Wellness blogger Belle Gibson faked terminal cancer years ago. She’s still on the hook
Global News
Apple Cider Vinegar, a dramatic retelling of Gibson’s story released this month, doesn't recount what happened after it was revealed in 2015 that she wasn’t sick.
A decade after wellness influencer Belle Gibson admitted she didn’t have terminal brain cancer, which she claimed was cured by the healthy lifestyle that made her famous, her story has inspired a new Netflix series — and fresh outrage in Australia about the case’s lack of resolution.
Authorities said this week they’re still pursuing the disgraced Instagram star for unpaid fines, fueling ongoing ire among Australians about one of the country’s most brazen online scams — an episode that drew attention to the destructive harms of false health claims on social media.
Apple Cider Vinegar, a dramatic retelling of Gibson’s story released this month, doesn’t recount what happened after it was revealed in 2015 that she wasn’t sick. In real life, she never faced criminal charges.
But in 2017, Australia’s federal court fined her 410,000 Australian dollars ($261,000), which she had raised for charity and failed to donate. The consumer watchdog in the state of Victoria is still trying to recover the funds, a spokesperson told The Associated Press.
Gibson’s healthy recipe app, The Whole Pantry, had 200,000 downloads in one month from the Apple store in 2013. She claimed proceeds from the app and her cookbook — published by a Penguin imprint — would be donated to charities and to the family of a child with cancer.
Only two per cent of the total was donated and Gibson was found to have breached consumer law. A court ordered her to produce the remaining funds and barred her from making health claims.
In a letter to the court, Gibson said she was in debt, didn’t have a job and couldn’t pay the costs.
“Consumer Affairs Victoria has continued to undertake actions to enforce the debt owed by Annabelle Natalie Gibson (Belle Gibson) under court order,” said a statement from the agency that was supplied on Wednesday.
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