January 1, 2025 • 30 mins
Belle Gibson fooled not only her hundreds of thousands of followers, but the most prestigious book publishers in Australia, the tech giants of silicon valley and even her family and friends into believing she was something she was not: sick. If today, her name is synonymous with the weighty infamy of a notorious scam, there was a time before that, when she was celebrated as an inspiration.
On this episode of Extraordinary Stories, we look at the rise of Belle Gibson. From tall tales in school drama classes to international acclaim and influence, how did Annabelle Natalie Gibson become the pinup girl for the wellness movement?
Listen:
Belle Gibson (Part 2): The Email No One Wanted To Believe
Belle Gibson (Part 3): Reckoning & Reinvention
GET IN TOUCH:
Do you have feedback or a topic you want us to discuss on The Spill? Send us a voice message, or send us an email thespill@mamamia.com.au and we'll come back to you ASAP!
CREDITS:
Bronwyn McCahon
Doctor Brad McKay
Kylie Willey
Tara Brown
Sources:
The Woman Who Fooled The World by Beau Donnelly and Nick Toscano
Fake Medicine by Brad Mckay
The Girl Who Conned Us All by Clair Weaver https://www.nowtolove.com.au/news/real-life/belle-gibson-the-whole-story-10129
CREDITS:
Host: Emma Gillespie
Writers: Emma Gillespie and Holly Wainwright
Producers: Melanie Sauer and Emma Gillespie
Audio Production: Elissa Ratliff and Madeline Joannou
Executive Producer: Holly Wainwright and Elissa Ratliff
Mamamia acknowledges the Traditional Owners of the Land we have recorded this podcast on, the Gadigal people of the Eora Nation. We pay our respects to their Elders past and present, and extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures.
Become a Mamamia subscriber: https://www.mamamia.com.au/subscribe
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:11):
You're listening to a Muma Mia podcast. Mamma Mia acknowledges
the traditional owners of land and waders that this podcast
is recorded on spillers.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
It's m venom here. You might know the name Belle Gibson.
She's an Australian who was once celebrated as a wellness
influencer and entrepreneur. She gained fame through her app and cookbook,
which he made hundreds of thousands of dollars for. She
claimed that she healed her terminal cancer with natural remedies,
but her story was revealed as a shocking scam, exposing
(00:43):
fabricated illnesses and unfulfilled charity promises. You're about to hear
all about her rise and fall from Mma MIA's podcast
Extraordinary Stories, And we thought you'd liked to hear her
story before the Netflix series about her drops Apple Cider
Vinegars coming out sometime this year.
Speaker 3 (01:03):
On a warm summer's day in twenty fourteen, some of
Australia's most impressive women gathered at Ulla Muloo's famous finger
warves on Sydney Harbor. They were there to celebrate Cosmopolitan
Magazine's Fun Fearless Female Awards. Everything was sparkling, the water,
the sky and the cocktails.
Speaker 1 (01:26):
Laughter echoed out across the wharf.
Speaker 3 (01:29):
A Samantha Armitage sipped and nibbled alongside Jodi and Asta,
just Into Franklin, Lisa Wilkinson, Dummy Im, Hollywood it Girl,
Tara Reid, and Belle Gibson. If now that name brings
with it the weighty infamy of a notorious scam, then
(01:51):
it did not. Then Bell was there to be celebrated.
Speaker 4 (01:59):
In social me.
Speaker 5 (02:01):
I started posting about just fine day. I was interesting,
but was encouraged by friends of family. They knew that
what I was sharing some of el singing.
Speaker 3 (02:14):
She was what we now know as an influencer, a
young entrepreneurial mother whose cookbook and iPhone app were a
huge success, and she didn't look even a little bit
out of place alongside Sydney's social a list, dressed in white,
apparently glowing with health, despite the fact that a very
(02:35):
large piece of her story and appeal was that she
was far from healthy.
Speaker 1 (02:40):
Belle was going through a very.
Speaker 3 (02:43):
Public battle with a malignant brain tumor, just the latest,
she claimed, in a series of life threatening illnesses she'd
been diagnosed with since she was a teenager. It was
why she was there as Cosmo's editor at the time.
Bronwyn mccahan says, you wanted.
Speaker 6 (02:59):
To hug her.
Speaker 7 (02:59):
That's the best description. She had, this very sweet nature,
very personable, shiny eyes where you just thought, gosh, you're
going through so much and look at you, you clever girl,
that you've done all of this stuff with the app
and apple and everything, and even looking back now, not
at all would you ever go there was something dodgy
(03:21):
about her, Not at all.
Speaker 3 (03:22):
She was the sweetest, but there was something dodgy about
Belle Gibson.
Speaker 1 (03:41):
From Muma Mia.
Speaker 3 (03:42):
Welcome to Extraordinary Stories, the podcast that takes you inside
the stories you thought you knew with the women who
really do. I'm your host, Emma Gillespie. On this season
of Extraordinary Stories, we're looking at the young woman who
fooled not only her hundreds of thousands of followers, but
the most prestigious book publishers in Australia, the tech giants
(04:04):
of Silicon Valley, and even her family and friends into
believing she was something she was not, sick and making
lots of money as she did it.
Speaker 1 (04:17):
You're going to hear from the people she tricked.
Speaker 4 (04:20):
I'm getting sicker, I'm having chemo, I'm following all of
what the doctors say to do, and I'm nearly dying.
Speaker 8 (04:26):
And she's living her best life.
Speaker 1 (04:28):
The people who sat face to face with her.
Speaker 9 (04:31):
When I met Belle Gibson, she was more concerned about
the impact on herself. She knew to talk in a
sympathetic way about the people that she'd met, But I
think that no, she was most upset about the effect on.
Speaker 3 (04:45):
Her and the people who had never seen anything like
it ever.
Speaker 10 (04:50):
I haven't seen an example of online misleading, a deceptive
conduct of this sort of scale in this country or
frankly anywhere.
Speaker 7 (04:58):
She doesn't have cancer, she has no brain tumors. Everything
is a lie.
Speaker 3 (05:02):
This is extraordinary stories Belle Gibson. Winnim is an unremarkable
suburb of Brisbane, wide streets, weatherboard Queenslanders, with iconic verandas
and a view overlooking Morton Bay. There's a jetty mangroves,
(05:23):
a popular waiting pool frequented by local kids in the
summer holidays. It's also where Annabelle Natalie Gibson grew up.
Born in October nineteen ninety one, Her story starts there
in Queensland. It's not necessarily the kind of place you
might imagine.
Speaker 1 (05:41):
Us home to a master criminal.
Speaker 3 (05:43):
But then again, Belle Gibson's origin story isn't particularly easy
to piece together, but there are a few things we
can be sure of. One of them is that Bell
Gibson grew up at least for a time, in Winnham
with her mum Natalie, and her brother Nick. Despite its
suburban charm nowadays, back in the early two thousands there
(06:05):
was a spike in local crime around Winnham. For example,
police at in forsterban On Hoodie is to deal with
the increasing amount of armed robberies in the area, and
things at Bell's place weren't always easy. According to Belle,
she had a nomadic childhood, having never met her father
and constantly moving between cities before.
