Trigger Warning: This story contains mentions of domestic violence, abuse and suicidal ideation.
Former ‘Alaskan Bush People’ star Gabe Brown is being accused by his estranged wife, Raquell Brown, of emotional, mental, financial and physical abuse.
According to Us Weekly, Raquell made the claims against her ex in a divorce declaration filed September 22, nearly eight years after the two were married. Though Raquell only filed for divorce last week, she and Gabe have lived separately since April, with Raquell residing in Minnesota and Gabe living in Washington.
“I worry for my children’s safety, and well-being every day,” Raquell reportedly claimed in her divorce declaration. “During the time that I’ve been married to Gabe, I’ve been severely abused emotionally, mentally, financially and at times physically.”
Raquell went on to note in her filing that she was introduced to Gabe through his sister Rain Brown on social media in late 2017, and that she and Gabe met in person in February 2018. Shortly after the two began dating, Raquell claimed that Gabe began starting fights and threatening to breakup with her.
Furthermore, she alleged that she and the two kids she has from a previous relationship were “forced to stay in a travel trailer with no electricity or water” on Gabe’s family’s property, as “Gabe didn’t like being far from his family.” (Raquell also shares three children with Gabe, though this living situation allegedly occurred before the couple’s children were born.)
“He said he always wanted to be within the same house or walking distance of them,” she claimed. “This was another topic that was regularly brought up and caused more emotional abuse as I was seen as the reason for him being apart from his family.”
Raquell’s declaration mentions past instances of abuse, including one alleged altercation from 2018 when Rain “screamed” at her on the way to Gabe’s brother Noah Brown’s wedding, prompting Gabe to then yell at Raquell, demanding that she “respond to [Rain] or he would break up with [her].” Amid the altercation, Raquell claimed that Gabe called her “selfish,” “a b*tch” and “a horrible person.” She insisted that after this trip, “the verbal, mental and emotional abuse began to rise.”
When recalling other insistences of abuse in her marriage, Raquell alleged that Gabe called her a b*tch “on many occasions,” as well as “lazy, selfish, a terrible mother, terrible daughter, and terrible friend.” She also accused Gabe of forcing her to stop talking to people out of fear that “things would get out” due to the Brown Family being “famous.”
“I was told that my parents didn’t love me and that only Gabe would put up with me,” she added. “I was told that everyone would leave me and not come back.”
Raquell also claimed in the filing that she “reluctantly” signed her marriage certificate in January 2019 after being promised by Gabe that the two would have a “bigger wedding with [her] family present” later that year. (As The Ashley previously reported, Gabe and Raquell tied the knot in a ceremony held near Gabe’s family home in Washington.)
Raquell claims the alleged trauma she experienced in her marriage caused her mental health to deteriorate and that the situation only worsened during the pandemic. Not only was her family struggling for “food, money and formula” at the time, Raquell claimed that when Gabe was filming his family’s show, he would regularly leave her and the kids “without gas for the generator [and] water.”
The issues in her marriage continued to grow following the death of Gabe’s dad, Billy Brown, in February 2021. It was then, Raquell claimed, that “the abuse got worse” and Gabe began having “night terrors,” which would lead him to “punch, kick and choke” her while she was sleeping. She also cited in her declaration “many occasions” when she was pregnant that Gabe would allegedly yell at her and follow her to the bathroom as she “locked the doors to escape him.”
As for the abuse that her children were allegedly subjected to, Raquell claimed that Gabe used “physical abuse masked as discipline,” and that her kids were sometimes left with “red handprints on their bottoms” and were yelled at “inches away from their faces.” Raquell’s declaration also mentioned insistences when Gabe would allegedly lock their kids in their bedrooms to prevent her from “entering to calm them down.”
Around the time that ‘Alaskan Bush People’ went on hiatus in 2022, Raquell said Gabe “began growing distant and short” and began yelling “louder” at both her and her kids, with Gabe sometimes hitting the kids. While the alleged abuse led the pair to separate and prompted Raquell to file a restraining order against Gabe in April 2023, the restraining order was ultimately dismissed.
After a brief separation, Raquell and Gabe reconciled in March 2024, though Raquell claimed that the “environment” had only become more “depressing and toxic” for her and her kids. Gabe allegedly exerted control by doing a “roll call” and forcing everyone in the house to line up “as if [they] were in the military.” She claimed that during these events, she and her kids “couldn’t speak unless spoken to” and “couldn’t leave until [Gabe] dismissed [them].”
Raquell also stated in her declaration that the stress of her relationship with Gabe sent her into a state of depression, at which point she believed that taking her own life was the only way for her to escape her marriage.
“I was made to believe that if I wanted a divorce, Gabe would take my children and everything away from me,” she explained.
At this time, Gabe has not responded to the allegations made in Raquell’s divorce declaration.
Interestingly, Rhain Brown, the estranged wife of Gabe’s brother Noah, was recently granted a temporary civil protection order against Noah. Rhain was granted the restraining order after claiming that Noah abused her physically and sexually, and psychologically manipulated her for years.
RELATED STORY: ‘Alaskan Bush People’ Star Noah Brown Responds After His Estranged Wife Gets Protective Order Against Him
(Photos: Instagram; Discovery)
All the Browns have been accused of DV by their partners. There’s something really wrong with all of them