Discovery Channel
Here’s Why Some Fans Suspect the ‘Alaskan Bush People’ Never Really Lived in Alaska
During Ami Brown’s cancer battle, the Alaskan Bush People stars, a.k.a. the Brown family, officially left the bush, and they’ve since made several moves — but where do they live now?
The famous family previously explored the idea of a home in Colorado and they may also still have their rental property in Los Angeles, but the brood currently resides in Tonasket, Washington. Some fans even believe the Browns never lived in Alaska at all while the show was filming.
So, where did this theory begin? They definitely were in Alaska — the show was filmed there, after all — but it’s been claimed the filming locations weren’t exactly remote.
Rumor has it that, off camera, the Browns weren’t even near the bush for some time. According to Alaskan locals who talked to Radar Online in 2016, the family would actually stay at the Icy Strait Lodge in Hoonah when they were not shooting the Discovery Channel series.
Patriarch Billy Brown and his wife, Ami, aren’t shy about their nomadic lifestyle, having revealed they have spent nearly 40 Christmases in 40 different places. However, viewers thought they would have stronger ties to Alaska if they were able to score a whole TV show about their lives there.
When it comes to the facts, there are even some legal documents to back these claims up. In 2014, the family got in trouble with the government as they were charged with 24 counts of unsworn falsification and theft for lying about living in Alaska in order to receive government checks. It even seemed prison was in the cards for the Alaskan Bush People, though they managed to arrange a plea deal to get out of it. But Billy and Bam Bam Brown had to pay thousands of dollars when it was determined that they didn’t actually live in Alaska from roughly 2009-2013, as they’d claimed on government forms so they could get state funds.
Is this just a fan conspiracy theory or is there more to it? According to an ex-girlfriend of Matt Brown, the reality star told her his family had lived in Haines, Alaska, until he was a teenager. A rep for Discovery Channel also refutes ongoing claims the brood never resided in the chilly state, telling In Touch in a statement they “can confirm the [Brown] family spent many years living off the land in Alaska.”
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