Speaker 1 (06:25):
Settling in Brisbane. She told The Australian Woman's Weekly in
twenty fifteen.
Speaker 11 (06:29):
When I started school, my mum went my daughter's all
grown up. Now, All of a sudden, I was walking
to school on my own, making school lunches and cleaning
the house every day. It was my responsibility to do
grocery shopping, do the washing, arrange medical appointments and pick
up my brother. I didn't have toys.
Speaker 3 (06:48):
Claire Weave, the journalist who interviewed her for that story,
says Belle claimed she was also burdened with responsibilities beyond
her years as a young girl, things like caring for
her autistic brother.
Speaker 10 (07:00):
There might be truth in there, As with some other
things Belle has said, There might be It might be
the case that some of it's true and some of
it's been exaggerated or elaborated. Maybe she had just has
had this really terrible, bleak childhood. But I can't help think,
given the pattern of what she said recently, that maybe
some of it she's built upon and exaggerated.
Speaker 3 (07:25):
Nick Toscano and Bo Donnelly, a Melbourne based journalist who
wrote a book about Belle Gibson. It's called The Woman
Who Fooled the World, Bo told Channel ten in twenty
seventeen that Belle may have had a difficult childhood.
Speaker 6 (07:39):
Belle certainly has come from a troubled upbringing. She's come
from a lot of instability. Indeed, it doesn't excuse what
she's done, but we were left sort of feeling somewhat
sympathetic towards her. Of course, It doesn't excuse the sort
of wrongdoing and the deceit and the way she led
actual cancer sufferers astray. But look, someone who was mentally healthy,
(08:04):
completely mentally healthy, I don't think would have been able
to perpetuate such a life for so long.
Speaker 8 (08:09):
So I think that an element of sympathy.
Speaker 3 (08:11):
After apparent instability at home in her early years, Bell
seemed to have found her feet by high school, and
she thrived. Her teachers described her as a high achiever,
an exemplary pupil, but she also excelled outside of the classroom.
Bell enrolled in acting classes at the Mercury Youth Theater.
(08:33):
According to her drama teacher, she was quite good, and
she was renowned as a great storyteller. Among her peers,
Kelsey gamble knew Bell threw acting classes and remembers her
well partly for the way the other students reacted to
what they saw as her fantasist side.
Speaker 1 (08:52):
Kelsey told Nick Toscano and Bo Donnelly.
Speaker 10 (08:54):
She was extremely well known for what basically amounts to
compulsive lying.
Speaker 7 (09:00):
She was honestly a laughing sotock half the time people
made fun of her.
Speaker 3 (09:04):
Bell told classmates she was a test tube baby or
part of the witness Protection program. But there was one
theme that began to emerge in her Tall tales, and
it stuck around stories of medical dramas and incredible recovery.
Bell told many people that she'd suffered major heart problems
(09:25):
and had even undergone a series of life saving operations.
Bell's former boyfriend, Jacob he heard a lot of Bell's stories.
Speaker 12 (09:33):
She couldn't go five minutes without making up a story
back then. It was about her heart, and it all
just went over the top of my head because it
was just so frequent. That's how she works. She just
opens her mouth and starts saying stories.
Speaker 3 (09:46):
By the time she was eighteen, Belle had left school
and moved to Perth. That's where she found her first
online audience. It's also where, according to The Weekly, Bell
started working in a call center at a private health
insurance firm. She was speaking to sick people day in,
day out and hearing all about their illnesses.
Speaker 1 (10:09):
She told Claire Weaver at.
Speaker 11 (10:10):
I was hearing some horrible things about what people were
going through.
Speaker 3 (10:14):
Bell's first blogging experience came through a chat room about
rock band The Flaming Lips. She told that community She
was posting from a Perth hospital ward where she was
waiting for the first of three or more operations to
remove fluid from around her heart. Bell described in vivid
detail a series of operations, specialist appointments, even visits to
(10:37):
the hospital chapel. She said she was undergoing tests for
a heart tumor and preparing for chemotherapy. Bell also wrote
that she went into a coma after dying on the
operating table.
Speaker 11 (10:50):
The doctor comes in and tells me the draining failed
and I went into cardiac arrest and died for just
under three minutes. I went straight into a coma situation
for six hours and just woke up crying for my iPhone.
They're amazed I'm sitting up already and claim a miracle. Anyway,
the procedure failed and I died pretty nali.
Speaker 3 (11:10):
After her alleged major heart surgery, there was another turning
point in Bell's story. She got the cervical cancer vaccine,
a HPV immunization that began to roll out across Australia
in two thousand and seven. Bell wrote that after getting
her second vaccination, she suffered a stroke.
Speaker 1 (11:30):
It was a.
Speaker 3 (11:30):
Strange claim, as doctor Brad Mackay Sydney GP and author
of Fake Medicine, explains back.
Speaker 13 (11:37):
In two thousand and nine, Bell Gibson said that she
received a terrible diagnosis from her doctor. She says that
she was diagnosed with brain cancer, it was terminal and
she only had a few months to live. This is
a really odd part of the story where Bell Gibson
was saying that she had been immunized against civical cancer
and then subsequently had had a stroke, and then that
(11:58):
had led to brain cancer. So it's sort of like
blaming a vaccine on getting cancer. But what we know
about using the HPV, the human papaloma virus vaccine, is
that it not been linked at all with cancer. It's
not linked with stroke whatsoever, so blaming it is a
little bit far fetched. We do know that it's great
(12:19):
at stopping people from getting cervical cancer and also genital warts,
but also with brain cancer. If that's growing, that could
potentially break a blood vessel and then cause a stroke
to happen. But a stroke itself, like a bleed within
the brain, that's not going to trigger a cancer to
then occur. It's the wrong way round.
Speaker 3 (12:36):
It's at this point that eighteen year old Bell says
she was introduced to a man called doctor Mark John's
by a group of anti vaccination campaigners. Bell said doctor
John's was a neurologist and immunologist from Melbourne's Peter McCallum
Cancer Center. This introduction would set about a chain of
events that would eventually bring Bell to Melbourne, where she
(12:58):
settled permanently and where everything was about to change. You'll
hear more about doctor John's later in Bell's story. It
was towoenty ten Bell was living in Melbourne with her
boyfriend Nathan Corbett. She'd been diagnosed with brain cancer and
(13:19):
she was about to give birth to her son, Oliver.
It was around this time that Belle claimed she underwent
conventional treatment for this.
Speaker 1 (13:26):
Malignant brain tumor.
Speaker 3 (13:28):
Doctor Brad mackay says there are a few options that
would be presented to patients with Bell's diagnosis.
