fun!”
At the time in 2015, Robert’s sister was competing on Dancing with the Stars with partner Derek Hough, and the pair went on to win season 21 together.
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Before the season began, Robert told PEOPLE that competing on the series “scares me more than anything else I’ve ever done,” but he took the leap of faith for a very special reason.
“I wanted to do this because I was inspired by my sister Bindi, who won Dancing with the Stars 10 years ago,” he said. “I remember coming to every live taping to watch her and thinking, ‘One day I have to do this.’ “
Bindi, 27, has been in the ballroom cheering on her younger brother almost every week since the Sept. 16 premiere, and after his first performance, she told him she was “really proud” of him, which he said “means everything.”
“I can’t help but get emotional when I talk about my family, I just — they are everything to me,” he told Extra.
“This process is the most incredible whirlwind adrenaline rush — it’s the most beautiful thing and the most incredible thing I’ve ever gotten to be part of, and to have them there is everything to me,” he said of his family’s support, as his mom Terri Irwin, Bindi’s husband Chandler Powell and Bindi’s daughter, Grace, were all in attendance at the premiere. “I’m so lucky.”
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The only piece missing for Robert on his DWTS journey is his dad, Steve Irwin, who died in 2006.
“I’m doing this and I do what I do in life to make him proud,” Robert told PEOPLE following his week 2 performance.
“Dad was the person who just gave everything he did, everything he had, truly,” he said. “And this experience, that’s what you’ve got to do. You’ve got to show every side to yourself. You’ve got to put every single fiber of your energy into this, and you get all of that back.”
