Pippa Middleton's Husband Lost His Brother In A Tragic Accident

Pippa Middleton and James Matthews' wedding was nothing short of a fairytale, but their special day was missing one crucial person — James' older brother, Michael Matthews; sadly the brother-in-law Pippa never got to meet. He tragically died in 1999 after becoming the youngest Briton to ever make it to the top of Mount Everest (Michael was only 22 at the time). He was no rookie, however; the intrepid climber had already scaled Kilimanjaro, the Pyrenees, and the Swiss Alps before taking on Everest, but something went horribly wrong on his way back down the mountain, and Michael's family never saw him again.

To this day, it's still not entirely clear what went wrong during Michael's descent. The group that he accompanied up the mountain recalled encountering a nasty storm on their way back down once they entered Everest's notorious Death Zone. The team weathered winds of 100mph at 8,000 meters up, and in the ensuing chaos, Michael disappeared. His senior guide eventually made his way back down to base camp after failing to locate the lost climber. For James, who is just 18 months Michael's senior, the news of his disappearance was absolutely devastating. 

"James of course took the news badly," Michael and James' younger brother, Spencer Matthews, wrote in his autobiography "Confessions of a Chelsea Boy," adding, "With just a year and a half between them, he and Mike were the closest of friends. The loss was heartbreaking for James." Elsewhere in his book, Spencer revealed that the hardest part about Michael's death was that they never recovered his body. The family therefore couldn't hold a proper funeral, so finding closure was almost impossible. Likewise, "Over time this became worse because the circumstances surrounding Michael's death have never been fully explained." 

In the years since, James Matthews has been doing his best to keep his late brother's memory alive. He and his family founded the Michael Matthews Foundation in his honor, an organization aimed at improving the quality of education in Africa and Asia, and James has been an avid fundraiser, regularly competing in iron-man races, marathons, and triathlons to raise much-needed funds. One thing he won't do, however, is scale a mountain. When Pippa Middleton and her own brother, James Middleton, climbed the Matterhorn in the Alps, back in 2016, in support of the Michael Matthews Foundation, James, her then-fiancé, notably didn't accompany them. 

While some thought that this was just another one of the weird things everyone ignores about their marriage, James' absence wasn't for lack of caring. As Pippa told People of his reasoning behind the decision, "Mountain climbing [...] has disturbing memories and understandably James kept his feet firmly on the ground, whilst giving us his complete support." She also noted that, even though they never got to personally meet Michael, the Middleton siblings feel like they knew him. "We both share his spirit and passion for the mountains. We made this climb knowing he would have been there nudging us on, and we are honored to be supporting his memory," Pippa remarked.