‘Instagram’s Worst Con Artist’ Belle Gibson managed to convince the world she had incurable brain cancer but had beaten it using a healthy diet - her awful lies were uncovered when she made a crucial mistake and the extent of her fraud was discovered
Claiming that she had terminal cancer wasn’t the only sickening lie Australian social influencer Belle Gibson told.
Ultimately, it was the discovery of her other false claims that led to her downfall. The story of convicted scammer Belle Gibson is documented in ITV's Instagram's Worst Con Artist tonight. The Australian influencer claimed she had decided to refuse traditional treatment for the terminal brain cancer she was 'diagnosed' with in 2009 and miraculously cured the disease through healthy eating.
In 2013 she launched the healthy lifestyle and recipe app, The Whole Pantry, which was an instant hit, reportedly being downloaded 200,000 times in the first month. It was voted Apple's Best Food and Drink app of that year and went on to gain a huge following with its message of holistic medicine and natural remedies, diet and exercise over traditional medicine.
A cookbook of the same name was published the following year through Lantern Books, a subsidiary of Penguin Books. The preface included a line that stated she had been, "stable for two years now with no growth of the cancer". She attracted over 300,000 followers on social media and appeared countless times on TV talking about how she’d managed to 'cure' her illness. By early 2015, it was estimated that over $1 million had been made from sales of the app and book.
However Belle tripped up and questions started to be asked when she failed to deliver on a $300,000 charity donation. Allegations emerged that charitable contributions raised in 2013 and 2014 did not reach their intended causes and that Belle had "grossly overstated" the company's donations to charities. Two charities confirmed to The Australian newspaper that her company had used their names in fundraising campaigns but hadn't delivered, either at all or in full.
In March 2015, the parents of a young child with brain cancer came forward. Belle had befriended them, but they claimed they weren’t aware she had earlier been claiming to fundraise for their child’s treatment on their behalf. They alleged they never received any donations from her or The Whole Pantry and believed she had been using details she learnt from them about brain cancer to support her own health claims.
Belle’s former friend Chanelle McAuliffe was also beginning to have her suspicions about her pal’s claims. She says she saw Belle doing things she claimed not to do on her social media including drinking alcohol and eating fast food. "Belle was very passionate about wellness…but then there would be times where I noticed her and another friend went to a solarium to go tanning. Another time we went out to a nightclub, and she was ordering shots and lots of drinks and drinking quite excessively. Things just didn’t add up for me," she said.
Chanelle decided to call her out on the eve of her book launch, saying it "made her blood boil" that she was deceiving people on such a grand scale and taking advantage of vulnerable people. "I felt she was misleading people on such a serious nature that they were making decisions about life-threatening illnesses to stop seeking chemo or radiation to eat fruit and vegetables," she recalled. "I said to her ‘are you ready to come forward?’ And she basically got really aggressive with me, basically told me to f*** off."
Belle eventually admitted she had fabricated the claims about her cancer and blamed it on her upbringing, namely her estranged mother, who refuted all her accusations. She also confessed she had overstated the amount of charitable donations made.
After legal action was brought against her for allegedly breaking Australian consumer law, in 2017 a Federal Court Justice ruled that "most but not all" of the claims against her were proven. She was later fined $410,000 for making false claims about her donations to charity.
In 2020 and 2021, her home was raided to recoup unpaid fines. In a video from the first raid, she claimed she had been adopted by the Ethiopian community in Melbourne after volunteering for four years. However, this was denied by the president of the Australian Oromo Community Association in Victoria, who said he wanted her to stop claiming she was a member of their community.
Instagram’s Worst Con Artist starts tonight at 9pm on ITV1.
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