Who Is Brad Richardson from Alone? Every Season, Explained

Spoiler note: this covers Brad Richardson's placements on both season 4 and season 5.

Brad Richardson is a blacksmith from Fox Lake, Illinois, who specializes in hand-forged knives and tools, and he is one of a small group of contestants to appear on Alone twice. He first competed on season 4, a team-format season where contestants competed in paired teams, alongside his brother Josh Richardson. He returned the following year for season 5, the show's "Redemption" season, competing solo.

Season 4: the team season

Season 4 was filmed at Quatsino Territory on Vancouver Island, British Columbia, and paired contestants as siblings, parents and children, or spouses, with the $500,000 prize split between the winning pair. Brad and Josh were one of those sibling teams. Our normalized data records Brad's run ending on day 1 due to a medical evacuation for an ankle injury, an early and unlucky exit for a competitor whose skillset (forging and working with tools) was otherwise well suited to the format.

Brad was 23 at the time of season 4, making him one of the younger contestants that season, and the team format meant his early exit affected his and Josh's shared standing as a pair rather than just his own individual placement.

Season 5: the redemption run

A year later, Brad returned for season 5, filmed in Mongolia's Selenge Province, this time as a solo contestant rather than paired with Josh. Our season 5 contestant page lists his equipment as including a full-tang puukko-style knife, a style choice that lines up directly with his blacksmithing background. His run this time lasted 7 days, and our data records the reason for his exit as having no food for the entire stretch, a difficult problem in a location that proved tough for hunting and foraging early on for several of that season's cast.

Season 5 was billed as a "Redemption" season, bringing back contestants from earlier seasons for a second chance, and it is best known as the season Sam Larson won after an earlier season 1 appearance. Brad's return alongside Sam put two season 4-era contestants in the same redemption cast, though their second runs went in very different directions.

How his two runs compare

Season	Location	Placement	Days lasted	Reason for exit
Season 4	Vancouver Island, Canada	7th	1	Ankle injury, medical evacuation
Season 5	Selenge Province, Mongolia	9th	7	No food for the entire run

Neither appearance produced a long run by the standards of the show overall, but Brad is still notable for being one of the relatively small group of contestants who came back for a second season after an early exit the first time.

Life and career after the show

As of mid-2026, Brad continues to run a blacksmithing business, selling custom hand-forged knives under the name Timberlee Tool & Trade alongside his brother Josh. He has built a YouTube channel with a following in the tens of thousands documenting knifemaking, and he has also written a published book aimed at beginner backyard knifemakers on building a bush knife from scratch. He leads instructional classes and one-on-one workshops out of his own blacksmith studio for people looking to learn the trade directly.

Reporting describes him as a bladesmith since at least 2016, meaning his knifemaking career was already underway before either of his two Alone appearances, rather than something he built afterward. That timeline supports the idea that his equipment choices on both seasons, and especially the hand-style knife he brought to season 5, came from genuine trade experience rather than a general survivalist's toolkit.

That path, turning a pre-show trade into a public teaching and content business, is a common one among Alone alumni, and Brad's knifemaking background gives his version of it a clear throughline back to the tools he brought onto the show both times. For the full results of both seasons, our season 4 and season 5 pages cover the rest of each cast, and our winners page rounds up who actually took the prize in both of Brad's seasons.