When Spencer Matthews was 10, his brother died on Mt Everest. Now he's determined to recover his body.

Spencer Matthews is arguably best known as the OG bad boy from hit British reality TV show Made In Chelsea — or for being Pippa Middleton's brother-in-law.

But the death of Spencer's brother, Michael Matthews, has also followed Spencer throughout his life in the spotlight. Spencer was just 10 years old when Michael climbed Mount Everest, only to disappear just hours after reaching the summit. 

Around two decades on, Spencer said he received a message in 2017 from someone in Nepal telling him a body had been recovered near the area where it was suspected Michael had died. Although there wasn't any confirmation it was definitely Michael, Spencer said it sparked a determination to try to bring his brother home. 

"It continued to tick away in my head: 'What if it is him?'. I've certainly grown up with feelings that he's up there and died and was left there. Wouldn't it be nice if there was a body to mourn for my family?" he said, promoting his new documentary Finding Michael. 

Watch the trailer for Finding Michael. Post continues below.

In May 1999, a group of climbers, including Michael, set off to climb Mount Everest. 

At just 22 years old, Michael was already an experienced climber, having done climbs in the Alps and Tanzania's Mount Kilimanjaro. The trip to the top of Everest was successful, making Michael the youngest Brit to have reached the summit at that time.

But descending the mountain proved far more difficult as Michael and his team were faced with heavy snow and strong gales. 

Michael became separated from the climbing pack and disappeared. Some of his fellow climbers later said they believed he'd got into trouble in the mountain's notorious 'Death Zone', which is more than 8,000 metres above sea level.

His body was never found. And as a result, the exact cause of death is unknown. He became the 162nd person to die on Everest. Now that death toll stands around 310.

Michael's family believed fault for their loved one's death lay with the guides who he travelled with, and the company that organised the expedition. In 2006, a judge ended the Matthews family's battle to bring a manslaughter prosecution against the three men who organised the expedition, concluding they were not at fault.  

Later, Spencer Matthews spoke about of how he struggled to cope with the news of his brother's death.

"Michael was everything to me. My mother always described us as twins separated by time. We looked similar and I felt like a young version of him. We had the same tastes and were, what felt like, the greatest of friends," he said recently.

For context, the Matthews family are no strangers to the public eye. Spencer Matthews grew to fame as cast member on Made In Chelsea, and is married to Irish model and presenter Vogue Williams.

Spencer's other brother James Matthews is also well-known — a former professional racing driver and hedge fund manager who is married to none other than Pippa Middleton.

Michael Matthews top left, James Matthews next to him and Spencer Matthews in the middle, along with Michael Matthews on Mount Everest shortly before his death. Image: Instagram/Disney+.

Spencer told The Travel Diaries podcast: "I was 10 at the time. I remember thinking it was really unfair. 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."

For years, Spencer said he was plagued by the mental image of his deceased brother dying alone in the snow. 

"We were uncomfortable with him being left on Everest, and the fact that we never had a body to mourn or say goodbye to felt wrong. I always had images of him being alone, cold and face down on the mountain. Most families have the ability to go and visit their loved ones – we had never had that opportunity."

In the 2014 autobiography Confessions of a Chelsea Boy, he said that every year on Michael's birthday, Spencer sends his mum and dad a number of red roses for the age he would have been each year. 

"I guess our family's way of dealing with losing Mike is to believe that he goes on with us," he wrote.

Now this month, Disney+ has released a new documentary called Finding Michael, which is centred on this very story.

Spencer always dreamt of recovering his brother's body, but thought it was never possible.

Then in 2017, his family received that fateful message, followed by a photo, which the sender claimed could be the remains of Michael. Spencer decided that if there was even a small chance that it was his brother, he was going to try to recover the body.

"It did look like it could be, with similar summit suits. It's the first time really that I thought even a body recovery was possible," he said in a television promotion for the documentary. "We scraped together any information we had. Some of the footage of Michael on the mountain I'd never seen before. It was the first time I'd seen him on camera, because as a kid we didn't do home movies or anything."

Though the search and rescue crew found several bodies in the area where Michael's body is believed to have gone missing, none of them were Michael.

Although Spencer has been unsuccessful in finding his brother's body so far, he was able to retrace Michael's last steps. For the documentary, Spencer did the climb with an expert team, along with famed survivalist Bear Grylls and record-breaking mountaineer Nirmal 'Nims' Purja.

And while climbing the same route, Spencer said he felt the "closest I've felt to Mike since his death".

''I'm not the most emotional person but the nearer we got to the mountain, the more potent my feelings became," he reflected to The Sunday Times. "He's frozen in time. I'm his big brother now. I was unable to stop thinking about it. I wanted to bring him home for my mum."

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A post shared by S P E N C E R M A T T H E W S (@spencermatthews)The climb

The expedition lasted a month in total, with Spencer departing just days after his wife Vogue Williams gave birth to their third child. He explained this was the only time the expedition could take place that year due to the small window of perfect weather conditions. 

The tragedy has also inspired the Matthews family to start the Michael Matthews Foundation, which builds
schools in remote, poverty-stricken locations around the world.

Pippa Middleton has also done a lot of work for the foundation since marrying James Matthews, taking part in a series of gruelling physical challenges to raise money.

Reflecting on the documentary, Matthews wrote: "This unique film, two years in the making, is an emotional story about tragic loss and brotherly love. It has been a difficult journey to document, both physically and emotionally but I'm hoping that it will give my brave brother the legacy that he deserves."

Feature Image: Disney+/Instagram @spencermatthews.