Who Is Rebekah Neumann's Brother Keith? His Tragic Death Explained

Apple TV Plus's original series WeCrashed chronicles the story of Adam Neumann and the rise and fall of his co-working startup WeWork. Jared Leto stars as Adam, while Anne Hathaway plays his wife Rebekah Neumann in the seven-episode miniseries.

For those who have watched or are planning to, you might be wondering how much of the story is true. While we can't confirm the legitimacy of every scene, per Bustle, we can confirm that the storyline where Rebekah Neumann is related to Gwyneth Paltrow is true.

Furthermore, Rebekah's father, Bob Paltrow, (who is Gwyneth's uncle) was found guilty of tax evasion during WeWork's early years — and as Rebekah wrote in her character reference letter to the judge at the time, the unexpected death of family member Keith Paltrow may have contributed to Bob's wrongdoing.

Keep reading to learn everything we know about Keith Paltrow.

Keith Paltrow was Rebekah's older brother. In WeCrashed, viewers watch as she suffers a few traumatic flashbacks where it becomes obvious that she misses him. But it wasn't until Bob was accused of tax evasion in 2014 that viewers learned what actually happened to Keith.

Per court documents, Bob filed two individual income tax returns for the calendar years 2007 and 2008, whereby he failed to report $4,787,222 in taxable income. As a result, he owed $798,969 in income tax to the United States.

In order to help her father out, Rebekah penned a letter to the judge in which she suggested that his past tax evasion may have been brought on by repressed sadness about her brother’s death.

When Rebekah was 11, Keith died at the age of 23 after battling cancer for a year. However, his death felt almost ill-fated, given Bob's past actions.

In 1996, Bob had been embroiled in another legal case after he participated in the creation of two fraudulent charities: the American Cancer Research Funds, Inc. (ACRF) and American Heart Research Foundation, Inc (AHRF), per court documents.

Approximately $2 million in funds were raised for these respective parties, however there was never any intention to send this money to disease researchers.

Rebekah's real-life character reference letter to the judge can be seen on page 16 of this document. In addition to what was shown in WeCrashed, her letter included a few extra details.

She noted that Keith was diagnosed with ulcerative colitis at age 9. "He became quite ill and spent much of life sprinting to the toilet for fear of the mess that would be if he did not make it in time," she wrote of her late brother.

Furthermore, she wrote the following about her father: "I do not know why my father would disrespect the government or act in such an irresponsible and stupid way as to not pay taxes, but I have to imagine, in some way, it was related to the tremendous loss he felt and wanted to rebel against a larger system of life."

Unfortunately, her revealing letter wasn't enough to exonerate her father.

In 2015, Bob was found guilty and was sentenced to six months in prison, one year of supervised release, and a fine of $50,000.