MasterChef Australia star Matt Preston reveals how losing his 22-year-old brother still shapes his life: 'There was a space'

Former MasterChef judge Matt Preston has opened up about the devastating loss of his younger brother, admitting the tragedy continues to influence his life decades later.

Preston, 64, is appearing in the upcoming SBS documentary The Hospital: In the Deep End, where he worked alongside frontline health workers in geriatric, neurology and prostate cancer wards.

While the experience exposed him to the harsh realities of hospital life, it also stirred deeply personal memories of the family loss that changed everything.

His brother William died in 1988 at just 22 from Sudden Unexpected Death in Epilepsy (SUDEP) – at a time when little was understood about the condition. 

The little-known condition occurs when an otherwise healthy person with epilepsy dies suddenly - not from a seizure-related accident - with no reason for death being found. 

Preston says the stigma around epilepsy back then was frighteningly primitive.

'When my brother got epilepsy, I think it was seen as medieval... like an Exorcist moment,' he told the Herald Sun.

'People were scared of it – it was like 'oh there be demons' kind of stuff. We're probably a lot better than that. 

'Hopefully, we start to look more carefully at the work we do in that area or neurology, which is such an important area. Increasingly it's going to affect more of us.'

More than 200,000 Australians live with epilepsy and more than 170 die each year from the condition, but Preston believes research and funding still has a long way to go.

The loss also pushed his late mother to start a charity that continues today.

Yet it was only recently that the full emotional weight of losing his sibling truly hit home.

'It only hit me this Christmas,' he says. 

'We were sitting around the table with my wife's family and one of my kids – the other two are travelling – and it was like there was that space not just for where my brother could have been but his partner and their kids and the relationship that they would have had with my kids.

'That's an emotionally challenging thing to embrace.' 

The tragedy also played a pivotal role in the London-born reality TV star's decision to come to Australia.

'I came to Australia for the first time after my brother died... because I needed time off. This was my way of doing it,' he said. 

'I went for a four-month travel around the world, ended up with Australia, and then ended up moving here. So, absolutely there was that sense of making more of my life.'

Working in hospitals for the documentary forced Preston to confront both that past loss and the fragility of life more broadly.

The experience left him in awe of healthcare workers but also convinced he could never do their job.

'That constant pressure... I came out of some of those days going 'I don't understand why they do it and how they do it',' he said.

For Preston, losing his brother and watching his mother's decline has reshaped how he views time and success.

'Focusing my attitude on stuff that matters to me is really important,' he says. 'It was good to do stuff that mattered.'