Spencer Matthews has opened up about the impact losing his older brother on an expedition up Mount Everest had on him as a child, admitting it took him 'a while to process' the heartbreaking news.
Aged 23 at the time, Michael Matthews became the youngest Brit to reach the mountain's summit in 1999, but he sadly never made it home and his body is yet to be found.
Former Made in Chelsea star Spencer spoke on the High Performance podcast last week, opening up on the incident that caused him to feature in a Disney Plus documentary released last year, where there was a search led by Bear Grylls on Everest for his brother's body.
Finding Michael saw the TV personality travel to the unforgiving environment of Everest as he tried to locate and uncover his missing brother's body more than 20 years after the disaster.
He said that his brother's death 'never affected me in the way that it could have done', probably due to being in his early years when it happened.
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Spencer explained: "I think, as a 10-year-old, i was able to navigate it less painfully than the rest of the family, for them it was like being hit by freight train.
"You know, 'Michael's lost on Everest', to me that sounded like 'cool, I'm sure we'll find him'."
Spencer explained that he was 'in Disneyland' at the time as he was just a child, adding: "I had the assumption that Michael would be found alive, so it never affected me in the way that it could have done had I been more logical."
Spencer further explained: "Even at his memorial service, I was reading, but there was no body, so to me I was like well 'what's this all about?' type thing."
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"And I was told by then, very clearly, that 'you know Michael's never coming home?'
"And it took me a while to process that I would never see him again," he revealed.
The star then opened up on his experiences of travelling to Everest to make the documentary, as the same feelings started to come back again and he came to terms with possibly finding his brother.
"Then we went to make Finding Michael and the realisation that I might see him again became quite a stern realisation because, again, I hadn't fully processed that.
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"I'm sat there at base camp, was there for five weeks, and I was thinking if we're successful, I'm going to come face to face with my brother's body, which would be probably perfectly preserved," he recalled.
"So like I'll be his older brother now he's frozen in time. He died 12 years older than me, I'd now be 12 years older than him, the whole thing would would have been a bit of a mind f***," he admitted.
"You know Bear Grylls was very kind to executive produce and come on board quite early and put us in touch with great people.
"And I think when around the time that Disney became interested, I think everyone was a bit more relaxed about the whole thing."
Finding Michael is available to stream on Disney+
Topics: Mount Everest, Disney Plus, Bear Grylls, Travel
Joshua Nair