Matt Brown, star of Discovery Channel’s Alaskan Bush People reality series, has died. He was 42.

His brother, Bear Brown, on Instagram Saturday announced “they found a body in the river a few hours ago, and it was positively identified as being Matt.” He added his younger brother Noah Brown was on hand when Matt Brown’s body was discovered in the Okanogan River in Washington state and helped the authorities identify his brother after a body was pulled from the water.

The office of the Okanogan County Sheriff in a May 30 press release said a “group of private citizens” had done a search along the river before coming upon a body in the water. “The individual was recovered and brought to shore, where he was positively identified as Matthew Brown,” the authorities said amid an ongoing investigation into the death.

“The cause and manner of death will be determined by the Coroner’s Office,” Jodie Barcus, county sheriff, added. Bear Brown said his brother had “struggled for a long time,” but he never assumed any harm would come to him.

“I would have never suspected he would have hurt himself, honestly,” Bear Brown said in his emotional Instagram video. “I was so worried he was gonna end up OD’ed or something like that, I didn’t think that he would hurt himself. It does look as though the injury is self-inflicted.”

His update followed an earlier TikTok post where he said his family feared the worst. “I’m being told that late last night that Matt took his own life. Witnesses say that he was seen in a river, at a river, or close to a river, and that he took his own life, and then they saw him floating in the river. They called the police, and they’ve been trying to find the body. So far they haven’t been able to. All the witnesses are saying it was Matt.”

Bear Brown asked fans of the reality TV series to be respectful of his family’s privacy as they grieved the death of their sibling. Alaskan Bush People followed the Brown family — six brothers and sisters and parents — as they lived in the remote wilderness over 14 seasons ending in 2022.

Matt Brown starred on the series from 2014 to 2019, when he suddenly left the show.

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