Speaker 13 (13:34):
The treatment options that Bell would have been offered would
have been things like chemotherapy, radiotherapy so poisons into the
vein to try to kill the cancer. Radiotherapy so putting
X rays towards where the cancers were to try to
shrink them down. Sometimes we would engage with surgery. So
many people with brain cancer will have a scar on
(13:55):
the side of their head where a surgeons have gone
and to remove it.
Speaker 3 (13:58):
But Bell would eventually describe how she abandoned these treatments
in favor of holistic remedies and alternative medicine.
Speaker 13 (14:07):
So Bell said that she went in for treatment at
the hospital, that she went to the oncology ward, and
that she received treatment. She was saying that it was
just too much for her. That it was if she
was feeling overwhelmed. She didn't really know what to do.
She wasn't wanting to persevere with the typical medical model
with westernized treatment, and so she decided at that time
(14:30):
that she wanted to take some alternative remedies. She wanted
to do her own research and figure out what would
work for her and her body.
Speaker 8 (14:37):
At that time, this.
Speaker 3 (14:38):
Became a crucial turning point in Bell's blogs. Today, wellness
influences are a mainstream staple of every social media platform,
but in two thousand and nine they were just beginning
to flourish. Many of us hadn't even heard of the
word wellness. Known as the original wellness warrior, Jessica Ainsco,
(15:01):
another young woman from Queensland, was documenting her alternative cancer
treatment online to an ever growing audience. Jessica was a
writer and blogger, an online editor for Dolly magazine, living
what she deemed her hectic dream life in Sydney. When
she was diagnosed with an extremely rare and aggressive sarcoma.
(15:23):
She was only twenty three. The cancer was in her
left arm and hand, and after being told that her
best treatment option was amputation.
Speaker 1 (15:31):
Jess had decided to try to heal herself.
Speaker 3 (15:35):
Without traditional cancer treatment and to document the process. Jessica
was a devotee of Gerson therapy, a food based protocol
that claims to cure all kinds of serious ailments, most
famously cancer, with an all vegetarian diet and a strict
(15:58):
regime of fruit and veggie juices and coffee enemies. Here's
jess describing her daily routine.
Speaker 14 (16:05):
So basically a day the life of a gers In
person is I wake up at six o'clock in the
morning and I do my first coffee animal, so it's
onto the bathroom floor. Then I do my animal, and
then I go upstairs and I meditate for about half
an hour to twenty five minutes, and then breakfast is
at quarter past seven when we have our first juice,
which is orange juice, so breakfast at seven, and then
(16:29):
the next juice is at eight and the real vegg
you juice is start from them, and it's one vendo
juice every hour on the hour right up until six o'clock.
Speaker 6 (16:39):
In the evening.
Speaker 14 (16:41):
So yeah, basically throughout the day. And we also have
we do five coffee animals throughout the day, so it
spread between a few hours between each one. We have
three full meals each day breakfast, lunch, and dinner all
at the same time every day. And basically, yeah, the
therapy goes like that. We're rung like a bit of
(17:03):
a military rangeam actually on the hour every hour right
up until we go to.
Speaker 1 (17:08):
Bed at ten o'clock, doctor Brad's says.
Speaker 3 (17:10):
During her treatment, jess ains Co built up an online
profile promoting her belief that food was medicine.
Speaker 13 (17:17):
Gerson therapy has been a therapy that's been around for many,
many years, even from the sixties and seventies. It's a
treatment that involves doing lots and lots of juices, so
fresh vegetables and fruit, putting them into a big juicer
and even it's quite onerous because you have to have
the juice on the hour, every hour, every day for
a long time. It also involves using enemas that usually
(17:40):
either contain coffee or castor oil, and again you need
to be doing these enemas a couple of times a
day at the least, with the whole principle that you're
trying to rid your body of toxins, getting rid of
toxins that could be sitting in your lower and testine
and evacuating them. So yeah, like it hasn't been proven
to work, and suddenly there are practitioners around the world
(18:03):
that still do it, but certainly it's not recommended in Australia.
Speaker 3 (18:06):
Australia's wellness army was swelling and just like Jess, Belle
was going to be a part of it.
Speaker 1 (18:14):
Bill Gibson is part of a new breed of entrepreneurs.
She is an ecopreneur.
Speaker 5 (18:21):
He tastes like mango.
Speaker 1 (18:22):
Bell launched the Whole Pantry at last year.
Speaker 3 (18:24):
Belle Gibson was a single mother living in Melbourne when
she was told she only had four months to live.
She said she tried chemotherapy, then radiation. She said she
then started exploring alternative therapies, including Gerson. Just like Jess,
there's no scientific evidence that Gerson therapy cures cancer, but
(18:45):
Belle was alive and thriving. Whatever she was doing, it
seemed to work. So in twenty thirteen, Belle Gibson decided,
just like Jess, to share her story with the world
on Instagram, speaking candidly about her cancer and the wellness
journey she believed was healing it, documenting the highs and
(19:06):
lows of her day to day experiences. It was her
blog and social media platforms that would eventually land her
a ground breaking app and a best selling book. Just
like Jess Ainsco had publicly documented, Belle claimed she was
curing herself through food and lifestyle, not medicine. Not only
(19:27):
did her quickly growing follower base believe Bell, they gave
her the attention she craved, out pourings of sympathy and concern,
and perhaps most importantly, fellow cancer sufferers looked to her
for hope. To them, this brave young woman was a beacon.
If she was doing so well, surely they could too.
(19:51):
In twenty fourteen, Kylie Willie was in a hospital bed,
feeling defeated and hopeless when she started following Belle Gibson
on social media. Kylie, accustomed to an active lifestyle as
a personal trainer, had recently gained thirty kilos. Her long
brown hair had fallen out. Kylie had been diagnosed with
(20:12):
grade three B T cell lymphoblastic lymphoma in her early forties.
She had not one, but several tumors from her pelvis
all the way up to her neck.
Speaker 4 (20:23):
I was completely shocked because I didn't smoke, you know, yeah,
I'd like a glass of wine. But it was nothing excessive,
lived a healthy life, no history of lymphoma in my family.
Speaker 8 (20:34):
Just a complete and utter mind blowing shock.
Speaker 3 (20:37):
In a race to stop the cancer spreading to her brain,
Kylie had begun aggressive chemotherapy. It caused her physical pain
in a way she had never experienced before.
Speaker 1 (20:48):
Her body ached. She felt constantly nauseous.
Speaker 4 (20:53):
My girlfriend came to visit me at the Alfred and
she was chatting about Bell and talking about how she
has been going through treatment for cancer, but she's curing
herself with eating really healthy, clean diet, and you know,
she wasn't going through the chemo or anything like that,
(21:13):
and she was getting better. Yeah, so I sort of
was thinking here I am in the hospital, following the protocols, having.
Speaker 8 (21:19):
Chemotherapy, getting sicker.
Speaker 4 (21:22):
There's Belle gibbson writing books, signing deals with Apple.
Speaker 8 (21:25):
She's got brain cancer, which is so much worse than mine.
