Alaskan Bush People star Bear Brown opened up and answered some of the most popular questions about the series, including if the show was fake.

“Where to start?” Bear, 37, began in a video clip he shared to Instagram on May 3. “I’m not a real Alaskan. Was the show staged? Was the show faked? Did we leave Browntown in a mess? Did construction people actually build up the stuff in Browntown? Are we hated by all locals and not welcomed back in Alaska?”

The reality TV star didn’t leave any room for interpretation with his answer.

“No, no, no, no and no,” he continued.

Bear went on to answer the questions and said that he was born in Wrangell, Alaska, on June 10, 1987, and that he didn’t move out of Alaska until he was 30 years old. He then addressed allegations that Alaskan Bush People was “faked.”

“The show was not faked. It simply followed my family, which you can actually tell how not faked it is if you actually watch the show. Not faked at all,” Bear explained.

The dad of three also said that while “construction people did build stuff in Browntown for the crew, for the producers, for camera people, so they weren’t standing in the weather all day because it rains a lot there,” that Browntown wasn’t built specifically for the TV series. As for local people in the area not appreciating Bear and his family’s foray into reality TV, he said that wasn’t true either.

“Hated by all locals? No, not true,” he shared. “A few people under a computer that were jealous that our family was picked up for a show when theirs wasn’t? Sure. Adored by a lot of people in Alaska. A lot of people I grew up with aren’t on computers. They’re not on the internet. They’re out there in Alaska in the bush.”

Bear denied that his family left Browntown in a mess and explained that if viewers pay attention they could see the state of the Brown family compound when they left because it was filmed for the show.

“It’s actually filmed when we left Browntown from an aerial view and you can see just how pristine we left it when we left,” he added before ending his message with advice for his viewers. “That stuff is just not true, but people will always believe bad before they believe good and that’s something that’s really, really sad. Life is just much too short to dwell on drama and I suggest that people get out more, smile a little bit bigger and enjoy the time that you have while you have it.”

This wasn’t the first time the Alaskan Bush People’s authenticity has been questioned. In a 2020 interview with The U.S. Sun, Raiven Brown, Bear’s estranged wife and former cast member, claimed that “none of it is real,” estimating that only “about 10 percent of the show” reflected reality. She described the production as heavily staged, with cast members being transported to filming locations rather than residing there full-time.