DISGRACED wellness blogger Belle Gibson admitted she lied about having cancer in her final interview and gave a bizarre excuse for tricking her devoted followers in 2015.
Gibson built an online empire that led to a recipe book and over 200,000 followers based on claims she cured her terminal brain cancer with her diet and lifestyle.
9 NEWS / 60 MINUTESScammer Belle Gibson confessing during a 2015 interview with 60 Minutes’ Tara Brown[/caption]
InstagramGibson at an Apple event in Cupertino, California, in September 2014[/caption]
NetflixKaitlyn Dever portraying Gibson in 2025 Netflix drama Apple Cider Vinegar[/caption]
Now, a Netflix show starring Kaitlyn Dever called Apple Cider Vinegar tells a fictionalized version of Gibson’s story.
After two years of spewing the lies online, Gibson finally came clean in a 2015 Australian Women’s Weekly interview.
“None of it’s true,” Gibson told the magazine.
“I don’t want forgiveness,” she said, adding that she was telling the truth because it was the “responsible thing to do.”
Gibson didn’t apologize during the baffling interview – and gave a bizarrely vague and muddled excuse when she mentioned her “troubled” childhood.
“When I started school, my mum went, ‘My daughter is grown up now,’” Gibson told the outlet.
“All of a sudden, I was walking to school on my own, making school lunches and cleaning the house every day.
“It was my responsibility to do grocery shopping, do the washing, arrange medical appointments and pick up my brother. I didn’t have toys.”
She added, “I am still jumping between what I think I know and what is reality.
“I have lived it and I’m not really there yet.”
The Australian blogger’s claims go back to 2009 when she claimed on an online forum that she underwent multiple heart surgeries and even died on the operating table.
Gibson, then aged 20, said she was diagnosed with “malignant brain cancer” and was given “six weeks, four months tops” to live.
In addition to the brain cancer, Gibson claimed on social media and in interviews to have been diagnosed with blood, spleen, uterine, liver, and kidney cancers.
Instead of undergoing chemotherapy or radiation for the fake diagnosis, Gibson claimed she was taking an all-natural approach.
How it all unraveled for cancer faker Belle Gibson
Australian blogger Belle Gibson fell from grace when it was revealed she lied about having terminal brain cancer.
2009 – Gibson, a single mom, rises to fame as a wellness influencer after claiming she overcame terminal brain cancer with dietary and lifestyle changes
August 2013 – Gibson launches The Whole Pantry mobile app
July 2014 – Gibson says her brain cancer spread to her blood, spleen, uterus, and liver
October 2014 – Gibson publishes her recipe book
2015 – Melbourne-based newspaper reporters Nick Toscano and Beau Donelly start to investigate Gibson’s health claims after an anonymous tip
March 2015 – Roscano and Donelly expose Gibson’s false public claims of charity donations in a story with the Sydney Morning Herald and the Whole Pantry app is removed from the app store
April 2015 – Gibson admits the truth in an interview with Australian Women’s Weekly
June 2015 – Gibson insists she had no bad intentions in an interview with 60 Minutes Australia
September 2017 – Federal court judge orders Gibson to pay $410,000 for her false claims of charity donations
February 6, 2025 – Apple Cider Vinegar, based on Gibson’s story, is released on Netflix
She amassed hundreds of thousands of followers as she documented her wellness journey through nutrition and even started a website and app called The Whole Pantry.
Her popular app, which cost $3.79, was downloaded over 300,000 times in 2014 and was set to be one of the first apps available on the Apple Watch at its 2015 launch.
Then the lies began to unravel.
FALL FROM GRACE
Little by little, it was revealed that Gibson wasn’t making the charity donations she was promising to her followers.
She falsely claimed that The Whole Pantry donated around $300,000 to charities in 2014.
Five charity organizations had no record of receiving donations from Gibson as she claimed, according to the Sydney Morning Herald at the time.
As questions began to rise about her fundraising activity, Gibson said on social media that the delay in donations was due to “cash flow” problems within the business.
Then, after walking back some of her cancer stories by saying she had been “wrongly” diagnosed in March 2015, she came clean to the Australian magazine the next month.
InstagramGibson, who lied about having cancer for online fame[/caption]
InstagramGibson, who fell from grace as an Australian wellness blogger[/caption]
Gibson faced backlash for putting cancer patients in danger by promoting the idea that dietary and lifestyle changes could treat their diagnoses.
After the bombshell interview, Gibson’s recipe book ceased publishing and her app was suddenly unavailable to download on Apple.
The criticism grew after a tense interview with 60 Minutes Australia’s Tara Brown in June 2015, when Gibson failed to give clear answers about her age and her background throughout the interview.
“I didn’t trade in on my story or in other people’s lives,” Gibson said.
“I’m not trying to get away with anything.”
LEGAL TROUBLES
In September 2017, Consumer Affairs Victoria fined Gibson $410,000 for her false donation claims.
She was forced to go to trial after not paying the fine by April 2019 due to claims she was in debt.
Cops raided her home in January 2020 and May 2021 and seized items to try to recoup her unpaid fines in a case that was declared “abandoned” by the federal court in February 2021, according to Women’s Weekly.
After the first raid on her house in 2020, Gibson made a video about the Oromo community in Australia, where she used a different name and spoke about advocating for the Ethiopian people group.
The president of the Australian Oromo Community Association in Victoria, Tarekegn Chimdi, denied Gibson’s claims of working with the group and asked her to leave them alone.
WHERE BELLE GIBSON IS NOW
Gibson now lives out of the limelight with her boyfriend, Clive Rothwell, and her son in Northcote, a suburb of Melbourne.
Apple Cider Vinegar’s creator, Samantha Strauss, said meeting Gibson ahead of making the show based on her story was “never an option.”
“Not meeting her does give you license to create,” Strauss told Parade.
She added she viewed the character based on Gibson as “completely monstrous and completely relatable.”
Apple Cider Vinegar is now available to stream on Netflix.
NetflixDever in Netflix’s limited series Apple Cider Vinegar[/caption]
APGibson arrives at Federal Court in Melbourne, Australia in May 2019 for failing to pay her penalty fee[/caption]
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