Matt Brown, best known for appearing on the Discovery Channel series Alaskan Bush People, has been found de@d in Washington aged 43. “They found a body in the river a few hours ago and it was positively identified as being Matt,” his brother Bear Brown, 38, said in a video on Instagram. A press release from the Okanogan County Sheriff’s Office, released on Wednesday (May 27), stated that a 911 caller had reported seeing “a male sitting in the shallow water” of the Okanogan River, south of Oroville, Washington.

Police, firefighters and emergency responders launched an immediate search operation but were unable to locate a body. Bear said that their younger brother, Noah Brown, 33, was the first to discover the body further along the river. “Noah helped them pull the body out of the water and Noah identified [Matt],” Bear continued.

“I would’ve never expected he would hurt himself, honestly,” Bear added, revealing Matt had a history of drug and alcohol addiction prior to his death.

“He struggled for a long time with addiction and I was so worried for a long time that he was going to OD. I didn’t think that he would hurt himself. I didn’t think he would hurt himself. It does look as though the injury is self-inflicted. Obviously, the coroner still has to look at him, but I thought that y’all guys should know that it is him,” he told his followers.

Bear first raised concerns online after he hadn’t heard from Matt in a few days.

On Thursday, Bear said in a TikTok video: “I’m being told that late last night, Matt took his own life. Like I said, I can’t confirm that that’s true, but 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 they saw him, like, floating down the river.”

He revealed that Matt had struggled with substance abuse which led to him becoming estranged from his family.

Bear remarked: “He has been struggling for a long time, you know, with alcohol and drugs and stuff. And he has done a lot of stuff that people, like, don’t even know about. Everyone thinks that the family has, like, shunned him and won’t have anything to do with him, but that’s not actually the case. He didn’t want anything to do with the family.”

Matt opened up about his addiction battle in 2016, the same year he entered rehab.

“I could see myself spiraling. There was a lot of anxiety,” he told PEOPLE. “It took a couple days to work up the guts to tell my parents. But their support was unbelievable. It instantly made me feel better and like I could be successful on this journey.”

Matt was among the original stars of Discovery Channel’s hit reality series Alaskan Bush People, which followed the Brown family’s unconventional off-grid lifestyle in the Alaskan wilderness.

The series ran for 14 seasons, with Matt appearing in almost 80 episodes before it ended in 2022.