Chumpy Pullin’s dad reveals heartbreaking rift with his late son’s partner Ellidy that has torn him away from his only grandchild – and the ‘hurtful’ suggestion that triggered their estrangement

The father of late Olympic snowboarding champion Alex ‘Chumpy’ Pullin has laid bare his bitter falling-out with his son’s partner Ellidy over the now-defunct charity that was established in his honour following his death six years ago.

Chris Pullin has shared with the Daily Mail an email he sent to the charity’s board in May 2024 – signed by him and wife Sally, who has since died from cancer – in which they accused the Chumpy Pullin Foundation of straying from its founding principles.

The grieving father said the foundation – which closed in December 2024, about two years after it was established with Chris and Sally’s permission – was ‘not fulfilling its claim of upholding Chumpy’s ideals’ after shifting away from its original mission to help kids excel in sport and instead reinventing itself as a mental health charity.

This dispute over the charity allegedly caused an estrangement between the Pullins and Ellidy – who is the mother of Chumpy’s biological child after she conceived their daughter via posthumous IVF.

In the email, Chris and Sally complained that they had been ‘made to feel as though we’re being negative and unsupportive’ by not backing the charity’s pivot from youth sport to mental health. 

Chris told the Daily Mail he was particularly concerned that the foundation’s shifting focus was leading to ‘misinformation’ that his son had died by suicide. 

Chumpy drowned in July 2020 after a freak spearfishing accident on Queensland’s Gold Coast. He was 32.

After sending the email to the charity’s board, which received no response, Chris alleged that Ellidy ‘blocked’ both him and Sally.

The Pullins had famously granted Ellidy permission to harvest their son’s sperm in the hours after his death so she could conceive his child via IVF. This was legally required because Ellidy and Chumpy were not married at the time, although Ellidy would later adopt her late partner’s surname. 

Chumpy and Ellidy’s daughter, Minnie Alex Pullin, was born on October 25, 2021, but Chris claims he has not seen Minnie since the falling-out with Ellidy in 2024.

Sally died in Chris’s arms at their home in Eden, on the NSW South Coast, in April after a battle with central nervous system lymphoma, a rare and aggressive blood cancer.

Chris said the estrangement from Ellidy ‘broke Sally’s heart’, adding that it was ‘hurtful’ that Minnie, who is now four, never got to know her grandmother beyond infancy. 

It comes after the Daily Mail revealed last month that the now-shuttered foundation deleted a Facebook post about what happened to $500,000 raised in a marathon surf event, admitting it was wrong about how the money was spent. 

The Chumpy Pullin Foundation announced in March 2024 that ‘all’ of the half a million dollars raised by surfing legend Blake Johnston – the brother of the foundation’s co-founder Ben Johnston – in a world-record 40-hour surf had been donated to a mental health service Blake runs, Swellbeing.

‘We can’t believe it’s been a year since our legend [Blake Johnston] achieved his awe-inspiring feat,’ the post read.

‘And if $500k in donations and 707 waves caught wasn’t enough, all money raised has been donated to Swellbeing, a youth empowerment program immersing young individuals in nature-based experiences.’

Blake, a well-known local identity in Cronulla, south of Sydney, runs a business that hosts surf camps involving cold-water immersion sessions, technology detoxes and breathwork.

But when the Daily Mail asked questions about the payment, it set off a series of events culminating in the charity admitting that only $10,000 of the $500,000 had been paid to Blake’s business and that its announcement was ‘clearly a mistake’.

A source close to Blake and Swellbeing was concerned the article would insinuate the funds had been in some way misappropriated. The Daily Mail does not suggest this is the case and accepts that the reference to the $500,000 payment to Swellbeing was made in error.

The post that triggered our questioning was deleted soon after our enquiries.

The article prompted Chris Pullin to contact a Daily Mail reporter on New Year’s Day to say: ‘My family, the Pullins, have had to stand in silence watching Chumpy’s name, Sally’s, and my name and to an extent the whole family name get dragged through this muddy s**t show that was the Foundation.’

In a subsequent interview with the Mail, Chris shared his disappointment that the charity became ‘all about mental health’, despite its origins in youth sport, and referenced the suicide of Ben and Blake Johnston’s father, which prompted ‘four or so people’ to ask him if Chumpy had also killed himself.

‘That hurt,’ he said.

Ben Johnston was contacted for comment but did not respond. The Daily Mail is not suggesting that the Chumpy Pullin Foundation meant to imply that Chumpy died by suicide in shifting the charity’s focus from sport to mental health.

