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Speaker 1: Already, and this is the Daily This is the Daily OS. Oh,

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Speaker 1: now it makes sense.

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Speaker 2: Good morning and welcome to the Daily OS. It's Friday,

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Speaker 2: the fourteenth of February. Have you Valentine's Day? What are

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Speaker 2: you going to say to you? Have we gone my

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Speaker 2: Valentine's Day with not?

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Speaker 1: Like we don't spend too much time together already. Maybe

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Speaker 1: for Valentine's Day we can get a break from each other.

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Speaker 2: It does sound like quite the gift. We should definitely

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Speaker 2: work towards it. Next here now on today's podcast, we're

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Speaker 2: talking about the story behind the biggest Netflix show at

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Speaker 2: the moment. Since Apple Cider Vinegar was released just over

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Speaker 2: a week ago, it's been streamed nearly four million times

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Speaker 2: and it's made it into the top five of the

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Speaker 2: Streaming Services global charts. Now, this series follows the rise

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Speaker 2: of Australian wellness blogger Belle Gibson. If you're not familiar

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Speaker 2: with Belle Gibson, she claims she had been diagnosed with

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Speaker 2: a malignant brain camp and then said that she was

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Speaker 2: treating her cancer with a strict health routine. In twenty thirteen,

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Speaker 2: she began documenting her treatment journey online and a mass

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Speaker 2: hundreds of thousands of Instagram followers. Everyone's talking about Belle

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Speaker 2: Gibson at the moment, and I think yesterday you and

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Speaker 2: I realized that there are two camps of people, people

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Speaker 2: like us who have followed and been obsessed with the

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Speaker 2: story of bell Gibson for a very long time, and

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Speaker 2: people that are learning about her now for the very

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Speaker 2: first time.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, it's interesting that people who are learning about the

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Speaker 1: story of Belle Gibson for the first time. It's kind

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Speaker 1: of this new wave of shock that this story exists. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: because it is so surprising and shocking. That's not a

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Speaker 1: word that I like to use often, but it really

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Speaker 1: is a shocking story. So we're going to talk about

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Speaker 1: Belle Gibson's lies that came to like a decade ago.

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Speaker 1: Let's start with who Belle Gibson was before she rose

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Speaker 1: to prominence.

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Speaker 2: So Annabelle Natalie Gibson was born in October of nineteen

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Speaker 2: ninety one, and hold onto that because that becomes a

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Speaker 2: contentious fact down the road.

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Speaker 1: You'd think of birthday, I know, you'd think it's it.

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Speaker 2: Was not going to be contentious, but it really is.

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Speaker 2: So Belle Gibson was raised in suburban Brisbane by her mother,

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Speaker 2: and she also had one brother. In interviews, Gibson described

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Speaker 2: her childhood as being difficult. She said she was burdened

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Speaker 2: by responsibilities like caring for her brother. Her high school

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Speaker 2: teachers described her as a great student and a high achiever.

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Speaker 2: Now during that time, she also took acting classes outside

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Speaker 2: of school, and her drama teacher reports that from the

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Speaker 2: time that she was quite good at acting. Her friends

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Speaker 2: from her childhood have told journalists in the years since

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Speaker 2: this whole story began to unravel that Gibson became known

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Speaker 2: for compulsively lying and that people made fun of her

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Speaker 2: in her childhood because of it. They claimed the Gibson

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Speaker 2: would make up things about her life, things like being

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Speaker 2: in witness protection or surviving major health ish shoes. Then,

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Speaker 2: at eighteen, Bell Gibson moved to Perth and that is

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Speaker 2: when her storytelling moved from in real life to the Internet.

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Speaker 1: So she started sharing stories on the internet. I presume

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Speaker 1: this was pre Instagram. Where did she first start?

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Speaker 2: There is, well, pre Instagram.

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Speaker 1: So where was she sharing those stories?

