‘Alaskan Bush People’ Billy Brown Tribute Moment With Daughter Birdy Stokes Fan Emotions

Alaskan Bush People patriarch Billy Brown passed away on February 8, 2021, after suffering from a seizure at the age of 68. Discovery Channel aired a special episode, The Legacy of Billy Brown, celebrating Brown’s life on Feb. 28, and fans are still getting emotional.

In a clip from the episode, Brown is shown having a tender moment with his daughter, Birdy. Birdy has similar views about living off the land as her late father, something that bonds the two of them. “It’s fall. It’s heading into winter, so that means your birthday is coming,” Brown says in the scene. “I noticed,” Birdy responds before the scene cuts to a confessional. “When I think of the bush, dad’s there,” Birdy admits. “His laugh. He is part of the bush when I think about it.”

Later in the clip, Brown is shown giving Birdy his pocket knife. “I’ve carried this in my pocket for almost 30 years,” Brown says.”There’s a lot of brothers. There’s only one of you.” The two embrace and Brown suggests that someday she should hand the heirloom down to her own daughter.

This particular moment pulled on the heartstrings of fans, who shared their emotional responses on Twitter. “This made me cry. So sweet,” wrote one fan. “Completely saddened to hear about Billy’s death, he was loved by so many people, my deepest condolences to the family,” posted another. “This made me cry. You can see the love between them,” observed one Twitter user.

Elsewhere in the episode, Birdy explained that what she will “miss the most” following Brown’s death was how he would read aloud to the family. She explained that her dad “would always tell stories even if it was about his childhood or things that he had written for us,” and the family would “all sit down and he’d read it page by page.” She explained that even a month after his death, she can “still hear his voice reading” those stories.