She's having this clean diet.
Speaker 4 (21:30):
I was obviously eating the food that was provided by
the Alfred, which isn't great.
Speaker 8 (21:35):
You know, it's hospital food.
Speaker 4 (21:36):
And I'm getting sicker, I'm having chemo, I'm following all
of what the doctors say to do, and I'm nearly dying.
Speaker 8 (21:43):
And she's living her best life.
Speaker 3 (21:46):
By twenty thirteen, Belle had well and truly found her
stride and her voice. Within a year of announcing on
social media that she'd been healing her brain cancer with
foods and alternative therapies, her ideas were turned into an app.
It was called The Whole Pantry, and it was full
of the kind of food that Belle was eating. It
(22:09):
would go on to win a wards be championed by Apple,
be described as groundbreaking, and Ganna Bell Gibson International acclaim
and a very lucrative book deal.
Speaker 4 (22:21):
Yeah, I had the book, I had the app, I
donated money to it.
Speaker 8 (22:25):
I went on all the Bell Gibs and rides.
Speaker 1 (22:28):
So what was it all about? What was the Whole
Pantry a.
Speaker 5 (22:33):
Recipe collection full of whole foods and vegetarian recipes, which
is the way that we encourage people to get back
to the fundamentals of eating more fruits and vegetables.
Speaker 3 (22:44):
The Whole Pantry app was celebrated as a sleek database
full of thoughtful recipes accompanied by lifestyle tips and tricks,
wrapped up in a beautifully designed interface with the iconic
logo of two white leaves on a teal background. One
of the world's richest, most recognizable, most influential companies loved it.
(23:08):
Apple saw something in bell and she quickly found her
place in an elite inner circle of app developers who'd
won over the trust and loyalty of the global tech juggernaut.
Speaker 1 (23:20):
When they realized what a hit.
Speaker 3 (23:21):
Bells app was on iPhones, Apple made a bold decision
to incorporate the Whole Pantry as a preloaded application on
a brand new product, one that was set to revolutionize
the wearable tech space.
Speaker 15 (23:35):
The Good Apple Watch is the most personal device we've
ever created. We set out to make the best watch
in the world. We love to make great products that
really enrich people's lives. We love to integrate hardware, software
and services seamlessly. We love to make technology more personal
(24:00):
and allow our users to do things that they could
never have imagined.
Speaker 3 (24:04):
This was a big deal to have an Ossie app
in the position the whole pantry had found its self in,
and for that app to be in the wellness space,
it just hadn't been done before. Here's what Belle had
to say about what it was like to be on
the ground at Apple HQ and Koopatino for that very announcement.
Speaker 5 (24:23):
You know, it took seven months worth of development, and
I put everything that I knew along my journey with cancer,
nutrition and wellness and put it on the most accessible
device possible, the iPhone, and it's just onwards and utwards
from there. With the Apple Watch, it's even more accessible
and it's an even more personal experience and more personal
(24:44):
journey to living the whole life and adopting the support
and the resources that we put there for you. My
developer and I had come over here four weeks ago
now and we've been working every day on our Apple
Watch app, and.
Speaker 8 (25:02):
It's been hard. It's been hard.
Speaker 5 (25:04):
It's been hard because of the jet lag has been
hard being a startup and dropped in amongst the twitters
and the BMW's of the world. But we're a static
with what we've come out with.
Speaker 3 (25:15):
The world was at her feet, and a huge publishing
house took note. Bell signed a deal with Penguin Random
House to turn the best selling app into a book
filled with recipes and detailing Bell's moving story.
Speaker 4 (25:29):
She was a complete well appeared to be the complete package.
You know, the big glowing smile and the beautiful hair
and the perfect skin, and you know, she seemed patient
and in control and also backed by all of these
people that thought that she was doing the right thing
as well. She had signed a deal with Penguin Books,
she had a contract with Apple. She of course she
(25:52):
was legit, because otherwise these companies wouldn't be backing her,
they wouldn't be a part of her story as well.
Speaker 3 (25:59):
This was the peak of Bell's success, an app, a book, awards, followers, fame.
All of that brought her to the Wollomoloo Wharves that
twenty four teen day for Cosmo's Fun Fearless Awards, where
Belle took out the social media category, trying to take.
Speaker 14 (26:18):
More credit views.
Speaker 5 (26:20):
That's not the fearlessness in me.
Speaker 1 (26:23):
But my partner has been the same to me through
a year now.
Speaker 5 (26:27):
It's really strangely, really every morning for a long time
saying this is.
Speaker 1 (26:31):
Strange, like you're waiting up to it. And he had
stadium full of people that.
Speaker 5 (26:37):
Are watching her at remover, waiting on some form of
inspiration or advice or something for their dinner.
Speaker 3 (26:47):
When her team suggested Bell Gibson as a nominee, Bronwyn
mccahn thought it was a no brainer.
Speaker 7 (26:52):
So in that social media category, it was a varied
list of people in fitness and in fashion and beauty
and health and whatever else, and they pitched this girl
named Bell Gibson. Hadn't heard of her at that point,
so they had done their you know, due diligence, going, oh,
you know, and she's got you know, over two hundred
thousand followers and it's an amazing story because she's got
(27:13):
all of these cancers and rain humors and she's done
this app called The Whole Pantry and Apple are going
to put it on their next release of iPhone or
eyewatch or something, and I was like, wow, that's phenomenal,
Like what a story that this woman who's going through
so much, a mother of one and young, super young,
(27:33):
and going through all this medical stuff even has the
time or energy or anything to create this incredible app
that is being picked up by Apple Like this is unbelievable.
Speaker 1 (27:43):
So we were like, yeah, great, she.
Speaker 7 (27:45):
Sounds perfect to put in in the category under you know,
health wellbeing.
Speaker 11 (27:49):
And that was that.
Speaker 1 (27:51):
But that was not that.
Speaker 3 (27:53):
An email pinged into journalists in boxes around the country
at the exact same time, and it said.
Speaker 16 (28:02):
It has come to my attention that you have published
a story about a girl I have known for my
whole life. Her name is Belle Gibson, creator of the
Whole Pantry app and book, and a so called terminal
cancer patient. Unfortunately, there are a few things you might
need to know before you consider publishing more about this woman.
Speaker 3 (28:28):
What that email went on to say would change everything
next time on Extraordinary Stories.
Speaker 7 (28:44):
I can't remember the timeframe between the awards and when
the next thing happened, but maybe it was a couple
of months and the next thing. One of the girls
in the office came in and said, oh my god,
I've just received this email anonymous but basically from somebody
who's saying that they went to school with Belle and
(29:05):
that everything she's saying is a lie.
Speaker 1 (29:08):
Her age is a lie, she doesn't have.
Speaker 7 (29:11):
Cancer, she has no brain humors, everything is a lie.
