Two months ago, Alaskan Bush People patriarch Billy Brown passed away. He was 68.
Now, son Matt Brown has found that there were things that he didn’t know about his family.
And there are even more things that none of us knew until he chose to speak out.
Matt accuses his family of theft, gaslighting, and cocaine use. But his brother, Bear, objects.
“Everybody’s told me that other people’s secrets aren’t mine to tell," Matt muses during a lengthy Instagram video.
"But," he explained, "they’re destroying me, and they’ve been destroying me for a long time."
Matt has struggled with addiction in the past but looks forward to celebrating three years of sobriety this summer.
“I’m cold, and I don’t have any money," Matt revealed. "And I hardly have anything to eat.”
He went on to admit that he has been keeping a lot of secrets to his “detriment and… mental dismay.”
Part of that, he shared, was confirmation of what many of us have suspected for years.
Billy Brown was writing a book, which is what prompted producers to pitch the show.
It was production’s idea to film the family — who had a generator and various electrical devices like a TV.
They wanted them living by candlelight, and that’s how they filmed them … even if it meant fakery.
That much, we always suspected, as the show became faker as time went on.
The Browns are a wealthy family with a luxurious home in Beverly Hills and own a sizable property in rural Washington.
But Matt confirms that even at the beginning, things were not as they appeared on screen.
Much more shocking was Matt’s accusation, contained within the video, that production began to provide his parents with drugs.
As you can see in the clip that we included, Matt says that they provided them with "mainly cocaine."
Matt says that they would then give him cocaine, too, prompting his erratic behavior.
According to Matt, this is what prompted him to begin drinking heavily.
Though he did go to rehab, he also began an affair with a married woman.
Matt emphasizes now that this affair was wrong, but he shares that he truly was in love with her.
“We made a lot of money off the show," Matt points out in the video.
"And because my dad controlled everything," he shared, "all the money went to him."
"I didn’t have any money or anything," Matt lamented. "My dad kept that all."
This is a very believable accusation because it has happened to others on reality shows.
In total, Matt reports that his parents stole $360,000 from him.
This, he says, he confirmed when he saw paperwork involved in his mother getting the company transferred into her name.
According to Matt, at least one of his brothers is enduring the same treatment that he was put through.
That treatment, by the way, included more than just alleged theft and a cocaine addiction.
According to Matt, he was also stalked and gaslit on his father’s orders.
Matt describes noticing that he was being followed.
He told his parents, who seemed unconcerned and tried to convince him that he was just imagining things.
But though they were "making me think I was crazy," Matt says, he later uncovered the truth.
Matt says that at one point he was so desperate for answers that he snuck into his father’s hotel room.
Accessing his father’s laptop, he discovered names and reports from private investigators hired to tail him.
They had even put spyware on Matt’s phone, he shared, in order to track his activities and whereabouts.
Even then, Matt lamented, his family responded with gaslighting, trying to convince him that this was imaginary.
"I don’t know what to do anymore," he says, "except tell the truth."
A despondent Matt expresses: "Life is supposed to be better than this."
But Matt’s younger brother, Bear Brown, insists that Matt is lying in a new Instagram post.
"I would like to set the record straight about the things my older brother has posted," he began.
Bear insisted: "None of it is true!"
"It’s heartbreaking that he would say such horrible lies about Da," Bear complained.
He lamented that this is "just a few months after he passed away!"
"I pray he can find the peace and serenity in his life that he needs," Bear wrote.
"You have no idea what [you are] talking about," Bear fired back at a fan questioning him.
"We have done nothing but support him," he claimed.
Bear then alleged: "He needs professional help."
Matt has been to rehab, which he says is where he first realized how damaging production was to him.
Meanwhile, we cannot help but recall when Bear was accused of using cocaine.
Some fans are connecting the dots. Is it possible that both brothers believe that they’re telling the truth?