Featured Image Credit: Disney+
Topics: TV and Film, Celebrity, Bear Grylls, Disney Plus
Claire Reid
Reality star Spencer Matthews has revealed he heard his late brother’s voice for the first time in more than two decades while recording a documentary.
Matthews’ older brother, Michael, vanished in 1999 while he was climbing Mount Everest - just three hours after he reached the summit and became the youngest ever British person to do so.
You can see a trailer for the documentary here:
In a heart-wrenching new Disney+ documentary, titled Finding Michael, 34-year-old Matthews embarks on a challenging mission to find his brother’s body, who was just 22 at the time of his disappearance.
In the documentary, Matthews attempts to follow the same route up Mount Everest that Michael took back in 1999. He’s joined on his mission by Bear Grylls and mountaineer Nirmal Purja.
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Climber Dave Rodney, who was on the ill-fated expedition with Michael, also appears in the documentary.
Speaking to The Independent, Rodney said Michael was ‘the best mate I could ever have hoped for on the mountain’.
Matthews says he shared a close bond with his brother, despite their age gap, and during the course of filming the documentary he was able to see footage of Michael filmed during the expedition.
In an interview with The Independent, Matthews said: “Dave [Rodney] in particular brought to the table footage from the 1999 expedition of Mike and Dave climbing and Mike’s attitude to the mountain and I actually had never, prior to flying to Canada to meet Dave, had never seen Mike on camera ever.
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“We weren’t the kind of family that made home videos and when I said to mum and dad, when we agreed to make this documentary, I said I need all footage of Mike and they said ‘We don’t have any’.
“Fortunately, Dave had this incredible film that I hadn’t seen so I saw it in Canada for the first time and it’s the first time I’d heard Michael speak since he was alive, since I was 10.”
Grylls, who was also an executive producer on the project, told the outlet: “Michael was a young man that I met a few months before he set off to climb Everest, I’d climbed it the year before.
“He was going to be a year younger than me and I was all fired up and came for a chat and I was full of ‘You gotta go for it, you’re gonna smash it’.
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“There was definitely a meeting of minds and spirit with a fellow young guy who wanted to stand on top of the world. Obviously then when the disaster happened and Michael never came home it was a devastating blow for everyone.”
Finding Michael is available to stream on Disney+ now.