And it had been sent to Cosmo and Cleo and
like all the magazines, so everyone had got it, and
I imagined it had also been sent to various journalists
at newspapers because everyone had got the same email from
this anonymous source. So we're like, God, a monthly magazine
(29:32):
is not going to be the magazine that breaks a
big story like this, because you've already got digital sites
and news sites and everything that have already received this email.
Speaker 3 (29:41):
There was one newsroom with the time, resources and interest
to pursue this tip off, and not even they could
predict how Belle's empire of deception was about to unravel.
Speaker 9 (29:55):
I think there is a bit of a pattern in
people who want to lie to you that they tell
you a partial truth and then it just dovetails from there.
Speaker 3 (30:07):
Thank you for listening to this episode of Extraordinary Stories.
It was written and produced by me Emma Gillespie with
Holly Wainwright. Audio production is by Eliza Ratliff and Madeline
Joe Annau. The executive producers of Extraordinary Stories are Eliza
Ratliffe and Holly Wainwright.
Speaker 2 (30:30):
To listen to part two, just click the link in
our show notes
You're listening to a Muma Mia podcast. Mamma Mia acknowledges
the traditional owners of land and waders that this podcast
is recorded on spillers.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
It's m venom here. You might know the name Belle Gibson.
She's an Australian who was once celebrated as a wellness
influencer and entrepreneur. She gained fame through her app and cookbook,
which he made hundreds of thousands of dollars for. She
claimed that she healed her terminal cancer with natural remedies,
but her story was revealed as a shocking scam, exposing
(00:43):
fabricated illnesses and unfulfilled charity promises. You're about to hear
all about her rise and fall from Mma MIA's podcast
Extraordinary Stories, And we thought you'd liked to hear her
story before the Netflix series about her drops Apple Cider
Vinegars coming out sometime this year.
Speaker 3 (01:03):
On a warm summer's day in twenty fourteen, some of
Australia's most impressive women gathered at Ulla Muloo's famous finger
warves on Sydney Harbor. They were there to celebrate Cosmopolitan
Magazine's Fun Fearless Female Awards. Everything was sparkling, the water,
the sky and the cocktails.
Speaker 1 (01:26):
Laughter echoed out across the wharf.
Speaker 3 (01:29):
A Samantha Armitage sipped and nibbled alongside Jodi and Asta,
just Into Franklin, Lisa Wilkinson, Dummy Im, Hollywood it Girl,
Tara Reid, and Belle Gibson. If now that name brings
with it the weighty infamy of a notorious scam, then
(01:51):
it did not. Then Bell was there to be celebrated.
Speaker 4 (01:59):
In social me.
Speaker 5 (02:01):
I started posting about just fine day. I was interesting,
but was encouraged by friends of family. They knew that
what I was sharing some of el singing.
Speaker 3 (02:14):
She was what we now know as an influencer, a
young entrepreneurial mother whose cookbook and iPhone app were a
huge success, and she didn't look even a little bit
out of place alongside Sydney's social a list, dressed in white,
apparently glowing with health, despite the fact that a very
(02:35):
large piece of her story and appeal was that she
was far from healthy.
Speaker 1 (02:40):
Belle was going through a very.
Speaker 3 (02:43):
Public battle with a malignant brain tumor, just the latest,
she claimed, in a series of life threatening illnesses she'd
been diagnosed with since she was a teenager. It was
why she was there as Cosmo's editor at the time.
Bronwyn mccahan says, you wanted.
Speaker 6 (02:59):
To hug her.
Speaker 7 (02:59):
That's the best description. She had, this very sweet nature,
very personable, shiny eyes where you just thought, gosh, you're
going through so much and look at you, you clever girl,
that you've done all of this stuff with the app
and apple and everything, and even looking back now, not
at all would you ever go there was something dodgy
(03:21):
about her, Not at all.
Speaker 3 (03:22):
She was the sweetest, but there was something dodgy about
Belle Gibson.
Speaker 1 (03:41):
From Muma Mia.
Speaker 3 (03:42):
Welcome to Extraordinary Stories, the podcast that takes you inside
the stories you thought you knew with the women who
really do. I'm your host, Emma Gillespie. On this season
of Extraordinary Stories, we're looking at the young woman who
fooled not only her hundreds of thousands of followers, but
the most prestigious book publishers in Australia, the tech giants
(04:04):
of Silicon Valley, and even her family and friends into
believing she was something she was not, sick and making
lots of money as she did it.
Speaker 1 (04:17):
You're going to hear from the people she tricked.
Speaker 4 (04:20):
I'm getting sicker, I'm having chemo, I'm following all of
what the doctors say to do, and I'm nearly dying.
Speaker 8 (04:26):
And she's living her best life.
Speaker 1 (04:28):
The people who sat face to face with her.
Speaker 9 (04:31):
When I met Belle Gibson, she was more concerned about
the impact on herself. She knew to talk in a
sympathetic way about the people that she'd met, But I
think that no, she was most upset about the effect on.
Speaker 3 (04:45):
Her and the people who had never seen anything like
it ever.
Speaker 10 (04:50):
I haven't seen an example of online misleading, a deceptive
conduct of this sort of scale in this country or
frankly anywhere.
Speaker 7 (04:58):
She doesn't have cancer, she has no brain tumors. Everything
is a lie.
Speaker 3 (05:02):
This is extraordinary stories Belle Gibson. Winnim is an unremarkable
suburb of Brisbane, wide streets, weatherboard Queenslanders, with iconic verandas
and a view overlooking Morton Bay. There's a jetty mangroves,
(05:23):
a popular waiting pool frequented by local kids in the
summer holidays. It's also where Annabelle Natalie Gibson grew up.
Born in October nineteen ninety one, Her story starts there
in Queensland. It's not necessarily the kind of place you
might imagine.
Speaker 1 (05:41):
Us home to a master criminal.
Speaker 3 (05:43):
But then again, Belle Gibson's origin story isn't particularly easy
to piece together, but there are a few things we
can be sure of. One of them is that Bell
Gibson grew up at least for a time, in Winnham
with her mum Natalie, and her brother Nick. Despite its
suburban charm nowadays, back in the early two thousands there
(06:05):
was a spike in local crime around Winnham. For example,
police at in forsterban On Hoodie is to deal with
the increasing amount of armed robberies in the area, and
things at Bell's place weren't always easy. According to Belle,
she had a nomadic childhood, having never met her father
and constantly moving between cities before.
Speaker 1 (06:25):
Settling in Brisbane. She told The Australian Woman's Weekly in
twenty fifteen.
Speaker 11 (06:29):
When I started school, my mum went my daughter's all
grown up. Now, All of a sudden, I was walking
to school on my own, making school lunches and cleaning
the house every day. It was my responsibility to do
grocery shopping, do the washing, arrange medical appointments and pick
up my brother. I didn't have toys.
Speaker 3 (06:48):
Claire Weave, the journalist who interviewed her for that story,
says Belle claimed she was also burdened with responsibilities beyond
her years as a young girl, things like caring for
her autistic brother.
