Apple Cider Vinegar is an unbelievable tale which turns out to be based on a real life lie.
The new Netflix drama, which premieres on Thursday 6 February, is inspired by the true story of Belle Gibson, a social media influencer who duped millions of followers into believing she could manage her terminal cancer diagnosis through wellness.
She built a wellness empire, complete with cookbook and app, based on the claim she had kept her cancer at bay with healthy eating, exercise, natural and alternative therapies.
But this all came crashing down when she revealed on an interview she had never been diagnosed with cancer.
The Netflix drama follows a succession of documentaries about the social media star including ITV’s Instagram’s Worst Con Artist and the BBC’s Bad Influencer: The Great Insta Con.
Belle is portrayed by Kaitlyn Dever in Apple Cider Vinegar. (Photo: Netflix)Australian Annabelle Gibson was born in Launceston, Tasmania and went to school in Manly, Queensland.
She is understood to have later moved to Perth in Western Australia and then Melbourne 2009, where she became a mother a year later at the age of 18.
She claimed her diagnosis of a malignant brain tumour came in 2009, when she was told she had six weeks to live. But she said she had given up her chemotherapy treatment after it made her sick and instead decided to adopt a wellness and natural living lifestyle.
Among her other claims were that she had had had heart surgery several times, died momentarily on the operating table and had had a stroke. Although, she bears no surgical scars from any heart surgery.
And she later said her cancer had spread to her blood, spleen, uterus and liver.
In August 2013, she launched the app The Whole Pantry which was reportedly downloaded 200,000 times within its first month and voted Apple’s Best Food and Drink App of 2013. It offered recipes and healthy lifestyle tips.
In her first post, she wrote: “Five years ago today, I was sitting in front of a man who was about to tell me I was dying from malignant brain cancer with six months to live.”
The app gained a huge following as she promoted her healing through healthy nutrition and holistic medicine. She championed the use of natural remedies over medication.
Soon afterwards in 2014, she signed a book deal with Lantern Books, an imprint of Penguin Books, for a cookbook entitled The Whole Pantry.
The book’s preface stated she had been “stable for two years now with no growth of the cancer”.
But her downfall began in 2015 with investigations into her assertions she had donated some of her proceeds to charity.
Beau Donelly and Nick Toscano from The Age had begun speaking to the charities Ms Gibson had claimed to support.
And it eventually emerged only an estimated $7,000 of the previously claimed $300,000 had been donated to a total of three charities.
What they discovered about Ms Gibson became the basis for their 2017 book the The Woman Who Fooled the World and the inspiration for the Netflix drama.
Friend and colleague Chanelle McAuliffe had also started to become suspicious about MsGibson’s claims after an apparent “seizure” and eventually reported her to the police.
While journalist Richard Guilliatt, whose wife had been diagnosed with cancer, had started ringing experts to ask their opinions on Ms Gibson’s claims.
He told the ITV documentary: “I realised, if it’s a scam, it’s a really big scam.
“She had hundreds of thousands of followers all around the world.”
He eventually interviewed the social media star for The Australian, where she claimed her doctor had diagnosed her and then gone missing, making her realise she might have been misdiagnosed and maybe didn’t have cancer after all.
She said her deceit came as a result of childhood neglect by her estranged mother, although this was later disputed by the parent in interview.
After the truth came out, she gave an interview to The Australian Women’s Weekly admitting her cancer diagnosis was a lie.
“None of it’s true”, she said.
Belle Gibson at a food market. (Photo: Brent Parker Jones/BBC/Minnow Films)Where is Belle Gibson now?
Consumer Affairs Victoria brought legal action against Ms Gibson for allegedly breaking Australian consumer law.
And in September 2017, she was fined $410,000 (Aus) (£214,000) for making false claims about her donations to charity.
Federal Court judge Debra Mortimer found Belle had “played on the public’s desire to help those less fortunate” and she “had no reasonable basis to believe she had cancer from the time she began making these claims in public to promote The Whole Pantry Book and the apps in mid-2013″.
In both 2020 and 2021, her home was raided to recoup unpaid fines.
A year earlier, she was reported to have been spotted at Melbourne airport having returned from an $8,000 (£4,000) safari trip.
A video emerged after the first house raid, in which the former blogger claimed she had been adopted by the Ethiopian community in Melbourne.
However, this claim was later disputed by president of the Australian Oromo Community Association in Victoria, Tarekegn Chimdia.
A year ago, she was confronted about her unpaid fines by news reporter from Channel 9’s A Current Affair while at a petrol station.
She is reported to have said: “Have some humanity, I haven’t paid things because I can’t afford to”.
The 33-year-old continues to live in the Melbourne area.
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