23-year-old comes clean: she built a very successful business empire on lies, but she doesn't want forgiveness

Apr 23, 2015 08:08 GMT  ·  By
Elle was one of the many publications to praise Belle Gibson for “curing” terminal brain cancer with wholefoods
   Elle was one of the many publications to praise Belle Gibson for “curing” terminal brain cancer with wholefoods

Wellness blogger Belle Gibson from Australia was, until the other day, a very successful businesswoman who had managed to build her empire on claims she’d cured her terminal brain cancer by ditching alternative medicine, by changing her lifestyle and eating only wholefoods.

She started getting attention for her health issues sometime in 2009, and she launched The Whole Pantry business comprising a best-selling app (which was to be included on the Apple Watch as well) and a book of the same name.

She maintained that a minimalistic lifestyle, including only wholefoods, had helped her where conventional drug treatments and approaches had failed her: she’d been diagnosed with terminal brain cancer and had been given only a few more months, but she’d defied the doctors for years.

She lied.

“None of it is true”

In March this year, Gibson’s claims started being brought into question, when some of her many followers online noticed discrepancies between the stories she told and the pieces of evidence she left behind, particularly in her online activity.

For starters, she did not live the simple life she claimed she was, often posting photos from exotic locations she went to on vacation. Secondly, she claimed to be older than she was. She also started deleting older posts about her health issues when more and more people began to question the details described in them.

Gibson never provided actual proof for her claims that she had cancer all over her body, from her liver, uterus, spleen, blood, kidney and brain. The publisher of her book (Penguin Australia) never checked her story before coming out with the book. The media outlets praising her for her accomplishments in defeating terminal cancer never looked into her background or double-checked the “facts” she provided them with.

In March, Gibson made the first step towards admitting she was a sham: she claimed that her many cancers had been misdiagnosed by a German magnetic therapy “doctor” whom she did not name, but she insisted that she really had brain cancer.

As for her older claims that she’d had many surgeries on her heart and had even “died” on the operating table, those were removed from cyber-space without a word.

“None of it is true,” Gibson says in her first interview, to the Australian Women’s Weekly, out on newsstands today, April 23, 2015.

“OK, she’s human”

The online preview of the issue doesn’t say why Gibson lied, but it hints that she might need psychiatric evaluation.

As for the reasons she’s speaking out now after all this time, Gibson tries to explain that she’s not doing it because she’d come under increasing attacks online, by the very community she claimed to be helping.

“I don’t want forgiveness,” she says. “I just think [speaking out] was the responsible thing to do. Above anything, I would like people to say, ‘OK, she’s human’.” As in, she made a mistake, she should be forgotten about it.

Right now, Apple has pulled her popular app from the store, and Penguin has ceased all sales of the book. She is being investigated by Consumer Affairs Victoria for deliberately misleading consumers with false claims.

Perhaps even worse, because she’d gotten so much support online, Gibson wronged cancer sufferers who ditched their treatments and switched to her wholefoods “plan,” thinking salvation was there. The preview for the interview doesn’t include an apology from Gibson to them.