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Speaker 2: Yeah, you're right, it was pre Instagram. So she started

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Speaker 2: blogging in an online chat room. So we're talking about

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Speaker 2: two thousand and nine. Here she'd write about being in

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Speaker 2: a hospital. She'd write about undergoing tests for a heart

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Speaker 2: tumor and preparing for chemo. She said she'd had major

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Speaker 2: heart surgery and then eventually claimed she was diagnosed with

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Speaker 2: terminal brain cancer and only had a few months left

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Speaker 2: to live. And this is really the crux of the story,

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Speaker 2: and it really was the center of her story and

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Speaker 2: what she told her followers at the time. Gibson said

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Speaker 2: a cervical cancer vaccination had caused her to have a

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Speaker 2: stroke and then somehow that stroke led to brain cancer.

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Speaker 2: I do just want to, you know, for full clarity

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Speaker 2: here say, the HPV vaccine, which is the vaccine that

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Speaker 2: can prevent cervical cancer, has not been linked to brain

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Speaker 2: cancer or strokes. But Gibson's anti vaccine narrative is really

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Speaker 2: critical to this story because it's why she claims she

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Speaker 2: didn't want to undergo conventional cancer treatment, things like chemotherapy

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Speaker 2: or radiotherapy that are traditionally used to respond to a cancer,

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Speaker 2: and so she says that set her down an alternative

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Speaker 2: therapy path. In twenty ten, Gibson moved to Melbourne, so

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Speaker 2: started in Perth move to Melbourne to undergo treatment with

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Speaker 2: a neurologist and an immunologist. She claimed his name was

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Speaker 2: doctor Mark Johns from Melbourne's Peter Mack, but there is

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Speaker 2: no record of a doctor by that name at the center.

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Speaker 2: She also gave birth to her son at that time.

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Speaker 1: Okay, so she starts posting on social media about her diagnoses,

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Speaker 1: alleged diagnoses. What kind of conversations were people having online

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Speaker 1: in twenty ten when she started posting this.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, it's interesting, and I guess it's strange for us

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Speaker 2: to consider now. But back then, when Bell Gibson first

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Speaker 2: started posting about these diagnoses and then her alternative treatment methods,

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Speaker 2: we hadn't really had these big national conversations about wellness.

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Speaker 2: So she was really part of this growing online movement,

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Speaker 2: the wellness movement back in twenty ten. At the time,

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Speaker 2: that online movement was really being led by a young

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Speaker 2: woman called jess Ainsco.

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Speaker 1: And for those listening who have been watching the Netflix show,

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Speaker 1: you might know that there is a character on there

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Speaker 1: that is called Miller Blake in Appleside of Vinegar. So

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Speaker 1: is that person, jess Ainsco? Is that who the character

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Speaker 1: Miller Blake is based on?

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Speaker 2: Yeah, it is, And so she's really considered this like

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Speaker 2: original wellness warrior. So I'll just give a bit of

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Speaker 2: context as to who she is. I think at orients

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Speaker 2: us in how big this movement became. So at twenty three,

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Speaker 2: Jests was diagnosed with an extremely rare and aggressive cancer

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Speaker 2: in her left arm and hand, and she was told

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Speaker 2: her best chance of survival was amputation, but she rejected

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Speaker 2: that recommended treatment in favor of an alternative therapy. It's

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Speaker 2: called Gerson therapy, which was a food based protocol that

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Speaker 2: basically claims to cure illness, including cancer, with an all

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Speaker 2: vegetarian diet and these juices. If you've watched the show,

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Speaker 2: you can see those juices in it. Now, there's no

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Speaker 2: scientific evidence that Gerson therapy cures cancer, and tragically Jess

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Speaker 2: died in twenty fifteen. But before that point she believed

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Speaker 2: this treatment was her medicine, and she built up an

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Speaker 2: online profile by promoting this belief and promoting these juices

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Speaker 2: and how she believed she was treating herself. Now, Belle

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Speaker 2: Gibson bringing it back to her, saw Jess sharing her

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Speaker 2: treatment journey online, saw her gaining a following, and decided

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Speaker 2: that she was going to do the same thing.

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Speaker 1: And how did she do that? How did Belle Gibson

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Speaker 1: grow an audience on Instagram.

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Speaker 2: It's interesting because today on TikTok, this very unpolished like

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Speaker 2: day in the life content goes viral. It's very normal

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Speaker 2: for us to see. But back then, Instagram was still

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Speaker 2: this kind of highlights reel of the best of someone's life.

