Chumpy Pullin's father poured his heart out to me. It's so much worse than we thought... This is my plea to Ellidy - before it's too late: KARLEIGH SMITH
What struck me most during two days spent interviewing Chris Pullin was how deeply his family home still holds the memory of his late son, snowboarder Alex 'Chumpy' Pullin.
Photographs and paintings of Chumpy adorn almost every room, his presence lingering in quiet but unmistakable ways - even though he hadn't walked these floors since his accidental death in July 2020.
An eight-track recorder featuring almost 100 of Chumpy's songs - he was a gifted musician as well as being a world champion on the slopes - has pride of place. The first thing Chris did when I arrived at his house was play it for me.
It occurred to me that this would be the perfect place for Chumpy's daughter, whom the Winter Olympian never met, to one day learn who her father was.
But given that Ellidy - the mother of four‑year‑old Minnie - isn't taking Chris' calls, the chances of this happening appear slim.
Chris, 69, has been forced to accept this reality. When I asked what sort of grandfather he would like to be, should he and Ellidy ever mend fences, he said he doubted it would ever happen.
Instead, Chris - a widower since his wife Sally died from cancer last April, five years on from her son's death - wanders his family home in Eden, on the NSW Sapphire Coast, pondering what sort of father his son would have become.
By now, we all know the sad story: Chumpy left the home he shared with Ellidy on Queensland's Gold Coast to go spearfishing at Palm Beach on a sunny winter's day on July 8, 2020.
Snowboarder Alex 'Chumpy' Pullin lived a charmed life with girlfriend Ellidy on the Gold Coast before his accidental death at the age of 32 while spearfishing on July 8, 2020
Chris and Sally Pullin raced from their home in New South Wales to be by Ellidy's side after their son died. (Chris and Ellidy are seen paying their respects during a paddle-out for Chumpy on the Gold Coast, held days after his death)
Chris' home in Eden, NSW, is filled with photos and art dedicated to his late son Chumpy
Following Chris' interview with the Mail, Ellidy made an appearance at the launch of her 'Ena Pelly x Ellidy Pullin' collection in Torquay on Saturday with her new partner Brock Wadsworth
Later, a fellow diver spotted his lifeless body on the ocean floor. He had suffered a shallow-water blackout and was wearing a weighted belt. Despite 45 minutes of CPR, he couldn't be revived.
It was Ellidy, his partner of eight years, who had to break the unimaginable news to his parents.
Chris and Sally raced to Palm Beach - driving seven hours from Eden to Sydney before boarding a flight to Coolangatta Airport - to be by Ellidy's side.
Who could forget the pictures of Ellidy and Chris, wearing wetsuits and walking together along the sand to a paddle-out in Chumpy's honour just days later?
Ellidy's face was crumpled in grief. Chris stood stoically beside her, still in utter disbelief that his larger-than-life son - a hero to young snow sportspeople everywhere - was gone.
Unbeknownst to the world, Chris and Sally had just given Ellidy permission - by way of a pile of paperwork and an affidavit - to posthumously retrieve their son's sperm in the hope she could one day conceive his child via in vitro fertilisation.
Chris told me their number-one priority was supporting Ellidy, and while the idea of harvesting their dead son's sperm was naturally a little disconcerting, they agreed without hesitation.
The result was Minnie Alex Pullin, a baby girl, born in October 2021.
Chris and Sally Pullin (together left) with Ellidy (centre) and her brother Dave Vlug (right) at the paddle-out on July 11, 2020
Ellidy shares a moment with Chumpy's mum as Chris looks on
Ellidy welcomed Chumpy's daughter in 2021. Minnie was conceived via IVF using sperm that was posthumously harvested from Chumpy's body in the days following his accidental death
By this stage, Sally was deep into gruelling treatment for central nervous system lymphoma at a Sydney hospital. She first met Chumpy's child - her granddaughter - in her hospital room when Minnie was about six weeks old.
Chris and Sally were overcome with joy, and marvelled at her likeness to the father she would never know.
At this stage, Chris, Sally and Ellidy - who had also changed her surname from Vlug to Pullin to honour plans to one day marry Chumpy - were a tight family unit, bonded by their unimaginable pain.
In her book Heartstrong: Chumpy, Minnie and Me, released in 2022, Ellidy spoke warmly of the couple she regarded as in-laws, describing them as 'salt of the earth'.
Chris contributed several chapters to that book, even lending his voice to the audiobook version.
I read Heartstrong the weekend before I flew from Sydney to the NSW South Coast to film an interview with Chris, which you can watch here.
In one particularly poignant paragraph, Ellidy wrote, 'Chumpy learned how to love from his parents, who simply adore and cherish each other. I'd never met a couple so together until I met Chumpy's parents in 2013, at their home in Eden.
'Suddenly, all of Chumpy's passion and devotion made complete sense. He looked at me the same way his dad looked at his mum.
Now, Chris lives alone, mourning his wife and son. 'I am just so lonely,' he told me during our lengthy interview
'Chumpy's parents taught him how to treat a partner: with care, honesty and generosity.'
