Dive into the shocking true story of Belle Gibson, the wellness influencer who built an empire on lies. Explore how she manipulated her followers, fabricated a cancer story, and ultimately exposed the dangerous side of wellness culture through her fraudulent brand, The Whole Pantry.
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00:00Welcome to Ms. Mojo and today we're investigating the wellness scandal that
00:04rocked the industry and inspired Netflix's new series Apple Cider Vinegar.
00:09This is a big story. It's a woman terminal brain cancer. She's probably
00:14killing people with her lies. Joining the ranks of other infamous girlboss CEOs to
00:19get TV adaptations, corrupt businesswoman Belle Gibson and her
00:22wellness brand, The Whole Pantry, are now taking the spotlight. We really believe
00:26that we've revolutionized something that people are becoming
00:30increasingly interested and invested in, which is health and wellness. With so
00:35many eyes on influencers and so much money to make, the internet has become a
00:39major hub for curating, promoting and selling wellness content. In order to
00:43break through the feeds and make waves, Belle concocted a recipe for a disaster
00:48that inevitably blew up in everyone's faces. It's so devastating for the
00:52industry. She was such an important figure. It blows all trust out the water
00:56with everyone's stories. Here's everything you need to know about Apple
01:01Cider Vinegar, Belle's bombastic web of lies and the
01:04shocking fallout from her crumbling empire. I don't want them to know every
01:09nitty-gritty detail. The Belle Gibson story. Superfoods, clean eating, detox. The
01:17wellness fad has been around for decades. In this day and age, we're distrust of
01:22big pharma and other authoritative powers has become commonplace. The desire
01:25to turn to holistic practices is reaching an all-time high. But in an era
01:30of misinformation, it has become trickier to weed through what advice can help you
01:34and what can harm you. The relative ease in which consumers are duped into
01:38trusting an online source is what makes modern wellness scams so fruitful. And so
01:43the stage was set for one of the industry's most devious con women to
01:46sink her teeth in. In 2013, 21-year-old Belle Gibson launched her proprietary
01:51app, The Whole Pantry, providing healthy recipes and lifestyle advice. Early
01:56success earned her a Penguin publishing book deal and inspired Apple to offer
02:00the app a coveted pre-install for the 2015 Apple Watch. The app served as a
02:05supplement for Belle's wellness blog, where she shared her more politicized
02:09views on food, medicine, and health. In order to maintain public interest in her
02:13platform, she started to offer more incentives, such as a promise to donate
02:18app proceeds to a variety of charitable organizations.
02:21Your app download transfers into community donation. To me, I saw that as
02:26just a continuation of her wanting to share something with the world that was
02:30valuable and that people wanted. I saw it as very selfless. She also detailed a
02:35tragic brain cancer diagnosis in a plea for users to invest in the woman behind
02:39the brand. By sharing the harrowing details of her battle on her blog, Belle
02:43tugged on the heartstrings of her readers, while also offering a bit of
02:46hope to those in similar circumstances. Maybe she's got the right idea. Maybe I'm
02:51doing it all wrong. I'm dying, and she's out there living her best life. Her
02:58story had a silver lining. She was beating the prognosis, but not through
03:02conventional medicine. She did it through, in her words, quote, nutrition, patience,
03:07determination, and love. It's safe to say that these tenets alone would never be
03:12prescribed by a real doctor for a serious disease. But when these
03:15principles are splashed across flashy social media pages, blogs, and apps that
03:20feature glowing testimonials from revitalized survivors, it can become
03:24convincing to consumers who have reached a breaking point with their current
03:27situation. I had enough of all of the poking and the prodding and the constant
03:32scans. I do not want another lumbar puncture. I don't want it. We need to talk
03:38about other treatments. A series of news interviews further bolstered the
03:41believability of Bell's claims, and soon she was a popular influencer. For a
03:46person living with brain cancer, you look incredibly healthy. Some of Bell's most
03:50ardent fans decided to follow in her footsteps by ditching their doctors and
03:54subscribing to her strict lifestyle regimens. I decided to stop using
03:59conventional medicine and try and find a natural way to heal myself. Seeing
04:05someone like Bell heal themselves through food made me feel hopeful. Bell
04:11took to her blog to encourage readers to stay strong in their fight, while also
04:15sharing news any time her cancer returned or spread to other parts of her
04:19body. You've said that the cancer is now in your blood and your spleen and your
04:23brain and your uterus and your liver. That's really, it's serious now, isn't it?
04:27Yeah. However, while she attracted a fierce base of loyal supporters, her
04:32bizarre story and shaky claims also alerted a number of skeptics. There's
04:36something that just doesn't add up. I mean, she's claiming that she's got this
04:40malignant brain tumor and four other cancers, and she looks like a million
04:44dollars. Digging into her backstory, an alarming number of inconsistencies began
04:49to surface, and Bell's doubters cracked open a massive scandal that would undo
04:52everything the public thought they knew. The true Bell Gibson story. Bell had done
04:59a poor job at burying her life before The Whole Pantry, and the discovery that
05:02she'd been lying about her age kicked off a series of disturbing findings. It
05:07was revealed that she had a history of making outlandish claims regarding her
05:10health, including having supposedly died on an operating table. There were no
05:14scars, no proof that she'd ever undergone any serious procedures. Despite following
05:20her strict diet for upwards of an entire year, subscribers were not seeing the
05:24results she promised. In fact, many found their overall health on the decline. I
05:28was following all the rules. I had books that all these wellness influencers were
05:33selling that would help me transform my life, and my life didn't look like that.
