Spencer Matthews has been followed by cameras as he tries to find his brother’s body (Picture: Eamonn M. McCormack/Getty Images)
Spencer Matthews has said he was concerned that his brother’s body had become a ‘tourist attraction’ on Everest, which lead him to try and recover it.
The Made in Chelsea star was just 10 when his brother Michael, 22, went missing on the peak in 1999.
While Michael had broken Bear Grylls’ record to become the youngest Briton to climb the world’s highest peak, he is believed to have got into trouble a few hours after making his way down the summit through the ‘death zone’ on May 13 of that year.
An experienced mountaineer, Michael had previously conquered Kilimanjaro, the Pyrenees and the Swiss Alps, but became the 162nd person to die on Everest.
To this day his body has never been found.
‘I was aching to find out more about his death. I was ten at the time. I remember thinking it was really unfair,’ Spencer said on The Travel Diaries podcast.
Michael Matthews went missing on Mount Everest in 1999 (Picture: Michael Matthews Foundation)
‘I always believed that I’d see him again and never took it on the chin that he was dead. I thought it was impossible. It never crushed me in the way it affected my parents and my brother.’
But as part of a new documentary, Finding Michael, Spencer embarked on a journey to try and find his brother’s body and bring him home.
‘I’ve always been uncomfortable with the idea of him being up there and possibly in plain sight…like some kind of tourist attraction and on his own and away from us,’ he added.
‘His last thoughts were probably that he was never going to see his family again.
‘We had a memorial service but were of course never able to see his body.’
Spencer was just 10 when his brother died (Picture: Eamonn McCormack/BFC/Getty Images)
Spencer said that he ‘never really processed’ his brother’s death fully.
‘I always believed that I would see him again,’ he said.
‘I never really took it on the chin that he had died and I remember thinking that it was impossible at the time.’
As part of the mission, Spencer trekked to South Base Camp in Nepal, making the journey just five days after the birth of his son Otto, with wife Vogue Williams, as the time period for being able to safely scale the mountain was rapidly closing.
A trader by day, Spencer said his brother was a ‘well-rounded person’ who was also ‘incredibly modest, thoughtful and kind’.
‘For several years now I’ve been aching to understand my brother Michael’s death…I’ve always wanted to bring him home,’ he said.
Spencer said it was a ‘really powerful and amazing film’.
‘I’m going to slip and give things away if I carry on. But I do urge people to watch it,’ he added.
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Earlier this month Bear Grylls revealed that he had also made attempts to recover Michael’s body.
Speaking at the Oxford Union Society he said: ‘We actually had an expedition on Everest to try to recover the body of the brother of a good friend, who climbed it the year after I was there but was never found.’
Finding Michael is set to stream in February 2023 on Disney Plus.
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His older brother died on the mountain in 1999.