In another chapter, Ellidy fondly recalled spending a month on the Pullins' sailboat, Sea Whiskers, in New Caledonia.
'Just the four of us for four weeks, living on top of each other, out to sea,' she said.
'When I told my mates I was doing a sailing trip with my in-laws, they thought I was mad. And I might well have been, but I have some great memories from that month together.
'That trip was when I really became part of the family, [when] I really understood who Chris and Sal were, and they got to know me.'
Likewise, in the chapters Chris wrote, he described Ellidy as 'a generous host who always made a fuss of us' whenever they visited the couple on the Gold Coast.
In the days after Chumpy's death, Chris wrote that his heart was 'broken into a million pieces, and seeing Ellidy's devastation shattered it into a million more.
'She went from being the happiest girl in the world to the saddest. We loved Ellidy for the simple reason that we loved Chumpy and he chose her, but once we got to know her, we loved her all on our own. Seeing her pain amplified our pain.'
Ellidy wrote of sharing memorable times with Chumpy's parents and considered them family, even though the couple never married
Chumpy is pictured at his parents' home in Eden, on the NSW Sapphire Coast
Ellidy revealed later in the book that not only did the Pullins give her permission to take Chumpy's sperm, they also volunteered to pay for her third round of IVF, should she need it.
She described them as being 'suffocated by sadness', and urged them to get a puppy - a kelpie, like Chumpy's beloved Rummi.
Stella, a gorgeous, friendly kelpie, is now Chris's sole companion in Eden.
With so much shared loss and love, it's all the more upsetting that Ellidy has, according to Chris, cut him out completely.
Chris believes their falling-out stems from his frustration over the changing direction of the now-defunct Chumpy Pullin Foundation, a charity co-founded by Ellidy.
He said after he emailed the board expressing his concerns, he realised that calls from the phone he and Sally shared weren't going through to Ellidy, and concluded that they had been blocked.
He also said he could no longer view Ellidy's Instagram account - where she shares pictures of Minnie to her more than 370,000 followers - and believes that he has been blocked there, too.
I asked Chris if it was possible there was more to the rift than a disagreement over the direction of the charity. He said he couldn't think of any other reason why Ellidy might freeze him out.
Chris is pictured with his dog Stella, a kelpie-cross
Ellidy convinced Chris to get Stella, who resembles her and Chumpy's dog Rummi
I also mentioned a comment about him in response to one of my stories in which a woman - possibly a friend of Ellidy's - wrote: 'If only you all knew how this man had treated Ellidy. She did not cut out Sally, but she had no choice but to cut off Chris.'
Chris told me he did not know what the woman was talking about. The Daily Mail is not suggesting Ellidy wrote the comment or asked anyone to post it on her behalf.
Family ties are rarely simple, even without the weight of the two devastating losses Chris has suffered - first Chumpy, then Sally, in just five years.
But something about this particular rift is especially upsetting. A disagreement over a charity that no longer exists should never have escalated like this.
I know that Ellidy hasn't liked my reporting and that there are people who would rather I'd never published stories about the foundation or interviewed Chris.
Chris said he could no longer view Ellidy's Instagram account - where she shares pictures of Minnie to her more than 370,000 followers - and believes that he has been blocked there, too
Ellidy has become a prominent social media influencer, podcaster and author since the death of her partner Chumpy
In addition to her commercial endeavours, Ellidy also co-founded the Chumpy Pullin Foundation
She looked in vibrant spirits on Saturday at the launch of her 'Lucky Star' capsule collection
Ellidy (right) has also grown close to DJ and music producer Paul Fisher and his wife Chloe
But I hope that my coverage may prompt some soul-searching within her and, perhaps, a change of heart.
With Ellidy's father now deceased, should Minnie have the opportunity to get to know her only living grandad?
Ellidy herself described Chumpy as being so similar to his father. So why not give her daughter, who will never know her dad, the next best thing?
Spending school holidays sailing with her Pop on his boat in the coastal town of Eden sounds idyllic. Seeing a beautiful home, surrounded by reminders of her father's well-lived life and a grandmother who adored her, is the sort of childhood memory money can't buy.
Chris is a kind, well‑spoken man who shed many tears throughout our interview.
As I was leaving his home, after several hours of having him relive the worst moments of his life, he plucked a bright-pink hibiscus flower from his garden and handed it to me as a gift, explaining that it was one of Sal's favourites.
When he heard my flight back to Sydney wasn't for several hours, he kindly invited the videographer and me to stay and hang out.
I felt he could have gone on for many more hours talking about how proud he was of his wife and son - how much he loved them - despite the pain it was obviously causing him.
He was less happy to talk about Ellidy. I got the impression that after years of grief, he is exhausted and resigned to what cannot be changed.
At one point, during a break from the interview, Chris put his head in his hands at the kitchen table and simply said, 'I am just so lonely.'
It was a moment that will stay with me forever and brings tears to my eyes even now, weeks later.
Ellidy, it doesn't have to be this way.
