Spencer Matthews reveals he climbed Mount Everest to try and recover his brother’s body

Michael was just 23 when he set out on the expedition that took his life over two decades ago. His body was never recovered – a fact Spencer has revealed is difficult to live with.

“I’ve always been uncomfortable with him being up there, especially in plain sight,” he told Holly Rubenstein’s The Travel Diaries podcast. “Around 600 people a year summit Everest.

"I’ve always been uncomfortable that he could be laying up there like some kind of tourist attraction but also on his own, away from us.

"He died up there and his last thoughts will probably have been that he’s never going to see his family again. We have not seen his body and I set off to go to Everest and find him and bring him home,” Spencer said.

The former Made in Chelsea star documented his journey following his brother and attempting to bring home in a film that will be released on Disney+ in February 2023.

"I was aching to find out more about his death. I was ten 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,” Spencer said, who was just 10 years old when he lost his brother.

"I thought it was impossible. It never crushed me in the way it affected my parents and my brother.

"Part of the film is that we retrace the exact steps that Mike and his friends took,” he said.

"We stay in the same places and do the same path as he did. It’ll be a really powerful and amazing film.”

Spencer set out on the journey just five days after the birth of his youngest son Otto, when a ‘weather window’ made the trek feasible.

Otherwise, he would have had to wait another year.

In Spencer's 2013 book Confessions of a Chelsea Boy: The Autobiography, he said Matthew’s loss “was devastating for the family and over time this became worse because the circumstances surrounding Michael's death have never been fully explained.

"We have not been able to say goodbye in person. We have nowhere to go to sit with him.

“He lives on with us in our minds only. On Mike's birthday, James and I send mum and dad red roses for the age he would have been. I guess our family's way of dealing with losing Mike is to believe that he goes on with us.”

Spencer has said he has the full backing of his wife Vogue, who was “touched” by his plans to travel up Everest on a mission to recover his brother and find out the circumstances of his death.

His brother, Michael, had already summited the famous mountain and was making his way back down with his climbing group when he began to struggle.

It is believed a storm with 100mph winds separated the experienced climber from the rest of the group.