Belle Gibson’s book put on hold

PENGUIN Books has cancelled supplies of Belle Gibson’s book The Whole Pantry.

Belle Gibson

PENGUIN Books has cancelled supplies of Belle Gibson’s book The Whole Pantry after the author and businesswoman failed to supply Penguin with evidence backing up her claims that she has survived cancer.

Penguin yesterday said Gibson, the 23-year-old entrepreneur behind a multimedia “wellness” and recipe business, had still not provided an adequate response to allegations that she used dubious cancer claims to promote her business.

“As such, we have been left with no other option but to stop supplying the book in Australia,” the publisher said in a statement. “We remain hopeful that we will receive the formal assurances we have requested in the coming days.”

The Whole Pantry was published in October by Lantern, an imprint of Penguin. The book is believed to have sold about 13,000 copies through bookshops and was scheduled for release next month in the US and Britain.

The Australian revealed last week that Gibson has been making extraordinary claims of medical crises since she was 17 and now admits she might not be suffering cancer of the blood, uterus, spleen and liver, as she stated last year.

In her book she says a doctor diagnosed her with an aggressive malignant brain tumour in 2009 and told her she had only four months to live.