In our shattered meritocracy, there is nothing more tantalising than stories about successful scammers; they act as anti-heroes who are able to exploit a broken system for their own gain and expose the dark reality that getting ahead often has nothing to do with work ethic, merit, and talent. So, after the huge success of Hustlers, The Dropout, and Inventing Anna, Netflix is serving up the next highly-anticipated adaptation of a real-life fraudster story: Apple Cider Vinegar.

Over the course of its six episode arc, the series covers the journey of Belle Gibson, an influencer and wellness guru, who claimed that she was managing multiple cancer diagnoses through diet, exercise, and holistic medicine. The only issue was that Gibson never actually had cancer… Here’s everything you need to know about her fall from grace.

Annabelle Natalie Gibson, is an Australian influencer who rose to fame in 2013, after she claimed to have been diagnosed with terminal cancer four years earlier and given only four months to live. In fact, Gibson announced that she was burdened with multiple cancers in her “blood, spleen, brain and uterus” and that she was tackling this through an unconventional approach: no drugs.

Instead, Gibson advocated for clean eating and natural therapies. The Australian’s philosophy quickly turned her into the high-priestess of the online wellness community and the influencer leveraged this and her large following of faithful acolytes into a cookbook deal with Penguin and an app project with Apple.

Both of these ventures were ultimately called ‘The Whole Pantry’ and helped Gibson to firmly cement her wellness empire. On Google Play, the app has been installed between 10,000 to 50,000 times. While on Apple’s iTunes, it has been downloaded 300,000 times, although apparently 200,000 of those were in the first month. By early 2015, it was estimated that over $1 million in sales of ‘The Whole Pantry’ app and book. So in other words, Gibson was very successful.

The influencer claimed that a portion of each app sale would go to charity but unfortunately, that was as true as her cancer diagnosis.

Her empire started to crumble when fans and critics alike raised questions about her lavish lifestyle, consisting of a posh townhouse, a luxury car and office space, cosmetic procedures, designer clothing and international holidays.

After it was uncovered that Gibson used the money she claimed to have donated to charity, the entrepreneur admitted that her claims of having multiple cancers were fabricated, confirming that “none of it’s true” in April 2015 during an interview with Australia’s Women’s Weekly magazine.

Two years later, in 2017, the Federal Court found the influencer guilty of engaging in misleading and deceptive conduct, subsequently serving her with a $410,000 fine.

You can probably imagine how the rest of the story played out: The content creator set all her accounts on private mode, as her book was taken off the shelves, and her app removed from all app stores.

“I don’t want forgiveness. I just think [speaking out] was the responsible thing to do. Above anything, I would like people to say, ‘OK, she’s human’,” Gibson confessed during her interview.

Needless to say, this response was slammed as humiliating and out of touch, especially by her loyal followers who were struggling with real cancer pathologies.

Some of the most prominent stories about scammers feature women, as the various documentaries about Anna Delvey and Elizabeth Homes reflect. According to LSE PhD researcher Kat Higgins, this is because women are associated with care and propriety meaning that fraudulent and deceptive behaviour is seen as a larger moral transgression on them. So the answer is basically sexism.

 

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Netflix’s Apple Cider Vinegar is set to grace our screens on 6 February 2025. The show will see American actor Kaitlyn Dever take on the role of Gibson, having previously received acclaim for her performance in the 2019 drama Unbelievable.