Speaker 10 (07:00):
There might be truth in there, As with some other
things Belle has said, There might be It might be
the case that some of it's true and some of
it's been exaggerated or elaborated. Maybe she had just has
had this really terrible, bleak childhood. But I can't help think,
given the pattern of what she said recently, that maybe
some of it she's built upon and exaggerated.
Speaker 3 (07:25):
Nick Toscano and Bo Donnelly, a Melbourne based journalist who
wrote a book about Belle Gibson. It's called The Woman
Who Fooled the World, Bo told Channel ten in twenty
seventeen that Belle may have had a difficult childhood.
Speaker 6 (07:39):
Belle certainly has come from a troubled upbringing. She's come
from a lot of instability. Indeed, it doesn't excuse what
she's done, but we were left sort of feeling somewhat
sympathetic towards her. Of course, It doesn't excuse the sort
of wrongdoing and the deceit and the way she led
actual cancer sufferers astray. But look, someone who was mentally healthy,
(08:04):
completely mentally healthy, I don't think would have been able
to perpetuate such a life for so long.
Speaker 8 (08:09):
So I think that an element of sympathy.
Speaker 3 (08:11):
After apparent instability at home in her early years, Bell
seemed to have found her feet by high school, and
she thrived. Her teachers described her as a high achiever,
an exemplary pupil, but she also excelled outside of the classroom.
Bell enrolled in acting classes at the Mercury Youth Theater.
(08:33):
According to her drama teacher, she was quite good, and
she was renowned as a great storyteller. Among her peers,
Kelsey gamble knew Bell threw acting classes and remembers her
well partly for the way the other students reacted to
what they saw as her fantasist side.
Speaker 1 (08:52):
Kelsey told Nick Toscano and Bo Donnelly.
Speaker 10 (08:54):
She was extremely well known for what basically amounts to
compulsive lying.
Speaker 7 (09:00):
She was honestly a laughing sotock half the time people
made fun of her.
Speaker 3 (09:04):
Bell told classmates she was a test tube baby or
part of the witness Protection program. But there was one
theme that began to emerge in her Tall tales, and
it stuck around stories of medical dramas and incredible recovery.
Bell told many people that she'd suffered major heart problems
(09:25):
and had even undergone a series of life saving operations.
Bell's former boyfriend, Jacob he heard a lot of Bell's stories.
Speaker 12 (09:33):
She couldn't go five minutes without making up a story
back then. It was about her heart, and it all
just went over the top of my head because it
was just so frequent. That's how she works. She just
opens her mouth and starts saying stories.
Speaker 3 (09:46):
By the time she was eighteen, Belle had left school
and moved to Perth. That's where she found her first
online audience. It's also where, according to The Weekly, Bell
started working in a call center at a private health
insurance firm. She was speaking to sick people day in,
day out and hearing all about their illnesses.
Speaker 1 (10:09):
She told Claire Weaver at.
Speaker 11 (10:10):
I was hearing some horrible things about what people were
going through.
Speaker 3 (10:14):
Bell's first blogging experience came through a chat room about
rock band The Flaming Lips. She told that community She
was posting from a Perth hospital ward where she was
waiting for the first of three or more operations to
remove fluid from around her heart. Bell described in vivid
detail a series of operations, specialist appointments, even visits to
(10:37):
the hospital chapel. She said she was undergoing tests for
a heart tumor and preparing for chemotherapy. Bell also wrote
that she went into a coma after dying on the
operating table.
Speaker 11 (10:50):
The doctor comes in and tells me the draining failed
and I went into cardiac arrest and died for just
under three minutes. I went straight into a coma situation
for six hours and just woke up crying for my iPhone.
They're amazed I'm sitting up already and claim a miracle. Anyway,
the procedure failed and I died pretty nali.
Speaker 3 (11:10):
After her alleged major heart surgery, there was another turning
point in Bell's story. She got the cervical cancer vaccine,
a HPV immunization that began to roll out across Australia
in two thousand and seven. Bell wrote that after getting
her second vaccination, she suffered a stroke.
Speaker 1 (11:30):
It was a.
Speaker 3 (11:30):
Strange claim, as doctor Brad Mackay Sydney GP and author
of Fake Medicine, explains back.
Speaker 13 (11:37):
In two thousand and nine, Bell Gibson said that she
received a terrible diagnosis from her doctor. She says that
she was diagnosed with brain cancer, it was terminal and
she only had a few months to live. This is
a really odd part of the story where Bell Gibson
was saying that she had been immunized against civical cancer
and then subsequently had had a stroke, and then that
(11:58):
had led to brain cancer. So it's sort of like
blaming a vaccine on getting cancer. But what we know
about using the HPV, the human papaloma virus vaccine, is
that it not been linked at all with cancer. It's
not linked with stroke whatsoever, so blaming it is a
little bit far fetched. We do know that it's great
(12:19):
at stopping people from getting cervical cancer and also genital warts,
but also with brain cancer. If that's growing, that could
potentially break a blood vessel and then cause a stroke
to happen. But a stroke itself, like a bleed within
the brain, that's not going to trigger a cancer to
then occur. It's the wrong way round.
Speaker 3 (12:36):
It's at this point that eighteen year old Bell says
she was introduced to a man called doctor Mark John's
by a group of anti vaccination campaigners. Bell said doctor
John's was a neurologist and immunologist from Melbourne's Peter McCallum
Cancer Center. This introduction would set about a chain of
events that would eventually bring Bell to Melbourne, where she
(12:58):
settled permanently and where everything was about to change. You'll
hear more about doctor John's later in Bell's story. It
was towoenty ten Bell was living in Melbourne with her
boyfriend Nathan Corbett. She'd been diagnosed with brain cancer and
(13:19):
she was about to give birth to her son, Oliver.
It was around this time that Belle claimed she underwent
conventional treatment for this.
Speaker 1 (13:26):
Malignant brain tumor.
Speaker 3 (13:28):
Doctor Brad mackay says there are a few options that
would be presented to patients with Bell's diagnosis.
Speaker 13 (13:34):
The treatment options that Bell would have been offered would
have been things like chemotherapy, radiotherapy so poisons into the
vein to try to kill the cancer. Radiotherapy so putting
X rays towards where the cancers were to try to
shrink them down. Sometimes we would engage with surgery. So
many people with brain cancer will have a scar on
(13:55):
the side of their head where a surgeons have gone
and to remove it.
Speaker 3 (13:58):
But Bell would eventually describe how she abandoned these treatments
in favor of holistic remedies and alternative medicine.
Speaker 13 (14:07):
So Bell said that she went in for treatment at
the hospital, that she went to the oncology ward, and
that she received treatment. She was saying that it was
just too much for her. That it was if she
was feeling overwhelmed. She didn't really know what to do.
She wasn't wanting to persevere with the typical medical model
with westernized treatment, and so she decided at that time
(14:30):
that she wanted to take some alternative remedies. She wanted
to do her own research and figure out what would
work for her and her body.
Speaker 8 (14:37):
At that time, this.