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Speaker 2: And so what Gibson did, and I suppose did differently,

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Speaker 2: is that she spoke really candidly on Instagram about the

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Speaker 2: highs and lows of her life. So she was documenting

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Speaker 2: things about, you know, what she was cooking, but then

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Speaker 2: she was also talking about her cancer, and she was

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Speaker 2: also talking about how she was treating herself. Her follow

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Speaker 2: up base grew pretty quickly, and within a year her

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Speaker 2: ideas were turned into an app called The Whole Pantry.

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Speaker 2: Now it was full of lifestyle and wellness tips and

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Speaker 2: all the food that Belle said she was eating and

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Speaker 2: the recipes behind them. It became really big, this app.

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Speaker 2: It won a bunch of awards, and then Apple got

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Speaker 2: behind it and announced that it would be introduced on

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Speaker 2: the first Apple Watch, and so people when they bought

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Speaker 2: the Apple Watch, yeah, the Whole Pantry was there and

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Speaker 2: This all also then led to a book deal. Now,

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Speaker 2: the whole pantry book was filled with recipes and words

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Speaker 2: about Gibson's cancer battle, and that book became a bestseller,

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Speaker 2: and I was reading yesterday, I'm pretty sure her advance

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Speaker 2: was well over one hundred thousand dollars for that book, which,

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Speaker 2: in author speak, shows that this was a big deal.

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Speaker 1: And did anyone question the legitimacy of her claims about

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Speaker 1: her health?

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Speaker 2: Honestly, no nobody did. At that time. Bell's followers were

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Speaker 2: constantly commenting messages of support and of sympathy for her.

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Speaker 2: She had signed a deal with a major publishing house.

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Speaker 2: She had, as I just said, signed this deal with Apple.

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Speaker 2: People loved her recipes. With all of these legitimate companies

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Speaker 2: backing her, I guess it was very normal for people

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Speaker 2: not to doubt her. Why would there be this huge

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Speaker 2: endorsement of someone and their story by these massive companies

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Speaker 2: if it was all a fake, If it was all

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Speaker 2: a fraud, and so there was no reason back then

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Speaker 2: for people to doubt what she was saying.

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Speaker 1: Well, even today, if you saw online that someone was

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Speaker 1: saying that they had been diagnosed with cancer, it would

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Speaker 1: be very odd to question that yeah, to ask for

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Speaker 1: medical certificates to question that, okay, But obviously the tide

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Speaker 1: did start to turn against Belle Gibson. At what point

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Speaker 1: did the cracks start to show.

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Speaker 2: It was twenty fifteen and the whole pantry had become

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Speaker 2: this hugely successful app, blog, and book. Gibson had also

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Speaker 2: claimed that she was donating large chunks of money to

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Speaker 2: charity throughout this success, But things shifted when publications and

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Speaker 2: journals right across the country received an anonymous email at

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Speaker 2: the same time basically detailing Belle's fake diagnosis. Two reporters

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Speaker 2: with The Age in Melbourne started looking into the allegations

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Speaker 2: raised by that email.

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Speaker 1: And what I know about how this worked is that

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Speaker 1: the journalists started to look into it and they found

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Speaker 1: it very difficult to prove one way or another whether

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Speaker 1: this diagnosis was real. And so their belief, their working belief,

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Speaker 1: was that if she's lying potentially about this, then what

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Speaker 1: else is she lying about? And so that's when they

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Speaker 1: started looking at potential charity donations that she had claimed

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Speaker 1: she had made. Is that right?

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Speaker 2: Yeah, that is right. So the Age journals who were

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Speaker 2: working on this, Nick Toscano and Bo Donnelle initially contacted

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Speaker 2: Gibson for clarification, as you said, around those donations. She

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Speaker 2: was actually at the funeral of Jess who I mentioned

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Speaker 2: earlier when they first tried to contact her. But after

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Speaker 2: a few days when she couldn't explain how much of

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Speaker 2: the money she was making was going to charity, that's

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Speaker 2: when they started investigating further and they found out that

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Speaker 2: most of the charities that Gibson had claimed to be

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Speaker 2: supporting had never received any money from her. Others had

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Speaker 2: received small donations, but only in the days after those

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Speaker 2: journals had actually contacted her, So after she knew that

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Speaker 2: there was potentially a story coming.

