Crocodile Hunter's Son Robert Irwin Stuns Fans with Stripped-Down Underwear Ads

Robert Irwin, the 21-year-old son of late wildlife legend Steve Irwin, has taken a bold leap into the limelight, swapping khakis for something a little more daring. On Thursday, he was announced as the new face of Australian underwear brand Bonds, and fans are still reeling from the surprise.

The ad campaign, which introduced Robert as their new brand icon, came with a cheeky tagline: "Say g'day to our new brand icon, Robert Irwin, like you've never seen him before." And they weren’t kidding. Robert posed in Bonds underwear for the campaign, even incorporating his zookeeper roots by holding reptiles in a few shots. Because, apparently, nothing says "down under" quite like snakes and skivvies.

The internet, predictably, had a lot to say. Many fans were floored by Robert’s transformation, struggling to reconcile the grown-up model with their memories of him as a child alongside his famous father, the Crocodile Hunter. Comments included gems like "What in the Irwin is going on here?" and "Is this still April Fools?" One user even confessed, "Not the collab I was expecting – he looks SO good." Clearly, nobody saw this one coming.

Robert, who followed in his father’s conservationist footsteps at the Australia Zoo, admitted to People magazine that saying yes to the campaign was an easy decision. "I wish I could say I was very suave and cool about the whole thing, but I was like, 'Yes! Let's do it!'" he said. Bonds, after all, is an institution in Australia. For Robert, this was an opportunity to try something new and get his conservation message to a broader audience—though we suspect many might have been too distracted to focus on that bit.

"We are all trying to continue an important legacy that my dad started," Robert explained. "I’ve gotten to find my own individual ways of doing that, and sometimes that comes in the form of modeling Bonds! It seems so out of the ordinary for what I would do, but I get to be with Aussie Wildlife, I get to approach a new audience, a new platform, and get my wildlife conservation message out there to more people." Talk about multitasking—saving the planet one pair of briefs at a time.

Robert also reflected on his late father as he stepped into this new chapter of life. Celebrating his 21st birthday last November, Robert shared a heartfelt Instagram post, recalling his dad’s 21st birthday photos. "It can be hard to celebrate the milestones when there's someone missing," he wrote, "but I will carry his memory and passion with me in this new chapter of life." If there’s one thing that’s clear, it’s that the Irwin legacy is in good hands, even if those hands are now occasionally holding designer underwear.