Speaker 3 (14:38):
Became a crucial turning point in Bell's blogs. Today, wellness
influences are a mainstream staple of every social media platform,
but in two thousand and nine they were just beginning
to flourish. Many of us hadn't even heard of the
word wellness. Known as the original wellness warrior, Jessica Ainsco,
(15:01):
another young woman from Queensland, was documenting her alternative cancer
treatment online to an ever growing audience. Jessica was a
writer and blogger, an online editor for Dolly magazine, living
what she deemed her hectic dream life in Sydney. When
she was diagnosed with an extremely rare and aggressive sarcoma.
(15:23):
She was only twenty three. The cancer was in her
left arm and hand, and after being told that her
best treatment option was amputation.
Speaker 1 (15:31):
Jess had decided to try to heal herself.
Speaker 3 (15:35):
Without traditional cancer treatment and to document the process. Jessica
was a devotee of Gerson therapy, a food based protocol
that claims to cure all kinds of serious ailments, most
famously cancer, with an all vegetarian diet and a strict
(15:58):
regime of fruit and veggie juices and coffee enemies. Here's
jess describing her daily routine.
Speaker 14 (16:05):
So basically a day the life of a gers In
person is I wake up at six o'clock in the
morning and I do my first coffee animal, so it's
onto the bathroom floor. Then I do my animal, and
then I go upstairs and I meditate for about half
an hour to twenty five minutes, and then breakfast is
at quarter past seven when we have our first juice,
which is orange juice, so breakfast at seven, and then
(16:29):
the next juice is at eight and the real vegg
you juice is start from them, and it's one vendo
juice every hour on the hour right up until six o'clock.
Speaker 6 (16:39):
In the evening.
Speaker 14 (16:41):
So yeah, basically throughout the day. And we also have
we do five coffee animals throughout the day, so it
spread between a few hours between each one. We have
three full meals each day breakfast, lunch, and dinner all
at the same time every day. And basically, yeah, the
therapy goes like that. We're rung like a bit of
(17:03):
a military rangeam actually on the hour every hour right
up until we go to.
Speaker 1 (17:08):
Bed at ten o'clock, doctor Brad's says.
Speaker 3 (17:10):
During her treatment, jess ains Co built up an online
profile promoting her belief that food was medicine.
Speaker 13 (17:17):
Gerson therapy has been a therapy that's been around for many,
many years, even from the sixties and seventies. It's a
treatment that involves doing lots and lots of juices, so
fresh vegetables and fruit, putting them into a big juicer
and even it's quite onerous because you have to have
the juice on the hour, every hour, every day for
a long time. It also involves using enemas that usually
(17:40):
either contain coffee or castor oil, and again you need
to be doing these enemas a couple of times a
day at the least, with the whole principle that you're
trying to rid your body of toxins, getting rid of
toxins that could be sitting in your lower and testine
and evacuating them. So yeah, like it hasn't been proven
to work, and suddenly there are practitioners around the world
(18:03):
that still do it, but certainly it's not recommended in Australia.
Speaker 3 (18:06):
Australia's wellness army was swelling and just like Jess, Belle
was going to be a part of it.
Speaker 1 (18:14):
Bill Gibson is part of a new breed of entrepreneurs.
She is an ecopreneur.
Speaker 5 (18:21):
He tastes like mango.
Speaker 1 (18:22):
Bell launched the Whole Pantry at last year.
Speaker 3 (18:24):
Belle Gibson was a single mother living in Melbourne when
she was told she only had four months to live.
She said she tried chemotherapy, then radiation. She said she
then started exploring alternative therapies, including Gerson. Just like Jess,
there's no scientific evidence that Gerson therapy cures cancer, but
(18:45):
Belle was alive and thriving. Whatever she was doing, it
seemed to work. So in twenty thirteen, Belle Gibson decided,
just like Jess, to share her story with the world
on Instagram, speaking candidly about her cancer and the wellness
journey she believed was healing it, documenting the highs and
(19:06):
lows of her day to day experiences. It was her
blog and social media platforms that would eventually land her
a ground breaking app and a best selling book. Just
like Jess Ainsco had publicly documented, Belle claimed she was
curing herself through food and lifestyle, not medicine. Not only
(19:27):
did her quickly growing follower base believe Bell, they gave
her the attention she craved, out pourings of sympathy and concern,
and perhaps most importantly, fellow cancer sufferers looked to her
for hope. To them, this brave young woman was a beacon.
If she was doing so well, surely they could too.
(19:51):
In twenty fourteen, Kylie Willie was in a hospital bed,
feeling defeated and hopeless when she started following Belle Gibson
on social media. Kylie, accustomed to an active lifestyle as
a personal trainer, had recently gained thirty kilos. Her long
brown hair had fallen out. Kylie had been diagnosed with
(20:12):
grade three B T cell lymphoblastic lymphoma in her early forties.
She had not one, but several tumors from her pelvis
all the way up to her neck.
Speaker 4 (20:23):
I was completely shocked because I didn't smoke, you know, yeah,
I'd like a glass of wine. But it was nothing excessive,
lived a healthy life, no history of lymphoma in my family.
Speaker 8 (20:34):
Just a complete and utter mind blowing shock.
Speaker 3 (20:37):
In a race to stop the cancer spreading to her brain,
Kylie had begun aggressive chemotherapy. It caused her physical pain
in a way she had never experienced before.
Speaker 1 (20:48):
Her body ached. She felt constantly nauseous.
Speaker 4 (20:53):
My girlfriend came to visit me at the Alfred and
she was chatting about Bell and talking about how she
has been going through treatment for cancer, but she's curing
herself with eating really healthy, clean diet, and you know,
she wasn't going through the chemo or anything like that,
(21:13):
and she was getting better. Yeah, so I sort of
was thinking here I am in the hospital, following the protocols, having.
Speaker 8 (21:19):
Chemotherapy, getting sicker.
Speaker 4 (21:22):
There's Belle gibbson writing books, signing deals with Apple.
Speaker 8 (21:25):
She's got brain cancer, which is so much worse than mine.
She's having this clean diet.
Speaker 4 (21:30):
I was obviously eating the food that was provided by
the Alfred, which isn't great.
Speaker 8 (21:35):
You know, it's hospital food.
Speaker 4 (21:36):
And I'm getting sicker, I'm having chemo, I'm following all
of what the doctors say to do, and I'm nearly dying.
Speaker 8 (21:43):
And she's living her best life.
Speaker 3 (21:46):
By twenty thirteen, Belle had well and truly found her
stride and her voice. Within a year of announcing on
social media that she'd been healing her brain cancer with
foods and alternative therapies, her ideas were turned into an app.
It was called The Whole Pantry, and it was full
of the kind of food that Belle was eating. It
(22:09):
would go on to win a wards be championed by Apple,
be described as groundbreaking, and Ganna Bell Gibson International acclaim
and a very lucrative book deal.
Speaker 4 (22:21):
Yeah, I had the book, I had the app, I
donated money to it.
