The Insane True Story Behind Netflix’s ‘Apple Cider Vinegar’ And Belle Gibson’s Scam – Forbes

Netflix’s new limited series Apple Cider Vinegar follows Belle and Milla, two young women who attempt to cure their life-threatening illnesses through health and wellness. But how much of the show is true? And was Belle Gibson a real person who faked having cancer?

In Apple Cider Vinegar, Kaitlyn Dever stars as Belle Gibson, an Australian wellness influencer who builds an online empire based on the lie that she’s cured her terminal brain cancer. However, Gibson was never actually diagnosed with the malignant brain tumor. She built her brand on deception, spreading lies through social media, a wellness app she developed, and a bestselling cookbook.

ForbesWhat To Know About Belle Gibson: Netflix’s ‘Apple Cider Vinegar’ Inspired By Bogus Health Influencer Debuts ThursdayBy Mary Whitfill Roeloffs

The six-episode series was created by award-winning Australian writer Samantha Strauss, who lived in Melbourne during the early 2010s when Gibson’s real fraud unfolded. “It’s really interesting to look at how media uses food as a weapon against us and how much we crave the nourishment, but also how much of a privilege and how expensive it is to try to be well,” she told Netflix’s Tudum.

Is Apple Cider Vinegar Based On A True Story?

Yes, Netflix’s limited series Apple Cider Vinegar is inspired by the book, The Woman Who Fooled the World, written by journalists Beau Donelly and Nick Toscano, who reported on Gibson’s scam for The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald.

Strauss first discovered the story through Donelly and Toscano’s reporting. “They wrote about the people who had been misled by Belle and how that had impacted them,” she told Tudum. “They created this beautiful tapestry that looked at how Western medicine lets us down emotionally and why people are drawn toward wellness. If the book had only been about a cancer scam, I don’t think I would have been that interested in adapting it for television.”

Some characters and events were created or fictionalized for the series. For example, Milla is not based on a real person but was designed to represent “an amalgamation of wellness influencers at the time,” her portrayer, Debnam-Carey, told Today.com. “We created Milla as her own thing. That was what was so great about it … we could boost her up so that she could be going toe-to-toe with Belle.”

Belle, however, was very real—and the influencer and wellness scammer fabricated both her cancer diagnosis and supposed “cure.”

What Happened To Belle Gibson?

Australian blogger Belle Gibson claimed that in 2009, a doctor diagnosed her with malignant brain cancer and gave her six weeks to four months to live.

In her book, The Whole Pantry—which was pulled from publication—she described how, after undergoing two months of chemotherapy and radiotherapy, she decided to abandon conventional treatment and began “a quest to heal myself naturally… empowering myself to save my own life, through nutrition, patience, determination and love – as well as vitamin and Ayurvedic treatments, craniosacral therapy, and a whole lot of other treatments.”

Gibson built a massive global following by documenting her wellness journey online. Her app, The Whole Pantry, was voted Apple’s “Best New Food and Drink” app, downloaded hundreds of thousands of times, and selected for pre-installation on the brand-new Apple Watch. She also secured a lucrative book deal with Penguin, receiving an advance of $132,000 AUD for her corresponding cookbook. In 2014, Elle Australia named Gibson “the most inspiring woman you’ve met this year.”

Despite her claims of donating 25% of her company’s profits and stating in her book that “a large part of everything” was allocated to charitable causes, this was not the case. Donelly and Toscano reported for the Sydney Morning Herald in March 2015 that several organizations had not received payments since she hosted a fundraiser in 2013. Gibson attributed the delays to the company’s “cash flow” issues.

Meanwhile, Gibson lived lavishly; she rented a million-dollar beach house, purchased a BMW and designer clothes, and had her teeth straightened, according to The Woman Who Fooled the World.

How Was Belle Gibson’s Cancer Hoax Exposed?

Gibson’s lies began to unravel after The Australian published an article pointing out inconsistencies in her story, from her calling her first diagnosis “stage two malignant tumour of the brain,” when brain tumors are classified in grades, according to Elle AU. There was also the question about her age. She claimed she was 20 at the time of her diagnosis in 2009, but records allegedly listed her birthday as 1991, making her 17 at the time.

In her defense, Gibson admitted to The Australian that the secondary and primary cancers in her “blood, spleen, brain, uterus, and liver” were a “misdiagnosis.” “It’s hard to admit that maybe you were wrong,” she said, adding that she was also “confused, bordering on humiliated.”

Donelly and Toscano published another story where friends of the disgraced health influencer reported that they held an “intervention” at her beachside apartment in which they questioned her illness. “I asked her when she got her diagnosis, she said she didn’t know. I asked her who gave her the diagnosis, she said Dr Phil. I asked if Dr Phil had a last name she didn’t know, he disappeared. I asked her where she saw Dr Phil, she said he came and picked [her] up from [her] house,” one friend said.

Penguin Publishing later admitted that they did not fact-check Gibson’s book or ask her to verify details about her medical condition. Instead, they said they published the recipe book in “good faith.”

Gibson eventually set her perfectly-curated Instagram page (@healing_belle) to private. Elle AU reported that the fake health guru deleted more than 1,000 photos from her feed, including posts with captions “detailing seizures suffered, hospital admissions and multiple cancers diagnoses.”

When Did Belle Gibson Finally Tell The Truth?

Gibson eventually told the truth in an April 2015 interview with Australia’s Women’s Weekly. “No… none of it’s true,” she told the publication of whether she had cancer in the first place. “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.”

Gibson didn’t apologize or ask for forgiveness from the people she misled. “I just think [speaking out] was the responsible thing to do. Above anything, I would like people to say, ‘Okay, she’s human. She’s obviously had a big life. She’s respectfully come to the table and said what she’s needed to say, and now it’s time for her to grow and heal.’”

Did Belle Gibson Get In Trouble?

Belle Gibson was never criminally charged for her actions. Consumer Affairs Victoria sued Gibson in the Federal Court of Australia in 2016 for engaging in misleading and deceptive conduct and unconscionable conduct in breach of Australian Consumer Law (Vic).

In March 2017, Justice Debra Mortimer found Gibson and her company, Inkerman Road Nominees, had engaged in “misleading and deceptive conduct and unconscionable conduct in the promotion of The Whole Pantry book and app.” She was was ordered to pay penalties totaling $410,000.

As of early 2020, Gibson had yet to pay the fine, which had grown to over half a million Australian dollars with interest and additional fees. Authorities raided her home twice—in 2020 and again in 2021—in an attempt to seize assets to cover the unpaid fine, according to The Australian Associated Press and The Guardian.

In late 2023, Donelly and Toscano published another update in their book after a spokesperson from Consumer Affairs Victoria told them the agency was “continuing to pursue” Gibson and said the “entire amount” of her debt is “still outstanding.”

Apple Cider Vinegar is streaming on Netflix. Watch the official trailer below.