The newest trend among internet users is the Netflix series Apple Cider Vinegar! The “true-ish story” is based on the life of influencer Belle Gibson, who, up until two journalists looked into her, built a wellness empire on a falsehood. The empire’s rise and fall, its cultural impact, and the individuals who brought it to an end are all revealed in the series.
Gibson rose to prominence on social media in the 2010s after detailing how she used natural treatments and a healthy diet to manage her terminal brain cancer. To everyone’s surprise, the diagnosis was later shown to be incorrect.
Gibson launched The Whole Pantry, her wellness app, after amassing a sizable following. At that moment, though, a local Australian newspaper began pointing up flaws in her alleged cancer narrative.Although there are undoubtedly truths about her life revealed in the Netflix series, the network used some artistic license, such as renaming her friend Chanelle, who was instrumental in revealing Gibson’s truth. Additionally, the retelling of the controversy is given a dramatic and exaggerated twist by the show’s makers.
Two Australian journalists, Beau Donelly and Nick Toscano, revealed her deception in 2015 over the donation of her company’s revenues.
Gibson acknowledged lying about cancer in an interview that same year, but she blamed the physicians for keeping her in the dark. “I lived for years with the fear that I was dying,” she said in conversation with Australia’s 60 Minutes in April 2015.
The program also highlights Gibson’s family members’ public criticism of her, who gave birth to a son in 2010. “I can’t tell you how embarrassed we are about what she has done,” Gibson’s estranged mother mentioned in an interview with Women’s Weekly in 2015.
