In 1999, Michael Matthews became the youngest Briton ever to summit Everest at the age of 22. On the way back down from the mountain’s peak – mere hours later – he disappeared and was never seen again.
Now, more than two decades later, Finding Michael charts his brother Spencer’s attempt to find and bring his brother’s body home.
“He was 12 years older than me when he died,” Matthews tells me. “I’m now 12 years older than him. You know, he’s frozen in time. I’m his big brother now; I’ve come to find him. You know, what is that going to do to my mind?”
Sitting in the living room of his family house, Matthews is affable; cheerful – his manner and openness at odds, perhaps, with the grimness of the subject matter.
As is made abundantly clear during the documentary, Everest is an unforgiving mistress. Approximately 300 people have died trying to scale it – in an early scene from the documentary, Matthews searches for Michael’s name on a memorial of climbers who have died trying to make the ascent. It takes him a while; their number is huge.
Matthews’ own journey follows in his brother’s footsteps all the way to Everest basecamp, where he waits as a crack team of mountaineers – including Nimsdai Purja MBE, famous for scaling fourteen of the highest mountains in the world in seven months – search for a body to bring back down to his family.
Michael’s death has clearly left a massive hole, but Matthews’ face exudes warmth as he describes his brother. Michael, he says, was the person who badgered his parents into having Spencer, twelve years after him; the pair were, by all accounts, thick as thieves.
“We loved each other deeply. And I felt that very much from him. As a kid, I felt protected by him. You know, it would always be Mike and I teaming up against whoever.”
“I always thought that I would grow up to be just like Mike. And when we were on the mountain, and when I was spending lots of time thinking about him, I would become a touch emotional thinking that at this stage in his life, were he still alive, he would have kids like me; and they would be friends, and they would get to grow up together.”
Michael made it to the summit, passing through the Death Zone (the highest section of the mountain, where human beings can no longer get the oxygen they need to sustain life) and reaching the top after the rest of the group. However, on the way down he was caught in a storm, and his guide lost sight of him. Though he waited for an hour, he eventually continued down the mountain solo; the difficult weather conditions made any ideas of rescue too dangerous.
In the aftermath of the expedition, Matthews’ father David brought a private criminal prosecution against the expedition’s leader and guides in 2006; however, they were ultimately not found guilty of manslaughter by gross negligence. According to the Sunday Times, the judge summed up the trial by saying: “All the evidence shows that [Michael’s] death was truly one of the many tragic accidents for which Mount Everest, and the forces of nature that play with such deadly effect upon its summit, have become deservedly notorious.”
Does Matthews resent the mountain for Michael’s death? He says not.
“The family has always understood that the mountain claims lives… I certainly resented certain individuals growing up,” he says, though he won’t say who, and adds that “the film isn’t about that.”
For some people, taking the decision to film such a personal journey would be difficult. For Matthews, it seems to have been a necessary one.
“I took the difficult decision to document it with the family because I’ve always wanted Michael to have a legacy. The fact that he was 22 and the youngest Brit to climb Mount Everest – you know, it has always been something that I’ve been really proud of,” he says; indeed, the family set up the Michael Matthews Foundation in his memory, which supports education projects in Africa and Asia.
“I personally would love for people to know who he was and how brilliant he was, because particularly my opinion of him couldn’t be much higher. Obviously, he died when I was very young… the fact that his story has never really been told is something that I wanted to change.”
Matthews himself is a veteran of the television industry. In 2011, he shot to fame as one of the original cast members on E4’s Made in Chelsea, playing one of the show’s villains.
He grimaces when I mention this; clearly, it’s something he’s keen to avoid. “I think the Made in Chelsea thing was fun initially, and became less fun and less original for me,” he says.
“You know, it was 14 years ago that I was on that show. To me, it’s like ancient history. The fact that it’s always referenced when people talk about me, I think is a bit of a shame. Not because I’m embarrassed of the show, just it’s so long ago, right?”
Now a father of three, Matthews runs several successful business enterprises alongside his wife, Vogue – including an alcohol-free drinks business, CleanCo, developed after he went sober in 2018.
Talking to Matthews, it’s remarkable how open and frank he is about these hugely painful subjects – but when I ask if he had therapy in the run-up to making the show, the answer is a resounding no.
“I have not had months of therapy,” he says firmly. Instead, Matthews attended a three and a half hour session about mourning and grief – and, as he puts it, “my lack of it as a kid” – prior to going to Everest.
“[The therapist] surmised that I’ve been suppressing my emotions around this for all of my adult life. My friend Jamie Laing thinks it’s hilarious, how little sympathy and empathy I have around anything, really.
“He kind of made the correlation between the two; he was like, ‘Because this happened to you at a young age, it might be why other people’s problems don’t seem important to you.’”
Despite the clear impact it had though, he’s reluctant to associate his behaviour during his youth, including his alcoholism, with his brother’s disappearance – “I just never wanted to link Michael to that. I don’t know why” – and seems keen not to dig too deep.
“I don’t know, I’d rather not go down that road. I don’t feel like everything needs explaining, I don’t feel like you need to get to the bottom of absolutely everything in your life.”
Still, Matthews has achieved some measure of peace from making the documentary, though winces slightly when I mention the word ‘closure’. He’s worked through any grievances; instead of absence, he sometimes feels Michael is “with me, from time to time.”
“We came to grips with the fact that Michael had died a really long time ago, but it was just the feelings around it that have shifted and changed. And now, when I look at certain photos of him, I kind of feel happiness, instead of sadness. It’s quite a big difference.”
Now that the documentary is out, I ask, would Matthews ever consider going back to Everest? He laughs.
“I loved Everest. Would I go back and spend another four and a half weeks at basecamp? Probably not. I would certainly love to take Vogue to basecamp, to do the walk to basecamp; I think she would just adore it. You know, it’s so beautiful.”
Then he pauses. “But no. I feel like my business with the mountain is concluded.”