Speaker 8 (22:25):
I went on all the Bell Gibs and rides.
Speaker 1 (22:28):
So what was it all about? What was the Whole
Pantry a.
Speaker 5 (22:33):
Recipe collection full of whole foods and vegetarian recipes, which
is the way that we encourage people to get back
to the fundamentals of eating more fruits and vegetables.
Speaker 3 (22:44):
The Whole Pantry app was celebrated as a sleek database
full of thoughtful recipes accompanied by lifestyle tips and tricks,
wrapped up in a beautifully designed interface with the iconic
logo of two white leaves on a teal background. One
of the world's richest, most recognizable, most influential companies loved it.
(23:08):
Apple saw something in bell and she quickly found her
place in an elite inner circle of app developers who'd
won over the trust and loyalty of the global tech juggernaut.
Speaker 1 (23:20):
When they realized what a hit.
Speaker 3 (23:21):
Bells app was on iPhones, Apple made a bold decision
to incorporate the Whole Pantry as a preloaded application on
a brand new product, one that was set to revolutionize
the wearable tech space.
Speaker 15 (23:35):
The Good Apple Watch is the most personal device we've
ever created. We set out to make the best watch
in the world. We love to make great products that
really enrich people's lives. We love to integrate hardware, software
and services seamlessly. We love to make technology more personal
(24:00):
and allow our users to do things that they could
never have imagined.
Speaker 3 (24:04):
This was a big deal to have an Ossie app
in the position the whole pantry had found its self in,
and for that app to be in the wellness space,
it just hadn't been done before. Here's what Belle had
to say about what it was like to be on
the ground at Apple HQ and Koopatino for that very announcement.
Speaker 5 (24:23):
You know, it took seven months worth of development, and
I put everything that I knew along my journey with cancer,
nutrition and wellness and put it on the most accessible
device possible, the iPhone, and it's just onwards and utwards
from there. With the Apple Watch, it's even more accessible
and it's an even more personal experience and more personal
(24:44):
journey to living the whole life and adopting the support
and the resources that we put there for you. My
developer and I had come over here four weeks ago
now and we've been working every day on our Apple
Watch app, and.
Speaker 8 (25:02):
It's been hard. It's been hard.
Speaker 5 (25:04):
It's been hard because of the jet lag has been
hard being a startup and dropped in amongst the twitters
and the BMW's of the world. But we're a static
with what we've come out with.
Speaker 3 (25:15):
The world was at her feet, and a huge publishing
house took note. Bell signed a deal with Penguin Random
House to turn the best selling app into a book
filled with recipes and detailing Bell's moving story.
Speaker 4 (25:29):
She was a complete well appeared to be the complete package.
You know, the big glowing smile and the beautiful hair
and the perfect skin, and you know, she seemed patient
and in control and also backed by all of these
people that thought that she was doing the right thing
as well. She had signed a deal with Penguin Books,
she had a contract with Apple. She of course she
(25:52):
was legit, because otherwise these companies wouldn't be backing her,
they wouldn't be a part of her story as well.
Speaker 3 (25:59):
This was the peak of Bell's success, an app, a book, awards, followers, fame.
All of that brought her to the Wollomoloo Wharves that
twenty four teen day for Cosmo's Fun Fearless Awards, where
Belle took out the social media category, trying to take.
Speaker 14 (26:18):
More credit views.
Speaker 5 (26:20):
That's not the fearlessness in me.
Speaker 1 (26:23):
But my partner has been the same to me through
a year now.
Speaker 5 (26:27):
It's really strangely, really every morning for a long time
saying this is.
Speaker 1 (26:31):
Strange, like you're waiting up to it. And he had
stadium full of people that.
Speaker 5 (26:37):
Are watching her at remover, waiting on some form of
inspiration or advice or something for their dinner.
Speaker 3 (26:47):
When her team suggested Bell Gibson as a nominee, Bronwyn
mccahn thought it was a no brainer.
Speaker 7 (26:52):
So in that social media category, it was a varied
list of people in fitness and in fashion and beauty
and health and whatever else, and they pitched this girl
named Bell Gibson. Hadn't heard of her at that point,
so they had done their you know, due diligence, going, oh,
you know, and she's got you know, over two hundred
thousand followers and it's an amazing story because she's got
(27:13):
all of these cancers and rain humors and she's done
this app called The Whole Pantry and Apple are going
to put it on their next release of iPhone or
eyewatch or something, and I was like, wow, that's phenomenal,
Like what a story that this woman who's going through
so much, a mother of one and young, super young,
(27:33):
and going through all this medical stuff even has the
time or energy or anything to create this incredible app
that is being picked up by Apple Like this is unbelievable.
Speaker 1 (27:43):
So we were like, yeah, great, she.
Speaker 7 (27:45):
Sounds perfect to put in in the category under you know,
health wellbeing.
Speaker 11 (27:49):
And that was that.
Speaker 1 (27:51):
But that was not that.
Speaker 3 (27:53):
An email pinged into journalists in boxes around the country
at the exact same time, and it said.
Speaker 16 (28:02):
It has come to my attention that you have published
a story about a girl I have known for my
whole life. Her name is Belle Gibson, creator of the
Whole Pantry app and book, and a so called terminal
cancer patient. Unfortunately, there are a few things you might
need to know before you consider publishing more about this woman.
Speaker 3 (28:28):
What that email went on to say would change everything
next time on Extraordinary Stories.
Speaker 7 (28:44):
I can't remember the timeframe between the awards and when
the next thing happened, but maybe it was a couple
of months and the next thing. One of the girls
in the office came in and said, oh my god,
I've just received this email anonymous but basically from somebody
who's saying that they went to school with Belle and
(29:05):
that everything she's saying is a lie.
Speaker 1 (29:08):
Her age is a lie, she doesn't have.
Speaker 7 (29:11):
Cancer, she has no brain humors, everything is a lie.
And it had been sent to Cosmo and Cleo and
like all the magazines, so everyone had got it, and
I imagined it had also been sent to various journalists
at newspapers because everyone had got the same email from
this anonymous source. So we're like, God, a monthly magazine
(29:32):
is not going to be the magazine that breaks a
big story like this, because you've already got digital sites
and news sites and everything that have already received this email.
Speaker 3 (29:41):
There was one newsroom with the time, resources and interest
to pursue this tip off, and not even they could
predict how Belle's empire of deception was about to unravel.
Speaker 9 (29:55):
I think there is a bit of a pattern in
people who want to lie to you that they tell
you a partial truth and then it just dovetails from there.
Speaker 3 (30:07):
Thank you for listening to this episode of Extraordinary Stories.
It was written and produced by me Emma Gillespie with
Holly Wainwright. Audio production is by Eliza Ratliff and Madeline
Joe Annau. The executive producers of Extraordinary Stories are Eliza
Ratliffe and Holly Wainwright.
Speaker 2 (30:30):
To listen to part two, just click the link in
our show notes
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