It’s reaching the end of 2022, and Belle Gibson is making headlines again; this time, it’s about her cancer scam. A former friend of the conwoman is involved in a documentary detailing her crimes. So, before we look at what it’s about, let’s go into who this woman is.
Before we begin, this article will not recap everything. We’ll be covering the more serious aspects with references to the smaller elements.
Who Is Belle Gibson, And Where Is She Now?
Belle Gibson was born Annabelle Natalie Gibson in Tasmania in 1991. She made false claims that she’s had multiple cancers and other ailments, such as strokes and has had heart surgery despite having no surgical scars and not being able to name the surgeons who operated on her.
She has also claimed that her mother changed her mother “changed her name five times.” Belle launched The Whole Pantry app in 2013, which also came preloaded on the first launch of the Apple Watch in 2014. There was also a book with the same name.
Gibson later launched a blog of the same name. Belle later told a potential person she would do business with that she used several names. People started to get suspicious when she failed to give $300,000 to charity. She has also denied that she told people to seek alternative cancer treatment.
Her cancer scam came crashing down around her. A former classmate sent a joint email to all the magazines and newspapers exposing Belle. At first, the press went on a fact-checking mission to debunk the email they were all sent. However, it became evident that everything said in the email was true, and that’s when they went after her. This was revealed in an episode of Mamamia’s Extraordinary Stories podcast.
Did Belle Gibson go to jail? Unfortunately, no. She didn’t. Tara Brown even said in a behind-the-scenes clip for her interview with Belle that Gibson believed she had been “misdiagnosed.”
Showing Up At The Funeral Of An Actual Victim Of Cancer And The New Con
What takes the cake in this whole story is that she showed up at the funeral of Jessica Ainscough, a wellness blogger who had died of cancer. Ms Ainscough had decided to use the controversial Gerson therapy after commonly used drugs failed to work. Belle Gibson was also fined almost half a million dollars, money she never paid.
In early 2020, Belle’s house was raided, but the day after, a video from 2019 popped up of Gibson wearing a headscarf and allegedly speaking the Oromo language and calling herself “Sanbontu.” In the clip, she was talking about the political issues currently affecting Ethiopia. While she was being interviewed, she claimed to have been “adopted” into the Ethiopian community in Melbourne after she started “volunteering” four years earlier.
However, this lie was debunked by the Australian Oromo Community Association president, Tarekegn Chimdi, stationed in Victoria. He said that he had only seen Belle at meet-ups a handful of times and that she was not registered as a volunteer. He added that he wished she would stop saying she was part of the Oromo community.
Belle Gibson’s Cancer Scam – Now A Documentary And Potentially A Netflix Project
According to Cosmopolitan UK, Belle was interviewed by the Australian Woman’s Weekly magazine and was asked whether she had had cancer. She confessed she hadn’t and that it was all a con. One of the documentary’s subjects will be her former friend, Chanelle McAuliffe, who once confronted her over her lies.
The two-part documentary that has been made will detail Belle’s cancer scam using “her voice” through her former social media posts. In 2018, Belle was interviewed by Tara Brown on 60 Minutes, where she lied again. She also told The Australian Woman’s Weekly in 2015 that “she didn’t want forgiveness.”
TV Tonight reports that rumours also started swirling at the Melbourne Cup 2023 that a Netflix series was in the works. Netflix has declined to confirm that a Belle Gibson drama project is coming.
