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Spencer Matthews praises ‘incredible’ wife Vogue after Finding Michael documentary
8 March 2023, 15:21 | Updated: 17 April 2023, 09:35
Spencer Matthews attempts to find brother on Mount Everest in 'Finding Michael' trailer
Spencer Matthews has opened up about his wife Vogue's support during his mission to find his missing brother.
Spencer Matthews has opened up about his wife Vogue’s support during filming for his new documentary Finding Michael.
On 13th May 1999, Michael Matthews became the youngest British climber to reach the summit of Mount Everest at the age of just 22.
However, just hours later, he went missing in a snowstorm and his body has never been recovered.
In his new film - currently streaming on Disney+ - Matthew’s younger brother Spencer goes up the mountain to find his brother and bring him home.
We sat down to chat to Spencer all about the incredible journey, where he praised Vogue for standing behind him.
“I wouldn’t have been able to do it if Vogue wasn’t overwhelmingly supportive of the project,” he said.
“She was completely behind it, there was no persuading her and she would have done the same for her siblings.
“She's incredibly family orientated and was on board from the first minute we mentioned it.”
Opening up about having to leave his wife, newborn son Otto and their two other children Theodore and Gigi, he said: “It was a very unfortunate clash of climbings we had already delayed to the 2022 summit season from 2021.
“There are specific timings around summit seasons and unfortunately those were the dates.”
He later added: “I missed my kids and my wife really intensely, but it was an emotionally interesting time for me to get to spend time just thinking about Michael.”
In the documentary, an experienced team joined Spencer, including mountaineer Nirmal Purja who is the world record holder for climbing all 14 mountains over 8,000 metres.
Along with a 10-man search and rescue crew, they headed on a one month quest to Nepal’s most-famous mountain armed with drones to retrace Michael's movements.
“The whole experience of reliving Mike’s final days was amazing,” he told us, continuing: “Staying in the same tearooms, taking the same trek up to Everest.
“Being at base camp for four and a half weeks was all time I’ve never taken to focus on him.”
Spencer was just 10-years-old when his brother went missing, and says he has struggled to process his emotions over the loss.
The former Made in Chelsea star said creating this documentary helped him to come to terms with his brother’s death.
“I’ve suppressed a lot of my emotion for my adult life and I'm not the most emotional person,” he said.
“Before I went I was more interested in finding him and getting the job done, when I began to think about it.
“I didn’t know whether it would be amazing or traumatising, it became a lot more real the closer we got to Everest.”
Finding Michael is available to stream on Disney+ now.
