The Whole Pantry blogger Belle Gibson admits she doesn’t have cancer to The Australian Women’s Weekly
CONTROVERSIAL health guru Belle Gibson has finally admitted she never had cancer, but is yet to apologise for her web of lies.
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CONTROVERSIAL health guru Belle Gibson has finally admitted she never had cancer — but she is yet to apologise for her web of lies.
The Melbourne mum revealed in a magazine interview the miraculous brain tumour survival story she used to become an online sensation and build up her The Whole Pantry empire was false.
“No. None of it’s true,” she says when asked if she has, or ever had, cancer in an interview with The Australian Women’s Weekly.
“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.”
She added: “I don’t think I am so psychologically damaged that I have manufactured everything that I presently think I know about my life.”
Ms Gibson blames a “troubled” childhood for her problems sorting fact from fiction.
She kept to her original story she has shared in other media interviews in recent years that she grew up not knowing her father and that she had to look after her mother, who suffered multiple sclerosis and chronic fatigue, and her autistic brother.
But she went on to paint a sorry picture of how from the age of five, she had to look after herself, walking to school on her own, never having any toys and explaining it was her responsibility to “do grocery shopping, do the washing, arrange medical appointments and pick up my brother”.
Describing the backlash against her as “horrible”, she said she spoke out because it was “the responsible thing to do”, not because she wanted forgiveness.
But she would not explain why she had lied.
“Above anything, I would like people to say: ‘Okay, she’s human’,” she said.
“I think my life has just got so many complexities around it and within it, that it’s just easier to assume (I’m lying).”
The unpaid interview comes more than a month after Ms Gibson’s claims of suffering cancer were thrown into disrepute and questions were raised that she had failed to hand over hundreds of thousands of dollars to charity she had raised through sales of her award-winning app.
The app was dropped by Apple, and Penguin pulled her cookbook from the shelves following the media revelations.
Ms Gibson, 23, gave many desperate cancer sufferers hope when she claimed she had beaten her cancer symptoms with healthy eating and holistic treatments.
Almost 200,000 people followed her on Instagram, where she shared stories of her daily struggle with the illness.
Outraged fans took to social media, calling her a “monster”, labelling her conduct as “shocking” and calling on police to charge her.
The Herald Sun revealed earlier this month they were no longer investigating Ms Gibson.
When asked yesterday if that had changed in light of her confessions, police spokeswoman Melissa Seach said: “This matter is being looked at by Consumer Affairs Victoria, not Victoria Police.”
Consumer Affairs Victoria said it was “continuing to make inquiries with Ms Gibson regarding fundraising activities undertaken by her company The Whole Pantry Pty Ltd”.
Former friends last night told the Herald Sun they were relieved she had told the truth.
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