Trigger Warning: This story contains mentions of suicide.
“Alaskan Bush People” star Matt Brown was found dead on Saturday, following a search of a Washington river by locals, his friends and brother Noah.
Matt— who was the eldest son of Ami and Billy Brown— reportedly took his own life a few days earlier, sparking a search of the river where the tragic event took place. Noah confirmed in a social media post Saturday that he was part of the search and rescue team who located Matt’s body. (Law enforcement had previously done their own six-hour search, but had called it off due to weather. From there, Noah and Matt’s friends launched their own search with boats and drones and ended up finding Matt’s body.)
“For the past couple of days, I’ve been working with search and rescue groups trying to locate the body and today at 3:27, the group that I was working with located the missing body and I identified it as Matthew,” Noah said in a video. “My oldest brother, Matthew Brown, has passed away.
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“I was there when we pulled him out of the river,” Noah continued. “We hauled him up off the bank and then after the sheriffs got there and everything, the coroner did his thing and I went down to identify that it was him.”
Matt and Noah’s brother Bear Brown had stated in a video posted days earlier that witnesses had seen Matt take his life by the river, but the family had been holding out hope that the person who was seen was not Matt.
“Once he knew definitive, I wanted to make sure that everyone who knew us personally heard first,” Noah said.
In one of the videos posted by Bear, he expressed his shock that Matt would commit suicide.
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“They found a body in the river a few hours ago, and it was positively identified as being Matt,” Bear said, confirming that Noah was there and identified Matt. “I would have never suspected he would have hurt himself, honestly. He struggled for a long time, as I’ve mentioned, and I worried he was going to end up, like, OD’d or something like that. I didn’t think he would hurt himself.
“It does look as though the injury is self-inflicted,” Bear said. “Obviously, the coroner and stuff still has to look at him and stuff, but I thought that y’all guys should know that it is him.”
In a video posted Friday (before Matt had been found), Bear explained that he had run into Matt at Walmart before Bear went to Florida. After the chance meet-up, Bear stated that Matt called him and informed him that he had “fallen off the wagon.”
Matt had struggled with addiction for years and had been open on social media about his alcoholism and substance abuse issues. Back in 2016, he went to rehab but would go on to relapse. In 2018, he again went to rehab. In 2021, he released a video accusing his family of taking all of his earnings for ‘Alaskan Bush People’ and told his social media followers he was hungry, cold and broke— but sober. By that time, he had separated himself from most of his family and was no longer appearing on the TV show.
In the video posted Saturday, Bear stated that he encouraged his brother to once again focus on getting sober.
“He said that he had fallen off the wagon,” Bear recalled of his last call with Matt. “And I was like, ‘Well, get back on it, man. Everybody falls off. Just get back on it. Go to rehab if you’ve got to. You’ve got this.’”
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Bear also asked fans to be kind to his family, particularly his mother, Ami. He refuted fans’ claims that Ami and the other Browns had turned their back on Matt in recent years.
“Please be respectful to the family, to my mom especially,” he said. “Please don’t attack my mom. Mom cares very much for Matt and always has.”
Although his dad Billy died in 2021, Matt is survived by Ami, Bear, Noah and his other siblings— Joshua (aka “Bam Bam”), Gabe, Amora (aka “Bird”), and Rain. He appeared on ‘Alaskan Bush People’ from its premiere in 2014 until 2019.
He was 43 years old.
(Photos: Instagram; Discovery)
One Response
I never watched the show so I only know what I’ve read about the family. Regardless it is always sad when someone takes their own life. I wish him the peace that he couldn’t find on this earth.