The father of late snowboard champion Alex 'Chumpy' Pullin has criticised the athlete's former partner, Ellidy, after she announced her engagement to Gold Coast builder Brock Wadsworth.
Chris Pullin said he doubts the 34-year-old influencer will drop his son's surname, calling it her "cash cow".
Ellidy shared her engagement news on Wednesday, six years after Alex Pullin died in a spearfishing accident at Palm Beach on the Gold Coast in July 2020.
The 32-year-old suffered a shallow-water blackout and was found unresponsive on the ocean floor by a fellow diver.
Family rift
The engagement comes amid a fractured relationship between Ellidy and the Pullin family.
After the snowboarder's death, Ellidy changed her surname from Vlug to Pullin by deed poll, despite the couple never marrying. With the immediate permission of Chris and his wife Sally via affidavit, she posthumously harvested his sperm and gave birth to a daughter, Minnie, via IVF in October 2021.
Chris, 69, told the Daily Mail he believes Ellidy will never let go of the Pullin name, partly because she wants to share a surname with four-year-old Minnie, who he says bears a striking resemblance to her father.
"I don't think she'll change her name, because it's her whole persona; it's been her cash cow," he said, referring to her career as an influencer with 375,000 Instagram followers and author of the 2022 memoir Heartstrong: Chumpy, Minnie and Me.
"She is a Pullin, but she's not," he added. "They weren't married. I hate it, but what do I do. All I can say is, 'What would Chumpy think about that?' It annoys me because it's out of our control."
Foundation dispute
Chris said he and his wife once fully supported Ellidy, and images of her leaning on him during a 2020 memorial paddle-out resonated across Australia. However, he believes their relationship broke down in May 2024.
He said he emailed the board of the now-shuttered Chumpy Pullin Foundation, which Ellidy co-founded, over concerns it was moving away from its original purpose of supporting youth sport.
Chris claimed the foundation had shifted to mental health initiatives, which he felt fuelled misconceptions that his son had died by suicide, distorting public perceptions of his death and legacy.
Following the email, Chris alleges Ellidy blocked the joint phone number he shared with Sally, who was in her third year of fighting central nervous system lymphoma.
Loss of contact
"After that [email], we came to understand we could no longer contact Ellidy. Our calls were not going through," Chris said during a filmed interview with the Daily Mail at his home in Eden on the New South Wales Sapphire Coast on January 12.
"It hurt Sally a lot. She was devastated. Her cognitive ability was impaired by the lymphoma. But she knew we weren't talking - or rather Ellidy wasn't talking to us."
He added: "She was also aware we weren't in touch with Minnie. I was Sally's protector... but to see her so hurt by this, and there was nothing I could do to protect her... It caused a lot of pain."
Chris claimed Ellidy did not contact him after Sally's death in April 2025, though she posted a public tribute weeks later, which remains a sore point.
He said he has only seen Minnie "three or four times" and has no relationship with either of them. The Pullin family numbers about 30 people, but Chris said Ellidy only speaks to his daughter.
"I don't see anything because it's all blocked. I don't even know where they live," he said. "As far as I'm concerned, there are millions of people in Australia and they're two among that. I don't think that will ever change."
He hopes Minnie might seek him out when she is older to learn about her father, but noted his age. "But the problem is, I am an old man, so she'd better bloody hurry up... And she'll never meet Sally."
New relationship
Ellidy introduced Wadsworth to her followers on her podcast Darling, Shine! in November, saying she had fallen for a longtime friend after a year of consideration.
"I'm just so happy right now, and I'm really enjoying the feelings and the emotions and falling in love with Brock and having this new love," she told listeners.
"I feel guilty saying that because, obviously, there were so many times where I just thought it would just be Chump and I forever. It would have been, but he passed away… I'm young, I'm never going to be alone forever. I didn't make a rash decision. I sat on this for pretty much a whole year, and I'm really stoked with where I am with him right now. It's f**king epic."
She announced the engagement on Wednesday by declaring: "He wants to be stuck with me forever!"
Social media concerns
Speaking about the engagement, Chris offered a stark warning for Wadsworth.
"I feel sorry for him [Brock] because it's going to end badly," he said.
However, he added that the marriage might stop Ellidy talking about his son. "But I suppose this might create more space between us and her talking about Chumpy, because that will be a bit hard when you're married to someone else. So this might be a good thing."
Chris also criticised Ellidy's decision to share Minnie's life online, saying it went against his son's values. "It was never Chumpy's style. He would hate that," he said.
Ellidy was contacted for comment via her talent agent.
