Brutal secret Bindi was keeping when this photo was taken

EXCLUSIVE: Sunkissed hair, brown eyes and her dad’s smile. For almost 25 years, Australians thought they knew everything about Bindi Irwin.
They were wrong.
“I was in so much pain and fighting an invisible battle daily,” she tells 9honey.
“I spent so much of my time trying to keep a happy exterior while I was struggling to stay afloat.”
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Bindi typed those words while on the annual Australia Zoo crocodile research trip at Steve Irwin Wildlife Reserve with her family; mum Terri Irwin, brother Robert Irwin, husband Chandler Powell, and daughter Grace.
Hidden away on Queensland’s Cape York Peninsula, she can’t take calls and the internet is spotty at best, but she still took the time to write to 9honey between wrangling wildlife and chasing after her toddler.
To say this conversation is important to Bindi would be a colossal understatement.
Because for 10 years, she put on a brave face and forced herself to be the smiling wildlife warrior Australia knew and loved in public. Behind closed doors, she was falling apart with no clue why.
Bindi’s debilitating pain, nausea and fatigue arrived with her first period and only worsened as she approached her twenties. By the time she was married in 2020, her life was defined by her mystery illness.
“I lived for more than 10 years trying desperately to hide my symptoms,” she says.
No-one could say what was causing it and countless doctors’ appointments and tests didn’t seem to bring Bindi any closer to answers.
“At one point in my journey I was told that it was all in my head by a doctor,” she reveals. “I started to truly believe it.”
As Bindi’s physical symptoms progressed, her mental health deteriorated. Weighed down by the pressure of pretending everything was OK, she stepped back from public work.
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At the time, she felt totally alone in her agony.
In truth, almost one million other Australians born with female reproductive organs were facing the exact same battle.
Bindi suffered silently until her mid-twenties, when she was finally diagnosed with endometriosis, an incurable disease in which tissue similar to the lining of the uterus grows outside the uterus.
Getting a diagnosis takes 6.5 years on average in Australia. She’d waited almost a decade.
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Finally having an answer was hugely validating and Bindi underwent laparoscopic excision surgery in 2023, which is the “gold standard” for endometriosis treatment, “not ablation surgery like so many of us are told”.
As soon as surgeons opened her up, the cost of going undiagnosed for so long became clear: they discovered 37 lesions and a chocolate cyst.
Another five years without surgery and Bindi would have faced “life-threatening problems”. It was harrowing to hear, given how much she’d already lost to the disease.
“Even when I wasn’t on my period, I didn’t have a ‘good day’. I spent most of my time telling myself to put one foot in front of the other.”
Keeping her pain hidden was a battle in itself, fuelled by the expectation Bindi felt to maintain her bright-eyed, beaming public persona.
It was only with her family’s support that she was able to keep up appearances for so long.
Chandler held her hand when she was at her lowest. Terri’s unconditional love surrounded her like a safety blanket.
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“She was there every step of the way for me, right down to helping me to the bathroom when I could barely walk after surgery,” Bindi says.
“I don’t know what I would do without my incredible mama … I hope I am able to be even half the incredible mama to Grace that my mum is to me.”
The fact she was even able to have Grace, who is now three, feels like an unbelievable gift.
Endometriosis can make it difficult to conceive and up to 50 per cent of people with the disease may experience infertility.
Bindi won’t share the details of her journey to motherhood publicly, but says the pressure on women to have children and share their family plans with the world is “too much”.
“I get asked if I’m having more kids every. Single. Day,” she says. She knows most people mean no ill will, “but it can actually be a really hurtful question.”
Even going public with her endometriosis diagnosis last year didn’t stop people from asking.
Looking back on the Instagram caption that made headlines and changed her life, Bindi admits she was terrified before she hit the post button.
“At the end of the day, sharing my story with endometriosis felt so important to me that it outweighed my worry,” she reflects.
On March 8, 2023 – International Women’s Day – Bindi shared a hospital photo and revealed her years-long ordeal with more than five million followers.
Her post made headlines, but it was the messages she received from total strangers – messages saying they had endometriosis too, they had been dismissed too, and they finally felt seen – that made that leap of faith worth it.
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It’s been 18 months since Bindi hit post and today she’s a vocal endometriosis advocate in Australia and abroad.
Earlier this year she received the Endometriosis Foundation of America’s Blossom Award for her work raising awareness, but breaking down decades of silence and stigma is only half the battle.
Bindi also wants more education for medical professionals, faster diagnosis times and better treatment options for others and herself. After all, she’ll be living with this disease for the rest of her life.
“There is still a long, long way to go,” she says. “I feel like I’m still building back up to the person I was before endo took away so much.”
But there are glimmers of hope on the horizon and Bindi just prays change comes in time for the next generation – including her daughter.
“There is a very, very big possibility that Grace will have endometriosis, which really does weigh on me,” Bindi says.
But after giving up so much to the disease, there’s no way she’ll let history repeat with Grace.
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