Matt Brown’s stepsister Twila Byars slammed other people’s “self-serving” tributes following his tragic death.
“I want to pay tribute to my little brother and his life but the self serving feeling is a bit much for me,” she captioned an Instagram Reel showing a montage of the late “Alaskan Bush People” star on Wednesday.
“So this will be the last of them for now. Rest in Peace little Brother.”
Matt went missing on May 27, with the Okanogan County Sheriff Office revealing a 911 caller “heard a sound” at the Okanogan River, turned and saw a man “facedown in the water drifting away in the current.”
His brother Bear Brown took to social media to share “some really bad news” with his followers, saying he had been told that Matt — the eldest sibling of the Brown bunch — “took his own life.”
On Saturday, Bear shared the devastating news via TikTok that Matt had died by suicide. He was 43.
Matt’s body was recovered from a Washington state river, according to Bear.
“They found a body in the river a few hours ago and it was positively identified as being Matt,” he said in the heartbreaking update.
Bear said that Noah Brown, the youngest brother among the seven Brown siblings, was the first family member to see Matt’s body and “helped them pull the body out of the water.”
“I would’ve never thought that Matt would hurt himself. It does look as though it was self-inflicted,” Bear said, adding that his brother had been struggling with alcohol and drug addiction, along with “other issues” he had kept private.
Bear also asked fans to be respectful and avoid leaving negative comments as the family mourns.
On Monday, Noah revealed that he had seen Matt the day before he died.
It was “just one of those, like, driving by [and] wave-type situations,” he told Us Weekly. “I wish I had more time when I drove past,” Noah confessed. “But … it is what it is.”
The 33-year-old also shared his final conversation with his late sibling “two or three weeks” before Matt’s passing.
“I ran into him in the grocery store [and] the last thing I said to him was, ‘Okay, love you more, man,’ which was our thing,” Noah recalled.
“You never know when the last time you’re going to see someone is, so [our family] always [says] how you feel right before you say goodbye, because it could be the last thing,” he added. “Then that was it.”
Noah noted that he and Matt were on “good” terms but “kept [their] distance” prior to his passing.
Matt appeared in 79 episodes of “Alaskan Bush People” between 2014 and 2019, which starred his parents Billy and Ami and his siblings.
The Discovery Channel series followed the Brown family as they lived off the grid in the wilderness.
If you or someone you know is affected by any of the issues raised in this story, contact the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline by calling or texting 988.
