Steve Irwin’s daughter Bindi has made a series of carefully stage-managed media appearances to refute claims she is being manipulated. “Dad’s manager told me to tell you that I’m totally in control,” Bindi said at a live press conference, now also available on DVD. “And I really want to get those toys he promised me.”  

The press conference comes on the eve of a national book tour to promote Bindi’s new autobiography, “Steve Irwin Was My Dad: The Bindi Irwin Story”. The autobiography press release says Bindi decided to write the book “spontaneously and completely of her own accord”, noting that she was especially keen to finish the project in time for the Christmas market.  

The book was written with the help of professional ghostwriters, who described working with the 8-year-old on her autobiography as “easier than doing Shane Warne’s.”

Bindi has assumed the spotlight because she shares her father’s interest in conservation, and especially conservation of the Irwin family fortune. Bindi’s five-year-old brother Bob has been less prominent, preferring to focus instead on being a prop in the crocodile enclosure at Australia Zoo. 

Since her father’s death, Crocodile Hunter director John Stainton has become Bindi’s chief male role model. “John’s like a father to me”, she told Australian Story recently. “Like Michael Jackson’s father.”

Supporters deny Bindi is being exploited because of Steve’s death, pointing out that Bindi was already being exploited before the Crocodile Hunter died.