Disgraced wellness blogger Belle Gibson’s history of deceit
WHY would anyone lie about having cancer? Or give cruel false hope to those genuinely suffering from it? Belle Gibson’s explanation is sorely lacking.
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“Do you want to be strong, entrepreneurial, world-changing woman … or do you want to be cancer story?”
That was the question Belle Gibson asked herself.
The chilling words came from her mouth in a recorded media training interview with Penguin ahead of the release of her The Whole Pantry cookbook in 2014.
“It’s like, ‘I’m sick of the cancer story’,” she went on.
“There’s enough of that out there now, there’s enough of that in the book. Let’s make a new story.”
Making stories is something that appears to come naturally for the woman who conned all into thinking she not only had terminal brain cancer, but that she healed it with natural therapies and healthy eating.
They were lies that earnt her prime television spots on morning programs, front pages on women’s magazines, a $120,000 publishing deal with Penguin and a spot for her award-winning health and wellness app on the Apple Watch.
The 25-year-old had fooled everyone.
And she did so while looking a picture of health.
Gibson — once gracing headlines as the “wellness warrior” and a “social media sensation” — had told her abundance of followers on social media she was given four months to live when diagnosed with brain cancer in 2009.
She went on to detail how she rejected conventional cancer treatments after chemotherapy made her so sick she lay in a park across the road from a Melbourne hospital thinking she was dying.
Every word that came from her mouth seemed too far-fetched to have been made up.
Why would she lie about having such an insidious disease which is expected to claim the life of up to 50,000 Australians this year alone?
Why would she give hope and promote a cure to those who are suffering from cancer around the world?
Her “troubled childhood” is the only answer she has given to these questions.
As a five-year-old girl, she claimed she was forced to run the household, looking after her autistic brother and caring for her mother, a multiple sclerosis sufferer.
Claims her estranged mother, Natalie Dal-Bello, has since said were “a lot of rubbish”.
“Her brother is not autistic and she’s barely done a minute’s housework in her life,” Mrs Dal-Bello said.
“I’ve practically worked myself into an early grave to give that girl everything she wanted in life.”
Those who knew Gibson as a teenager said that’s when the web of lies began.
One school friend from Brisbane in Queensland, where she spent most of her childhood, recalled Gibson making up cancer claims in a desperate bid to stop her boyfriend at the time from breaking up with her.
That was 2006.
Fast forward three years, and then living in Perth, she told an online skater forum she had multiple heart surgeries and even died on the operating table for three minutes.
She would take to “What to expect” forums when she fell pregnant with her son, join anti-vaccination campaigns, and also had a strong stance on allowing refugees to stay in Australia.
With little friends outside of the online world, she became engrossed in her computer, talking online with anyone who would pay her attention.
She called her 120,000-plus followers on Instagram her “family”.
In between updates on her multiple cancer diagnoses and illnesses, she posted images of herself from exotic locations by the poolside with a cocktail in hand.
Company financial records showed she was living the high life, claiming extravagant trips around the world and driving around in a brand new black BMW.
Her health and wellness empire, which started with her designing an app, was no doubt a booming success. The company’s income was $319,878 in the 2013-14 financial year — $250,031 of which was profit.
She was making a mint on the back of lies she had terminal cancer.
Even after being ousted, she continued to make money from her deceitful actions.
She pocketed $75,000 for a train wreck interview with Channel Nine’s 60 Minutes.
Cracks in her miraculous cancer survival story surfaced in March 2015 — four months after a visit to The Alfred hospital confirmed she never had cancer.
It would be those close to her, people she called friends, who ousted her.
A series of news articles exposing her lies followed and brought her to the attention of Consumer Affairs Victoria, who launched civil action against her.
The alternative health advocate was now in trouble.
With the media interest growing — and so many questions still to be answered — she went into hiding. She even moved from her beachside Elwood home to Northcote in Melbourne’s north.
But then, in a magazine interview with the Australian Women’s Weekly, she admitted she had struggled with the truth her whole life.
Asked about her cancer diagnosis, she sensationally said: “None of it is true.”
Major publisher Penguin and tech giant Apple quickly wiped their hands clean of Gibson, removing her cookbook from shelves and deleting her app.
Despite declaring it was all a lie, there has never been an apology.
Every which way she has snubbed her nose at facing justice.
On one occasion, she was photographed out with friends, drinking at a Melbourne ice bar, just hours after she had failed to attend a scheduled court hearing.
This week was no different. Gibson was nowhere to be seen in the Federal Court as Justice Debbie Mortimer ruled she had “deliberately played” the Australian public.
Justice Mortimer said there was no rational reason for Gibson to believe she had cancer.
She also found the young mother had failed to pass on donations she had collected for charities through the sale of her app.
One of her victims was the Schwarz family. They never received any funds from her.
But her story echoed that of their young boy, Joshua.
The family believe Gibson had befriended them to help fabricate her own ‘cancer’ story.
Their son sadly lost his battle with a brain tumour in January. He was aged just 9.
Gibson’s deceitful actions have raised repeated calls for her to be jailed.
But under the Consumer Law she has breached, she only faces a fine of up to $1.1 million.
As part of their civil action against Gibson, the consumer watchdog has also called on the judge to force Gibson to make a public apology in the form of an A4 advertisement in both this paper and The Australian.
But cancer sufferers and her drove of followers have questioned the sincerity of such a formal apology.
Justice Mortimer will hand down a penalty at a later date.
In a rant on social media three years ago, Gibson stated: “You have serious mental health issues if you conjure up lies, situations, health issues, struggles or add in unreasonable amount of detail to keep things interesting, make it your way of creating interaction or to satisfy and keep up all other lies you’ve told — grow up, calm down, live simply. Shut the f--- up and be normal, in other words.”
It was almost like she was trying to tell herself something. If only she had listened.
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