Robert Brian Clark, who appeared on a memorable episode of Season 2 of Catfish, has tragically died, MTV News confirms this week.
He was just 33 years old.
Clark, who went by “Brian” on his Catfish episode, was reportedly killed in a motorcycle accident in Jefferson County, Alabama.
Local news reports described a tragic, harrowing scene.
It’s not clear exactly how, but Brian was thrown from his motorcycle after he “became airborne while crossing a set of railroad tracks.”
He was then hit by a car after landing on the highway.
When the motorcycle came landed after being airborne, it landed on its side and Clark was ejected from the bike before being struck.
The crash happened at 5 p.m. local time, and Clark was pronounced dead on the scene less than a half an hour afterward, at 5:20 p.m.
Simply awful.
According to reports, Brian passed away in December, but it appears that MTV only learned about, and mourned, his death this week.
In 2013, Brian appeared on Catfish with Jesse Bettinger, a pretty blonde who was worried that Brian was not who he appeared to be.
You can see a photo of the couple above.
He’d been portraying himself as a Southern gentleman, but Jesse, unsure of who she was dealing with online, enlisted the Catfish crew.
As she told Nev Schulman, she had been stood up by Brian once before, after driving hundreds of miles to meet up with him no less.
Brian later revealed that he missed their rendezvous because he was arrested for possessing a sawed-off shotgun that very same day.
Nevertheless, the online relationship continued, and when Brian and Jesse eventually met on Catfish, well, he was who he said he was.
That’s right, he was telling the truth all along.
A catch-up special later revealed to fans that they did not end up together, though they continued dating one another after the episode.
It’s not clear why they broke up, but Brian, a former U.S. Marine, had struggled with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) for years.
Jesse, now the mother of a two-year-old son, posted a tribute to Brian on Facebook, along with the caption, “I’ll never forget our good times.”
“Your struggle is finally over,” she said.
Sadly, Catfish Season 2 star Ashley Sawyer died within the last year as well (Mike Fortunato, the man she met on MTV, is also deceased).
Wednesday night’s episode of Catfish contained a short tribute to Brian Clark, with the network sharing its condolences and memories.