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Speaker 1: And then I presume from there they just kept contacting

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Speaker 1: her and kept asking for receipts that she could not provide.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, they put a list of extensive questions to Gibson,

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Speaker 2: and when she failed to provide answers or satisfactory answers

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Speaker 2: to any of their queries, the Age then ran a

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Speaker 2: story exposing Belle Gibson's.

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Speaker 1: Lies and what was the fallout from there?

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Speaker 2: So Gibson then did an interview with the Australian Women's

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Speaker 2: Weekly and she basically confirmed none of.

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Speaker 1: It was true, which is wild wild.

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Speaker 2: Even then though, she claimed she'd been tricked into believing

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Speaker 2: that she had cancer, rather than admitting she was perfectly healthy. Now.

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Speaker 2: There was a really, really strong reaction from her followers,

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Speaker 2: including people who had donated money to support her and

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Speaker 2: to support her ventures, but also from vulnerable cancer sufferers

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Speaker 2: who had heard continued messages about alternative therapies working for

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Speaker 2: Gibson but her not actually, you know, ever having a

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Speaker 2: diagnosis in the first place. The outrage led to an

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Speaker 2: iconic sixty minutes interview which some listeners might remember.

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Speaker 3: You prepared to sign a statutory declaration to say that

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Speaker 3: everything you tell me today is the truth absolutely because

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Speaker 3: you don't have a good record on telling the truth.

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Speaker 3: Do There's nothing left to lose, and if that requires

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Speaker 3: a stat deck, then I'm comfortable with that.

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Speaker 1: I went back and watched that interview the other day,

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Speaker 1: just as a thing to do on a Sunday afternoon.

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Speaker 2: It's crazy, it's why old.

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Speaker 1: The fact that she kind of ever thought that it

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Speaker 1: was I mean, clearly her judgment is extremely flawed, but

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Speaker 1: the fact that after she was caught out on all

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Speaker 1: of these lies, that she thought it was a good

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Speaker 1: idea to do this interview with sixty minutes. It's hard

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Speaker 1: to understand her mindset.

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Speaker 2: It is, and I think you know, words are narcissism

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Speaker 2: and things like that get thrown around when talking about

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Speaker 2: someone like Belle Gibson. But think when you watch that

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Speaker 2: interview and you think about this story, this isn't just

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Speaker 2: a story of someone lying and perhaps profiting off that lie.

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Speaker 2: I think what I mentioned before is really what makes

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Speaker 2: this story so unbelievable, which is that so many vulnerable women,

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Speaker 2: usually who were sick themselves, followed this plan or this

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Speaker 2: alternative therapy that was rooted in nothing in lies. And

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Speaker 2: so you know, there was so much public outcry, as

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Speaker 2: you said, and then especially after that sixty minutes interview

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Speaker 2: where she had said that she wanted to do the

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Speaker 2: interview to be transparent and to apologize and to explain.

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Speaker 2: But then as the interview at Tara Brown discovered it

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Speaker 2: was just a lot of excuses from someone who essentially

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Speaker 2: just didn't want to tell the truth.

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Speaker 1: Okay, so it was clear that she had lied. There

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Speaker 1: weren't really any satisfactory answers that came to light. She

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Speaker 1: kept giving excuses. She still maintained that she had been

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Speaker 1: given these diagnoses, but that the doctors were the ones

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Speaker 1: that lied, not her. That obviously led to a public fallout.

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Speaker 1: I'm interested in what happened to her corporate relationships, like

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Speaker 1: her for Bolstered, Yeah, like the book publisher that you mentioned,

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Speaker 1: and like Apple.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. So she lost the support of Apple and her

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Speaker 2: publishers pretty quickly after the truth came to light. But

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Speaker 2: then there was also the question of criminal ramifications, because

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Speaker 2: you know, the corporate deals are one thing, but had

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Speaker 2: she broken the law here. Victoria's Consumer affairs Minister Jane

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Speaker 2: Garrett told the ABC at the time that the watchdog

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Speaker 2: would take civil action in the federal court against Gibson

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Speaker 2: and her now defunct company for misleading and deceptive conduct.