Chris shared with the Daily Mail his correspondence with the Foundation in which he accused the board of ‘manipulation’ and pleaded with them to ‘rebadge’ the organisation and drop Chumpy’s name if they intended to pursue a new course.

‘Of course heading down the mental health path would not be upholding Chumpy’s ideals,’ the email, dated May 29, 2024, read.

‘You cannot use his name to make the foundation popular and then manipulate that momentum to your own ends. If that happens, we would not allow you to use his name, or his image.

‘I hope you can understand that Chumpy was a wonderful mentor and inspiration for people around him; it wasn’t mental health. I hope you can fulfil the original promise made to us at the inception of the foundation, a legacy in Chumpy’s name to live by his example.’

Money was raised for the Chumpy Pullin Foundation via several lavish gala dinners, which featured silent auctions.

The Pullins shared their trove of family photos to support these events, and donated for auction an axe made by Chris in ‘Viking style’, as well as his first snowboard.

Chris claimed the items raised about $35,000.

The Pullins were initially ‘excited’ by plans to create a boarding house for young athletes near Jindabyne, NSW, to allow them easier access to Thredbo’s ski fields. 

But as time went by, the Chumpy Pullin Foundation appeared to drift away from those plans.

Chris said he and Sally began to feel ‘iced out’ amid this change, and after the foundation’s final gala in Melbourne in 2024, they felt ‘used and overlooked’.

The Chumpy Pullin Foundation stated upon its formation that its purpose was to ‘address the barriers experienced by financially and socially disadvantaged individuals wanting to progress in [snowboarding] to become world-class athletes’.

The charity closed in December 2024, asserting that funds raised would be dedicated to youth mental health initiatives. In the background of this, the Pullins were allegedly becoming estranged from their only grandchild.

Chris said he was shocked to discover that Ellidy had ‘blocked’ him and his wife soon after he emailed the charity’s board. But despite the growing distance, Ellidy last year shared a gushing Instagram post in honour of Sally after her death.

‘To remember this beautiful woman is to picture that warm, beaming smile and hear her cheeky giggle,’ she wrote alongside images of her late partner’s mother.

‘I’ll forever cherish her special family lasagne recipe, and when she’d grab her ukulele of an afternoon and sing Chumpy’s song Four Babies over and over. We’d never get tired of that joyful voice. 

‘I love you, Sal. I’ll miss sailing with you, sunbaking and sipping rum with you, nibbling cheese and listening to you identify every kind of bird species that exists in this world and imitating how each one chirps.

‘I wish you could run me through Chumpy’s favourite cheesecake just one more time because no one can ever nail it quite like you!

‘I will never stop talking about you and showing your beautiful granddaughter Minnie photos and videos of your amazingness. You’re loved and adored by so many Sal – a real angel on earth, and now you’re one in the sky – reunited with your boy.

‘I know he’s holding you forever tight.’

In response to this tribute, Chris told the Daily Mail on Monday: ‘Half of those photos weren’t even hers to post.

‘She was acting like Sal’s daughter-in-law, but they weren’t married.’

Last year, Ellidy sold the Gold Coast home she shared with Chumpy for $1.76million. 

At the time, real estate photos showed a media room featuring several guitars on the wall, thought to have been Chumpy’s, given that he was also a keen musician.

Chris said he did not know what happened to his son’s treasured possessions, including his instruments and trophies.

‘Where all his stuff went I have no idea. I’m quite sad about that.’

Ellidy, who was with Chumpy for eight years before his death, recently revealed she was in a new relationship with building contractor Brock Wadsworth.

She said they met a few years ago at a golf event and remained close afterwards. 

‘What I started noticing in my life, Brock just slots in so easily and he already basically knows everyone,’ she said.

‘He’s grown up on the Gold Coast… I’ve known him and his family forever [and he] just slots in really easily.’

Ellidy said she would always love Chumpy but ‘realised your heart can grow’ after loss.

Ellidy’s representative was contacted for comment on Chris’s claims and his 2024 email to the foundation’s board, but did not respond.

Since losing his wife and son, Chris lives a solitary life in Eden, and spent Christmas mostly alone.

He is considering moving back to Mansfield, near Victoria’s snowfields, where the Pullin family ran a ski shop and Chumpy’s career as a rider began during childhood.

He now hopes to build a camp at the Alex Pullin Stadium – the sports complex at Chumpy’s former high school – after the boarding house planned by the Chumpy Pullin Foundation failed to materialise.

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