DUMPED DANCER ELI 'AT LEAST I'M A WINNER IN LOVE!'

Meet the gorgeous guy comforting the fleet-footed funnyman after his shock ballroom elimination

- Hayley McLarin

Eli Matthewson is always quick with a joke, but even the Kiwi comedian couldn't find a gag to raise the mood when he was shockingly eliminated from Dancing With The Stars NZ last week.

The viewer votes came in and, just like that, he went from crying tears of joy about being part of New Zealand's first same-sex pairing on the popular reality series, to shedding tears of sadness that his time on the Three show was over.

Now Eli, 33, is throwing himself back into his day job” as a radio host on The Edge Breakfast - and the consoling arms of his partner Sam Clack. If there's one silver lining to his elimination, it's that the couple will now have more time to enjoy the new home they've just bought together after two years of largely long-distance dating.

“I'm gutted - absolutely devastated," admits Eli. “I just wanted to keep dancing because I've been having such a good time. I can't help but feel I had so much more to give. I'm pleased we could bring attention to my charity, OutLine, and it was such a crazy honour to be the first two men dancing - I bloody loved doing it. But I'm also at peace with it because I wouldn't have done anything differently, so it's not like I could have changed it.”

Eli had already shed tears on the show after seeing the impact his same-sex partnership with professional dancer Jonny Williams was having.

"It's unbelievable the messages that I've received," he tells Woman's Day. “There was a TikTok video of me and Jonny, and one of the comments was, 'I came out to my parents today because I've been watching you guys! I know that if I'd seen this when I was 14, it would have made a huge difference.”