‘‘Going back to that moment, he was going through so much more in his mind than: ‘My son is gay’.’’
He was gay the whole time.’’
Naturally, the news had Eli reanalysing moments from his childhood, and seeing things anew from his dad’s point of view.
‘‘When I was a kid, my dad wanted me to play with toy cars, and he was passionate about cricket, and we went to see Super 12 rugby matches and stuff back in the day,’’ he says. ‘‘I always felt bad that I didn’t like them, but now looking back, dad probably didn’t even really care about the cricket or the rugby either. He was also filling a role, and trying to teach me to fill the same role. Neither of us wanted to be that role.’’
At the time, Peter was a self-described ‘‘semiconservative Christian’’ and believed the Church needed to become more accepting towards queer individuals, but was unable to reconcile those beliefs with his own buried sexuality.
‘‘That anxiety about my own sexuality, given my sort of version of faith at the time, was there for all of my adult life really, going back into my late teens,’’ Peter explains from his Auckland home.
‘‘I was frantically trying to deny it and suppress it and not act on it, and Eli coming out didn’t make that any better or worse.’’
Peter separated from his wife when Eli was still a teenager at Riccarton High School, and later moved to Auckland, where he now lectures in social work. Coming out was a three-to-four-year process which began with telling a couple of close gay friends, and then his family. Now that he is on the other side, he describes a feeling of ‘‘total liberation and relief’’.
‘‘Eli’s certainly picked up on that in some of the stuff he said in his show – he talked about me looking younger,’’ Peter, 65, laughs. ‘‘I’ve always been somewhat prone to anxiety in a general sense, but I would say I am now the happiest, most at peace within myself that I’ve ever been.’’
As a social worker, Peter’s professional life was focused on social justice, ‘‘particularly for
LGBTQ+ people,’’ which he says was somewhat in conflict with his ‘‘inclusive, accepting, but not totally affirming’’ religious beliefs. He’s spent the past decade trying to align his professional life, religious beliefs and sexuality. ‘‘One of the anxieties that I actually had was, within the social work world, that I could be judged and that people would ask, ‘why weren’t you out and loud and proud 20 years ago?’ But that didn’t happen, thankfully.’’
Eli says their wider family has been nothing but loving and accepting. Peter and Eli are both in long-distance, long-term relationships; both their partners live in Wellington.
‘‘That year, my sister got him a rainbow T-shirt for Christmas,’’ Eli says. ‘‘We’ve always done Christmas all together, ever since my parents split up, as the same seven of us, plus partners now.
Eli Matthewson on the moment he came out to dad Peter
People are most curious after the show about how mum’s doing, and I honestly don’t think it’s really made a huge difference for her. She’s got a happy life. She loves her grandkids. She loves living alone. She’s just chill.’’
As for his relationship with his dad, Peter coming out only ‘‘strengthened what was there,’’ he says.
‘‘For years, all we talked about really was politics, and now I just feel like it’s a bit more personal. We’re a bit happier to talk about our real lives and the past as well. You gain that new perspective on previous life experiences.’’
Peter is bursting with pride at Eli’s success as a comedian, even if he does sometimes have to tolerate being fodder for jokes.
‘‘Golriz Ghahraman and I have decided that we need to form a support group for people in close relationships with comedians,’’ he jokes about the Green MP whose partner is Guy Williams.
‘‘But I would say that in this latest show, I actually felt totally honoured by what he said. Sometimes I felt a slight cringe factor, and sometimes he tells these family stories, and I’m thinking, ‘I don’t remember that!’ But there’s nothing that he has ever said that has been in any way hurtful.’’
In one particularly daring line in Daddy Short Legs, Eli directly thanks homophobia for his very existence, given that life might have been different if his dad had accepted his identity sooner.
‘‘There’s no point to that joke,’’ Eli laughs. ‘‘It’s just a funny truth. And one that’s changing the course of history: because there’s less homophobia, different kids are going to be born than would have been born if everyone was pretending to be straight.’’
He continues: ‘‘I constantly have an existential crisis about existing in general, I think from growing up Christian.
‘‘Because it’s such a strong fear, and something I’ve taken so seriously for so long, the concept of not existing is ripe for jokes.
‘‘That’s probably my favourite joke in the show, because it feels like a joke that only I could do as a gay person with a gay dad. If it was a straight person with a gay dad making that joke, it would not be funny.’’
And of course, Peter is glad that Eli exists. ‘‘That was one of the first things that my dad said to me in real life,’’ Eli says.
‘‘And then he wrote a letter that he gave to my other siblings, and that was a huge part of it, saying, ‘I want you to know that you are the most important thing of my life, and I’m so thankful that I had my five children’.’’