Matt Brown, one of the stars of Discovery‘s Alaskan Bush Peoplehas died at the age of 43.
His brother Bear announced the news in a TikTok video posted on Saturday night, saying a body had been found in a nearby river and had been positively identified as Matt.
Their brother Noah Brown was present and helped pull him from the water.
Bear said the death appeared to be “self-inflicted,” though he noted the coroner still has yet to make a formal ruling.
“I never suspected he would have hurt himself, honestly,” Bear said in the video.
“He struggled for a long time, as I’ve mentioned. I was so worried he’d end up OD’d or something, I didn’t think he’d hurt himself. It looks like the injury is self-inflicted.”
Bear also took a moment to ask viewers for sympathy in the wake of the news.
“Please be respectful to my family and my mom. And please watch the comments that you guys leave. Sometimes words can hurt more than fists can,” he said, noting that negative comments had been left on Matt’s previous social media posts.
Matt Brown appeared in 79 episodes of Alaskan Bush People across the show’s first eight seasons, from 2014 to 2019.
The series followed Matt, his parents and his six siblings as they lived off the grid in Alaska, and became a significant hit for Discovery.
He had been open about personal struggles in recent years.
