Robert Irwin Got Death-Rolled by a 14-Ft. Croc Named Jimmy Fallon

Robert Irwin has stared down a lot of wild animals in his 22 years, but nothing quite prepared him for the moment a 700-pound crocodile — one he personally named Jimmy Fallon — pinned him to the ground and tried to spin him into oblivion.

The conservationist and Dancing With the Stars winner stopped by The Tonight Show this week and told the story directly to the man the croc is named after. The look on Fallon’s face? Priceless. The story itself? Genuinely terrifying.

“He’s not a baby anymore. I named this crocodile Jimmy Fallon, like, years ago, and he’s now what we call a boss croc. He’s huge,” Robert told the host. The reason he was jumping on a 14-foot crocodile in the first place, he explained, is science — specifically, the kind of hands-on wildlife research his father pioneered. “Because we research crocodiles in the wild to, like, better conserve them, right? So the way you do that — my dad came up with this — is you actually have to jump on them.”

What a Death Roll Actually Means

So Robert jumped. And Jimmy Fallon — the crocodile — did not appreciate it.

“I jumped onto him. I kid you not, 14 foot of crocodile, big croc, death rolls me,” he said. For the uninitiated: a death roll is when a crocodile clamps its jaws on prey and spins its entire body lengthwise with force. It’s how they dismember things. It is not something you want to be on the receiving end of.

“So I’m stuck underneath him with my arm hanging out. I’ve got like, probably — I don’t know — 700 pounds on top of me. And I’m just like, ‘What do I do?’ And luckily he rolled back the other way, and I was fine. But he’s a goer.”

A goer. Classic Robert Irwin.

His Dad’s Legacy, Carried Forward

The fact that Robert is out in the field jumping on crocodiles at all is a direct line back to Steve Irwin, the beloved Crocodile Hunter who died in September 2006 when a stingray’s barb pierced his heart while he was filming a documentary on the Great Barrier Reef. Robert was just 2 years old. His sister Bindi was 8.

In the years since, Robert, Bindi, and their mother Terri have kept Steve’s mission alive — running Australia Zoo in Queensland and continuing his conservation work with the same fearless energy he was known for. Robert has been open about what that means to him. “To continue this legacy is the honour of my life,” he wrote on Instagram last October, alongside footage of himself as a child with his father. “If I can make my dad proud, I’ve done my job. Behind everything I do is a conservation mission that my dad started.”

That same drive carried him into the ballroom last fall, when Robert competed on — and won — Dancing With the Stars Season 34 alongside partner Witney Carson. His sister Bindi had won the show back in 2015, making them the only siblings to both take home the mirrorball. During his Tonight Show appearance, Robert also touched on a performance he dedicated to his mom, a moment that clearly meant as much to him as any wildlife encounter.

“Coming over from Australia, I didn’t know how it would go. I didn’t think I’d make it this far, because I didn’t realize how incredibly supportive America would be,” he told Men’s Health in December 2025. “It’s impossible to put into words how much that has meant to me, because what I represent is so much more than just a dance.”

“When I step into the ballroom, I’m representing a legacy that my dad created with my mom. I’m representing everything I stand for, not only as a wildlife conservationist, but also as someone who is working really hard to try and spread some positivity and passion. I want to be a role model for young people.”

And also, apparently, a role model for surviving death rolls from 14-foot crocodiles named after late-night hosts. Jimmy Fallon — the human one — seemed very pleased to have a croc named after him. Even if that croc did try to eat Steve Irwin’s son.