In 2013, a young lady shared her survival story and how she had beaten all odds to overcome cancer. The story hit the news and immediately attracted a lot of attention. The woman even launched a wellness app that became a best-selling in no time, that included advice on how to beat cancer.
Netflix has launched a new miniseries that shows the life of an influencer from Australia who lied about having a critical illness to do marketing of some alternative therapies.
In 2013, a young lady shared her survival story and how she had beaten all odds to overcome cancer. The story hit the news and immediately attracted a lot of attention. The woman even launched a wellness app that became a best-selling in no time, that included advice on how to beat cancer.
Belle Gibson’s story of lies
The background to this sensation is a claim by Australian blogger Belle Gibson in 2009 who was 20 back then and claimed through her own account that she has been diagnosed with a “malignant brain cancer” and been given “six weeks, four months tops” to live. She also claimed that she rejected these medical treatments of chemotherapy and radiotherapy and instead chose a path, “a quest to heal myself naturally… through nutrition, patience, determination and love”.
After noticing her following of 200,000 fans on Instagram, who were genuinely following her wellness guidance and journey, she launched a wellness and nutrition app that quickly became best-selling. After that she also launched a cookbook, called ‘The Whole Pantry’. She brought out a cookbook based on her claim that a certain diet cured her terminal illness and continued to inspire others to follow her in “empowering myself to save my own life.” Elle Australia even called her “the most inspiring woman you’ve met this year” and Cosmopolitan in 2014 honoured her with “Fun, Fearless Female” award.
But all this attention-grabbing activity and sympathetic story was all a drama, a big lie. No cancer was detected in Gibson’s brain nor “cancer in my blood, spleen, brain, uterus, and liver” which formed part of her following claims in 2014 on her Instagram post. And it was during that time when clamour regarding her being a fraud began in Australia.
Gibson accepts the truth
It was after this suspicion around her claims that she confessed the truth in April 2015, during an interview with Women’s Weekly. “No, none of it’s true,” she said, but refusing to take further responsibility, she added, opaquely: “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 Netflix miniseries “Apple Cider Vinegar” dramatizes the scandal surrounding Belle Gibson, masterfully capturing her blurred relationship with truth. Showrunner Samantha Strauss employs a non-linear timeline, blending facts with fiction, to reflect Gibson’s unreliable narrative. The result is a purposefully disjointed and uncertain portrayal, mirroring the challenge of discerning truth from fiction in Gibson’s story.
