“Alaskan Bush People” star Matt Brown met his brother Noah Brown the day before he died by suicide.
“It was like going through a wave,” Noah told Us Weekly on Monday, going on to express his regrets for not stopping last week.
“I wish I had more time when I was driving past,” the 33-year-old confessed. “But… it is what it is.”
Noah, who identified Matt after his body was pulled from the Washington River on Saturday, described his last conversation with his late brother “a couple weeks” before Matt died.
“I ran into him at the grocery store, and the last thing I said to him was, ‘Okay, love me more,’ and that was our promise,” Noah recalls.
“You never know when you’re going to see someone for the last time. So (our family) always (say) how we feel right before we say goodbye, because it could be the last time,” he added. “Then that’s it.”
Regarding their relationship before Matt’s death, Noah said they were “on good terms” but “kept their distance.”
“Later in life, I realized it was best to let him do what he liked. … The stress of a large family affects some people, but it’s just one of those things. (I) just let him live his life.”
“He and I were very good, and I’m very, very grateful for that,” Noah continued. “However, there are times when I wish I could have done more, and that’s always the case in the end. No matter how hard it is to do what I’m doing, I always wish I had done more.”
Matt went missing on Wednesday, and the Okanogan County Sheriff’s Office said a 911 caller “heard a noise” in the Okanogan River and turned around to see the man “face down in the water and being carried away by the current.”
A gun was later recovered in the area.
According to his brother Bear Brown’s TikTok video over the weekend, he died by suicide.
“I didn’t think he would hurt himself. It looks like the injury was self-inflicted,” Baer told his social media followers. “Obviously the coroner has to look at him and stuff, but I thought you guys should know it was him.”
Like Noah, Bear ran into Matt while out shopping “a while ago” before he passed away.
Matt, who had “suffered from alcohol and drugs for a long time,” told his brother that he had “fell off the wagon,” Baer claimed.
The then 38-year-old encouraged Matt to go to rehab.
He claimed via TikTok that the family is not “shunning” Matt, instead claiming that his brother “doesn’t want anything to do with the family.”
Notably, the Brown family appeared on Discovery Channel’s “Alaskan Bush People” from 2014 to 2019.
If you or someone you know has been affected by any of the issues raised in this article, please contact the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline by calling or texting 988.
