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Diagnosed with terminal brain cancer and given four months to live, Belle Gibson abandoned chemotherapy and radiation and decided to take matters into her own hands.
The young Australian instead sought alternative treatments and focused on her diet. Miraculously, her techniques worked and she created a wellness empire to help others.
Except it was all a lie. The influencer had completely faked having cancer in a twisted scam. This might purely sound like the stuff of a Netflix plot but while it is about to be a new series, it’s based on a real-life story from the early 2010s.
Belle Gibson’s lies
In early 2013, the Aussie woman launched her Instagram account @healing_belle, having supposedly followed a healthy diet, exercise and holistic medicine to overcome from cancer.
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She claimed to have ‘cured’ her inoperable brain cancer through healthy eating and began to share those healthy recipes with others.
Racking up thousands of followers, she’d share updates on how she was coping with her completely made up condition. And people ate it up. Gibson became a prominent wellness guru and landed a book deal and an app called The Whole Pantry.
She reportedly claimed her health issues were brought on by a negative reaction to the Gardasil HPV vaccine. Her other alleged claims include her briefly dying during a medical procedure and that her cancer spread to her spleen, liver uterus and blood.
In late 2014, Gibson was awarded Cosmopolitan’s Fun Fearless Female title while Elle Australia called her the ‘most inspiring women you’ve met this year’. Even Apple was swept up by her lies as she was working with the company to include her app on the new Apple Watch.
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The fake cancer fall-out
In the weeks before her cookbook was set to hit shelves in the US and UK in 2015, Australian reporters launched an investigation into Gibson and found ‘everything was based on a litany of falsehoods’.
And as her lies began to unravel, charities that had allegedly been pledged thousands of dollars from the influencer said they had never received a penny.
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In an interview with Australian Women’s Weekly, she admitted ‘none of it’s true’.
As backlash picked up, Gibson appeared on 60 Minutes Australia where she said: “I didn’t trade in on my story or in other people’s lives. I’m not trying to get away with anything.”
She claims to have changed her age and name multiple times and when asked how old she was, she responded: “That’s probably a question we’ll have to keep digging for.”
Apple withdrew The Whole Pantry from its store and Apple Watch, her business was shut down and her book was pulled.
Where is Belle Gibson now?
In September 2017, she was fined $410,000 (£240,000) by the Australian government for the false claims she would be donating money to charity. As her lies were revealed, Gibson also landed more than $1 million in fines after a federal court judge found she knowingly deceived cancer patients.
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In June 2019, she claimed she was not in a position to pay her 2017 fine and her home has been raided twice in attempt to recoup the money owed.
After the first raid in 2020, it was reported Gibson had embedded herself within an Ethiopian community in Melbourne and even referred to the African country as ‘home’.
At the moment, there’s no traces of the former influencer on social media and there aren’t any recent reports of where she is based now. But some people reckon we may hear a response from her when Apple Cider Vinegar lands on Netflix.
The new Netflix series
Inspired by the story of Gibson and the lies that saw her rocket to fame, Apple Cider Vinegar lands on Netflix on 6 February.
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Portrayed by Kaitlyn Dever, the lead character shares the cancer-faker’s name but the streamer maintains the series is a ‘work of fiction’ and is a ‘true-ish story based on a lie’.
With six episodes, Netflix says the series: “Serves as a cultural interrogation of the times, exploring the birth of Instagram, the allure and rise of wellness culture, peak ‘girl boss’ start-up culture, and the age of innocence on social media when very few checks and balances were in place.”
Topics: Health, Cancer, Netflix, Australia, Social Media
Jess Battison