In 2015, young reporters Nick Toscano and Beau Donelly weren’t into “wellness”. They didn’t follow health gurus and the term “superfoods” was, to them, more akin to a top-tier steak at a fancy pub rather than anything to do with a goji berry.
They certainly hadn’t taken notice of Belle Gibson.
That is until a tip came in that the then darling of the wellness world, who had a legion of followers because she purported to beat terminal brain cancer by eating well, was a liar.
Belle Gibson, creator of the app The Whole PantryCredit: Garry Barker
Toscano and Donelly, who broke the first story on Gibson’s shaky claims, went on to write their book, The Woman Who Fooled the World, that’s become the basis for a new Netflix drama, Apple Cider Vinegar, out on February 6.
Ahead of its release, Donelly, now based in Ireland, and Toscano, who is The Age’s energy reporter, gave an inside look on The Age and Sydney Morning Herald’s podcast, The Morning Edition, into how they unravelled the Gibson story and what happened since then.
You can listen to their interview with host Samantha Selinger-Morris by clicking the player below, or read on for an edited extract of their conversation.
Selinger-Morris: Beau, I want to turn to you. Can you tell us about, where did the tip come from? What did it say?
Donelly: I took the number of this friend of Belle Gibson’s and I gave her a ring. And she struck me as someone who was very intelligent, and who was just horrified, really, for the role she had played in supporting Belle Gibson, who she now believed was a cancer faker.
I started that call feeling very critical, almost dismissive of her claims. But I came away from it, absolutely fascinated by what she was saying.
Selinger-Morris: OK, and then the first story that you both wrote on her, you didn’t focus on the questions about her cancer diagnosis. Instead, you focused on the money, specifically that she had not handed over donations that she had promised to various charities. So Nick, I’m going to go to you. Why did you focus on that?
Toscano: We were hoping to write an initial article which would have said something like ‘There are doubts about Belle Gibson’s diagnosis’, but none of her friends who were speaking to us at that point would be prepared to speak on the record. We put the suggestion and a draft to our lawyers and they quite judiciously said: ‘No, we can’t write the article yet’.
So Beau and I then thought: ‘Well, if she’s lying about this, then what else is she lying about?’