Belle Gibson’s infamous conning of the public is being dramatised in Netflix‘s Apple Cider Vinegar, which charts the Australian influencer’s rise to fame and ultimate downfall.
The internet personality became one of the world’s first “super influencers” on Instagram, shooting to fame by sharing wellness advice and telling her followers how healthy eating helped “cure” her inoperable brain cancer after she was told she only had four months to live. This, it later transpired, was all a lie.
For those curious to learn what happened, and where Gibson is now, here is what you need to know.
How Belle Gibson rose to fame on a lie
In 2009 Gibson claimed to have inoperable brain cancer, alleging that she had gone through various forms of treatment but had “cured” her illness through healthy eating. Over the years her claims about her cancer diagnosis varied over the years, with her claiming that her cancer had spread to her blood, spleen, uterus and liver in July 2014.
Before the truth came out Gibson had built a wellness empire for herself, launching a hugely successful app called The Whole Pantry in 2013, and a corresponding cookbook in 2014.
In the book she said of using healthy living to tackle her purported cancer diagnosis: “I was empowering myself to save my own life through nutrition, patience, determination and love.” She also claimed in her cookbook that her health had been “stable for two years now with no growth of the cancer”, which directly clashed with her earlier claims about her alleged cancer in July.
As well as claiming she had cancer, Gibson also previously said that she’d a stroke, had three heart surgeries and had died twice on the operating table. Her claims began to unravel when she claimed to be giving proceeds from her app and cookbook to charity.
During this time Gibson’s friend Chanelle McAuliffe also urged her to come clean, and when she refused McAuliffe began to speak with police, lawyers and the press to reveal the truth. As a result, an investigation by Beau Donnelly and Nick Toscano revealed Gibson’s charitable claims were false.
It then soon transpired that Gibson had lied about having cancer, and she told The Australian Women’s Weekly in June 2015 that “none of it [was] true”.
Where is Belle Gibson now?
The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission took action against Gibson for the fabrication, taking legal action against her and her company in 2016.
She was found guilty of misleading the public into believing that natural remedies could cure terminal cancer in 2017, and had no reasonable basis for believing she had cancer. However the federal court did conclude that she could have suffered from “a series of delusions about her health condition.”
The Australian Federal Court fined her $410k in 2017 for making false claims about her charitable donations, as of 2021 she had not paid this and her home in Melbourne was raided by authorities to recoup the fines, penalties, and interest which had increased to more than $500k — she is still not believed to have paid the fine yet.
In 2020 ABC News in Australia reported that Gibson had been adopted into Ethiopia’s Oromo community in Melbourne, with the conwoman reportedly saying her “heart is deeply embedded in the Oromo people”.
Apple Cider Vinegar is out now on Netflix.