The Cancer That Wasn't There: The Story of Belle Gibson, Australia's Most Brazen Blogger

Fraudsters come in different forms. Some are remembered only by those they deceived, while others are the subject of books and TV series. Australian Belle Gibson falls into the second category. She acted on a large scale: she collected millions of followers on social networks, released her own app, and even published a cookbook. Her methods of deception are especially cynical, because she made money on people with cancer.

Netflix has released a mini-series called Apple Cider Vinegar. It is about a blogger who tells her followers on social media about her fight against a non-existent cancer. At the beginning of the series, actress Kaitlyn Dever, who plays the main role, gives a short introduction, explaining the essence of the project:

Belle Gibson, whose story formed the basis of the TV series Apple Cider Vinegar, is a real-life fraudster from Australia. For years, she promoted her fictitious story about her battle with cancer on the Internet. According to her, the treatment was achieved through diets and alternative medicine. Her popularity grew, and with it, so did her income - she made money from people desperately seeking salvation. Everything collapsed suddenly: Gibson not only lost everything she had, but was also left with a tidy sum of money in debt.

Annabelle Natalie Gibson, better known as Belle, was born in 1991 in Brisbane. Her childhood, by her own account, was not easy: she talked about her sick mother and difficulties in the family. It is difficult to say whether this is true or not, because Belle turned out to be a master of invention. In 2009, when she was only 18, she began to actively master the Internet, first communicating on forums, and then moving to Instagram, a platform that was just gaining popularity at that time.

It was on Instagram that Belle Gibson launched her story. In May 2013, she created the account @healing_belle. In her posts, the girl claimed that in 2009 she was diagnosed with a terrible disease – brain cancer. Doctors, as she said, predicted that she would have only a few months to live. But instead of agreeing to chemotherapy, Belle allegedly chose a different path – healthy eating, detox, and alternative treatments. Sounds inspiring, right? Followers thought so, and soon her account became a real hit.

Belle Gibson's story of miraculous healing quickly spread across social media. Her cheerful selfies, smoothie recipes and advice on "natural" treatments attracted hundreds of thousands of people from all over the world. By 2013, she already had 200,000 subscribers, and Belle Gibson had become one of Australia's most popular influencers.

But Belle didn’t stop at fame — she decided to monetize her lies. That same year, 2013, the blogger launched an app with the promising name The Whole Pantry. In it, she shared recipes for healthy meals, drinks, and diet plans. In the first month alone, the program was downloaded 200 thousand times. This brought Belle about a million dollars. Apple helped her earn money by declaring the app the best food and drink project of 2013.

Elle Australia named her “The Most Inspiring Woman You’ll Meet This Year.” Cosmopolitan went one step further and gave Gibson the Fun Fearless Female award. Belle Gibson became a wellness guru, promising that her methods could beat cancer. She gave talks, raised money for charity (or so she said), and basked in the limelight.

In 2014, Gibson signed a contract with Penguin and released a cookbook. The self-proclaimed healthy lifestyle guru traveled around Australia giving lectures and participating in charity events. According to her, she donated $300,000 to good causes. At the same time, Belle continued to deceive: she claimed that the cancer had spread to her uterus, spleen, liver and blood system, but her treatment methods allegedly kept the disease under control. She never provided a single medical certificate or confirmation of the diagnosis.

Everything was going smoothly until journalists asked: where is the evidence? In 2015, Belle Gibson was about to release her cookbook in the US and UK. While preparations were underway, reporters from the Australian newspaper The Age, Beau Donnelly and Nick Toscano, decided to get to the bottom of her activities. They began by analyzing the book and ended with a large-scale investigation of Gibson’s methods. The result was disappointing: her entire wellness empire turned out to be based on deception.

On March 8, 2015, The Age published an article revealing Gibson's deception about her charitable donations. The blogger actively used this in PR campaigns, but the funds never received the promised money. A few days later, another investigation appeared, this time concerning the identity of the girl herself. The authors cited data from which it followed that the name Belle Gibson could be fictitious. However, this information was ultimately not confirmed.

Bo Donnelly and Nick Toscano tracked down Belle’s friends and acquaintances and found out that she had no serious illness. Australian neurosurgeon Andrew Kay, who was brought in as an independent expert, confirmed this, stating that the symptoms Gibson described did not correspond to her illness. Very soon, Gibson realized that they were “digging under her”. She quickly deleted the posts from social networks in which she talked about her health. She also deleted The Whole Pantry’s Facebook and Twitter accounts. Hundreds of photos and videos from her personal pages also disappeared.

In 2015, Belle Gibson gave two major interviews. First, in April, she told her story to Women's Weekly. Then, in June, she appeared on Australia's 60 Minutes. It was there that she made a shocking revelation: the cancer story was a complete fabrication. She had fabricated everything from the diagnosis to the so-called "miracle cure."

Gibson tried to justify herself. In her explanations, she referred to childhood trauma and a "clouded state of mind," but this did not evoke sympathy from the public. Moreover, even admitting to deception, she continued to weave new tales. Thus, in the first interview, the girl clearly stated that she had never had cancer in her life. And later, in the second conversation, she added that she had allegedly been misdiagnosed by a certain alternative medicine specialist.

According to Belle, she was allegedly diagnosed in 2009, and two years later it was "removed." The girl chose not to answer some questions. For example, journalists repeatedly tried to find out why she indicated her age as 26 everywhere, although at that time she was only 23. Gibson stubbornly ignored this question, no matter how many times it was asked.

April 2015 marked the beginning of an investigation into Belle Gibson. The case was taken over by the Victorian Consumer Affairs Authority. Investigators concluded that the blogger’s actions were in gross violation of the Australian Consumer Law. In 2017, the court ordered her to pay a fine of 410,000 Australian dollars (approximately 260,000 US dollars) for deceiving her audience. In addition, she was ordered to pay legal costs of 30,000 Australian dollars (approximately 19,000 US dollars).

Belle Gibson failed to pay the fine for a year, which is why the case was transferred to the Federal Court. She was given a warning: if she continued to ignore the court order, she would face jail and confiscation of property. However, even this did not encourage her to pay. In 2019, Gibson was back in the dock. There, she said that she simply did not have the means to repay the debt.

But that, too, turned out to be a lie. Gibson had no idea that she was now being closely watched. The Guardian reporters uncovered that since the sentence came into force, she had spent more than 90,000 Australian dollars on clothes, cosmetics and entertainment. She had travelled and holidayed carefree, as if nothing had happened.

In 2020 and 2021, bailiffs searched Gibson's apartment, hoping to find at least some property. The fine and penalties have already exceeded 500 thousand Australian dollars. But the blogger did not have anything valuable at home. After the exposure and trial, Belle began to rarely appear in public and was afraid of journalists like fire.

In 2020, Belle posted a video on social media announcing her membership in Melbourne's Ethiopian Oromo community. In the footage, she posed in an Oromo headscarf and introduced herself as Sabontu. But, as one might expect, this too was a hoax. The community leader soon publicly refuted her claims, saying Gibson had never been part of their community.

Meanwhile, journalists Bo Donnelly and Nick Toscano wrote a book about Belle called The Woman Who Fooled the World. It was on this book that they wrote the script for Apple Cider Vinegar for Netflix. The series caused a stir around the world. But Gibson herself did not react to the premiere. The irony is that Australian law allows her to sue the show's creators to protect her honor and dignity.

Belle Gibson's story is a chilling reminder of how easy it is to build an empire on lies in the age of social media. But who is more to blame: the fraudster himself or the gullible public who is ready to believe a beautiful story? Do you think social media and brands should be held accountable for who they put on a pedestal?