05:38Those who'd lost loved ones to alternative medicine grabbed their
05:41pitchforks and torches too, joining the angry mob that was knocking at Bell's
05:45door. Why the hell would you do that? Why would you pretend to have cancer? Feeling
05:51the heat, Bell began to recant details about her cancer diagnoses and shifted
05:55her story with several posts that attempted to explain away the
05:58disparities. But the public wasn't buying it, and this was only the first blow
06:02she'd suffer. Major news broke when journalists uncovered evidence that
06:06over 300,000 Australian dollars in fundraising was never actually delivered
06:11to the intended charities. This triggered investigations by Penguin and Consumer
06:16Affairs. The cash had vanished, and it was presumed that Bell stole the profits. The
06:21ruse was up. Her once devoted fans turned on her, Penguin pulled her book, and Apple
06:26removed the app along with any mention of Bell. There were far too many holes in
06:30her version of events. In response to the demand for accountability, she
06:34effectively went quiet. That is until her 60 Minutes interview. And you said you
06:39didn't have brain cancer. No, I didn't. But when I was writing that, I thought
06:46that I did. She explained that she had been misdiagnosed and only misled her
06:50followers because she had been misled herself. But there's no real record of
06:54the holistic doctor who supposedly misdiagnosed her, and this new version of
06:58events failed to explain her claims to have initially undergone conventional
07:02treatments. It turns out now, if you believe Bell, that Mark Johnson's
07:06treatments were alternative. But in her book, she describes them as conventional.
07:12As for the unfulfilled charity donations, she claimed they just hadn't been
07:16finalized yet due to poor accounting. Bell's stories were too elaborate, too
07:20specific, too absurd for her to defend, and when put under pressure, she played
07:25the victim. And you go to those extraordinary lengths to create the
07:29story around that lie. How can we believe anything you say now? Tara, I have lost
07:36everything. With the truth out, it became imminently clear that a massive platform
07:41had been granted to someone who should have never been afforded it. Bell Gibson
07:44was proven to not only be a liar, but a genuinely dangerous person. Her
07:49influencer status gave her power over subscribers, who followed her risky
07:53practices in pursuit of a glossy goal that was based on a lie. On top of her
07:58purported cancer-beating expertise, Bell also promoted dangerous rhetoric like
08:03anti-vaccination and the consumption of unpasteurized milk. When I look back now
08:07on my time in wellness, I had an unhealthy relationship with food. It was
08:11obsessive, it was anxiety-inducing. Ultimately, Bell was fined four hundred
08:16and ten thousand Australian dollars in 2017 for misleading and deceptive
08:20conduct regarding her charity work. However, the fines were never paid and
08:24her home was raided in 2020 and 2021 by authorities seeking to recoup those
08:29costs. Before we continue, be sure to subscribe to our channel and ring the
08:33bell to get notified about our latest videos. You have the option to be
08:38notified for occasional videos or all of them. If you're on your phone, make sure
08:42you go into your settings and switch on notifications. Apple Cider Vinegar. With a
08:48lack of true accountability, so many questions remain in Bell Gibson's case.
08:52Why did she go to such great lengths? She's also highly intelligent. She thinks
08:57we're all stupid. That's what annoys me about it. She's been accused of being a
09:01sociopath or of just being money or fame hungry. Others speculate that she has
09:06Munchausen by internet. You don't have to be an actual sociopath to do that and I
09:10am not. I mean, I could do like 50 personality quizzes right now and I am
09:15an empath every time. While the truth may lie somewhere at the crossroads of
09:20these theories, Netflix plans to further investigate the saga with the limited
09:24series Apple Cider Vinegar. It was five years ago I was diagnosed with terminal
09:28cancer. I was diagnosed with a stage four brain tumor. That was four years ago.
09:34Based on the actual rise and fall story as well as the book in Inspired, The
09:39Woman Who Fooled the World, Apple Cider Vinegar owns up to only being true-ish
09:43in the trailers. The show introduces a rivalry between Bell, played by Caitlin
09:48Deaver, and a competitor in the wellness industry, Mila Blake, who was inspired by
09:52real-life entrepreneur Jessica Ainscow. Ainscow passed away from untreated cancer
09:57in 2015. Based on the true-ish label, viewers shouldn't expect an accurate
10:03retelling of how it all went down. However, showrunner Samantha Strauss
10:06feels that the fictionalized elements illuminate pressing matters at the core
10:10of the story. Strauss told The Hollywood Reporter that, quote,
10:13what we've tried to do in this series is to show that none of these issues are
10:17entirely black and white. We wanted it to live in the gray zone. Wading through the
10:21muck of Bell Gibson's lies, it's apparent that the real cancerous threat didn't
10:25exist in her body, but in the poison she fed her followers. Do you take
10:29responsibility for driving any people away from conventional medicine in
10:34seeking treatment for their cancer? That would be really heartbreaking to me
10:39because I never intended on doing that. Hopefully, the truth behind her deception
10:43and the Apple Cider Vinegar series will encourage those playing in the wellness
10:47sandbox to take careful note of exactly who is selling them a dream, and why
10:51they're selling it. We've built a beautiful community together.
10:57Plus, that power switch. Will you be tuning into Netflix's Apple Cider
11:02Vinegar? Which part of Bell's story do you hope they capture? Share your thoughts
11:07in the comments below. Check out this other recent clip from Ms. Mojo, and be
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