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Speaker 2: At the time, Garrett said, all of those claims made

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Speaker 2: by her around when she suffered the illness, her therapies

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Speaker 2: in respect of that illness, and what she did with

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Speaker 2: her own alternative remedies are false and misleading and deceptive.

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Speaker 2: We will be seeking penalties to ensure that conduct is

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Speaker 2: not undertaken again. In March twenty seventeen, the federal court

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Speaker 2: upheld most but not all, of the allegations against Gibson

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Speaker 2: and her company, finding that she had engaged in misleading

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Speaker 2: and deceptive conduct.

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Speaker 1: And what was that fine?

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Speaker 2: So she was fine more than four hundred k's four

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Speaker 2: hundred thousand dollars for several breaches. Additional legal action was

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Speaker 2: launched in twenty eighteen because those fines were still unpaid.

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Speaker 2: That in twenty nineteen, Gibson appeared in court and claimed

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Speaker 2: she couldn't afford to pay the fine. There have been

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Speaker 2: multiple raids of her Melbourne homes in an effort to

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Speaker 2: recoup some of that debt, which has since increased to

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Speaker 2: more than five hundred thousand dollars. So we're talking about

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Speaker 2: half a million dollars here. But all those years later,

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Speaker 2: authorities are still chasing her for the money and she

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Speaker 2: still hasn't paid it. Now, bringing this story into today

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Speaker 2: and today's news cycle, Victorian Premier Justinto Allen was asked

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Speaker 2: about this and she said this week that Consumer's Affair

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Speaker 2: Victoria is pursuing this constantly and consistently and won't let up.

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Speaker 1: And could someone go to jail for not paying a

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Speaker 1: five hundred k fine after however many years it's been

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Speaker 1: eight years.

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Speaker 2: Look, breaching consumer law isn't the same as being convicted

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Speaker 2: of a crime, and to this day, Gibson hasn't actually

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Speaker 2: been prosecuted or found guilty in a criminal.

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Speaker 1: Court, and Belle Gibson, from my understanding, has largely retreated

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Speaker 1: from public life as one would after something like this

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Speaker 1: comes out. Do we have any information about where she

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Speaker 1: is now?

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Speaker 2: So in twenty twenty, Belle Gibson appeared essentially to have

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Speaker 2: completely reinvented herself. We understand that she converted to Islam,

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Speaker 2: and she immersed herself in a Victorian Ethiopian migrant community

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Speaker 2: video circulated on social media, in which Belle claimed that

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Speaker 2: her heart was deeply embedded with this community. She said

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Speaker 2: that she felt blessed to have been adopted. Photographs from

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Speaker 2: the time also show Belle volunteering at an Ethiopian food

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Speaker 2: truck and wearing a traditional beaded head dress. But community

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Speaker 2: leaders have since distanced themselves from Gibson, and that brings

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Speaker 2: us to twenty twenty one, because from that point, there's

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Speaker 2: essentially not a whole lot that we know about bell Gibson.

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Speaker 2: In the age of you know, at twenty four hour

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Speaker 2: news cycle and everyone having a phone in their hands,

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Speaker 2: it's quite remarkable how unseen she is despite being so

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Speaker 2: well known, but the renewed interest in Bell Gibson from

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Speaker 2: the Netflix show has brought her story to new audiences,

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Speaker 2: as we mentioned at the top, so it'll be super

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Speaker 2: interesting to see if anything changes from this point.

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Speaker 1: I find it astonishing that we literally know nothing nothing

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Speaker 1: about her in the past four years, Like it's like

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Speaker 1: she has completely disappeared.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, we don't even know what she looks like nowadays.

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Speaker 3: Zara.

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Speaker 1: Thank you so much for explaining that, and thank you

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Speaker 1: so much for listening to this episode of The Daily os.

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Speaker 1: We'll be back this afternoon with your afternoon headlines, but

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Speaker 1: until then, have a great day. My name is Lily

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Speaker 1: Maddon and I'm a proud Arunda Bungelung Kalkudin woman from

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Speaker 1: Gadighl Country. The Daily oz acknowledges that this podcast is

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Speaker 1: recorded on the lands of the Gadighl people and pays

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Speaker 1: respect to all Aboriginal and torrest Rate island and nations.

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Speaker 1: We pay our respects to the first peoples of these countries,

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Speaker 1: both past and present.