- Bella Johnston suffered with a chronic cough, fatigue, dizziness and vomiting, so she turned to wellness influencer Belle Gibson for guidence.
- In an Instagram post to her 200,000 followers, Belle explained how she’d been healing her severe and malignant brain cancer with natural remedies.
- Bella was later diagnosed a rare form of cancer, which had spread, and docs warned she was months away from death.
- After surgery and reluctantly undergoing radiation, Bella continued to follow Belle’s advice hoping it would heal her.
- Slowly, rumours began to spread that Belle Gibson’s wellness empire was built entirely on a lie until eventually, Belle admitted it.
- Bella Johnston shares her story of how she fell victim to Belle Gibson’s lies when she was at her most vulnerable and fighting for life…
Sitting in the doctor’s office, I let out an exasperated sigh.
“I don’t have an eating disorder,” I insisted.
It was, 2010, and for months, I’d been suffering from a chronic cough, fatigue and dizziness and was regularly throwing up.
Doctors could find no cause, so at 15, I was diagnosed with anorexia nervosa.
I knew it wasn’t the case, but nobody would listen.
Over the years, my sickness intensified.
Lumps grew on my neck, but I was told it was glandular fever and refused a CAT scan and an MRI.
When I turned 18, in 2014, fed up with not being taken seriously by doctors in my hometown, Corowa, NSW, I cut them off and moved to Melbourne.
There, I started searching for alternative remedies.
Scrolling through Instagram one day, I came across Tasmanian wellness influencer Belle Gibson.
In a post to her 200,000 followers, she’d explained how she’d been healing her severe and malignant brain cancer for the past few years with natural medicine, Gerson therapy and foods.
If she can heal herself, maybe I can too, I thought.
Read more: Mum faked her own death but I found her… 42 years later!
I started copying everything Belle did.
I ate beetroot soup and bone broth, took Epsom salt baths and tried to massage the lumps out, but none worked. When I started suffering really badly from the flu, I made an appointment with a doctor.
When I showed him the lump protruding from my neck, his eyes grew.
“I need to send you for an ultrasound,” he said.
Three days later, I received a call.
“The lump is a tumour,” a doctor told me. “You have paraganglioma, a rare form of cancer.”
His words hit me like a ton of bricks.
I’d always known something was wrong, but I hadn’t expected that. In tears, I called my parents and they drove to Melbourne to support me.
A week later, I had the tumour removed.
The cancer had spread around the top half of my body, wrapping around major parts of my nervous system.
When I woke up from the 10-hour surgery, the surgeon came to see me.
“Your insides were like rotten fruit,” he said. “Completely black inside.”
My right arm, half my tongue and vocal cords were also paralysed from the surgery.
Due to the risk of the cancer spreading to my brain, I needed radiotherapy.
“I don’t want radiotherapy,” I sobbed to my dad. “Belle says it’s possible to cure cancer naturally.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,’ he said. “You need to stop the cancer growing.”
I relented and agreed, but continued to follow Belle and her advice.
When my hair fell out, she was my guiding light.
Devastatingly, my auntie, Jen, was also diagnosed with cancer at the same time as me and not long after my surgery she was told it was terminal.
Maybe Belle’s methods can help her too, I thought.
I bought Belle’s recipe book, The Whole Pantry, and text Jen suggestions from it.
I also tried eating everything Belle suggested, like apricot kernels and green smoothies made with raw egg.
With a nasal gastric tube and mouth paralysis, it wasn’t easy, but I was determined.
Lying in my bed, gripping a bucket for vomit, I watched Belle at the Cosmopolitan Women of the Year Awards.
How does she look so glamorous? I sobbed.
I started wearing hair extensions and coating my face in makeup, but no matter what I did, I never felt or looked as good as she seemed.
It made me feel like a failure.
Then, one day, I opened my Instagram, and my heart stood still.
I’ve been diagnosed with a third and fourth cancer, Belle had announced, revealing it was terminal.
Tears sprung in my eyes.
She’ll fight this, I reassured myself.
In December of that year, my auntie Jen passed away, 52.
Visiting her before, I’d been shocked by her emaciated frame and yellowing skin.
How does Belle look so healthy when she’s terminal, too? I thought.
Then, one morning in the following March, I read a news story on my phone.
Belle Gibson is under investigation, it read.
Reports claimed Belle had never donated the funds she’d raised for a young boy with inoperable cancer.
This can’t be true, I thought.
I was sure it was a misunderstanding.
But over the next few weeks, the claims grew even more shocking.
It circulated that Belle Gibson had lied about her cancer.
The media claimed she never had cancer at all.
Over the next few weeks, Belle announced she’d been wrongly diagnosed with cancers she’d said she was living with, including blood, spleen, uterus and liver.
However, she maintained her terminal brain cancer diagnosis was real.
But in April she finally admitted it was all a lie.
“None of it is true,” she said speaking to a magazine.
Like the rest of Australia, I was gobsmacked.
“How could someone do something like that?” I vented to my mum.
She’d taken advantage of desperate and vulnerable people, giving them false hope for her own benefit.
It was sick!
In 2017, Belle Gibson was fined $410,000 by the Federal Court for breaching consumer law.
She’d made a profit based on a lie she’d healed cancer through diet and alternative therapies.
She’d also lied about donating money from her Whole Pantry App and book sales to various charities.
She escaped any criminal charges, so she was never sent to jail.
Seven years on, there’s been no justice.
She hasn’t apologised or paid her fine.
In some ways, I feel sorry for her.
She must have no support if she needed to pretend to have cancer to feel loved.
Thankfully, for me, my cancer has never returned and physical therapy has improved my partial paralysis.
I joined a female cancer support network and made genuine friends who understood what I was going through.
I hope people will take note not believe everything influencers say.
I also hope it encourages people to ask for a second opinion if they think a doctor is wrong.
Where is Belle Gibson now?
Belle Gibson has largely tried to stay out of spotlight since her downfall, Though her fine is unpaid, she was flying business class and was spotted holidaying in Bali.
In 2020, she’d reinvented herself, living as an adopted member of Melbourne’s Oromo community, from Ethiopia and was going by the name Sabontu.
In 2021, she still hadn’t paid a cent of the fine imposed on her and although her case is closed, the government said it would continue to pursue repayment, likely by selling her possessions.
In May that year, officers executed a warrant for a second time on Belle’s semi-dettached Victorian home that she shares with her son and a friend, to enforce a seize and sell order. They were looking for items of value that could be sold to pay her debt but although Belle lives in comfort, she has few assets.
Apple Cider Vinegar – the Netflix series based on Belle Gibson
Netflix has teamed up with Aussie writer, Samantha Strauss to create Apple Cider Vinegar, a six-episode limited series based on the rise and fall Belle Gibson’s wellness empire, the culture that built it up and the people who tore it down. It follows Belle Gibson (played by Kaitlyn Dever), who built an empire based on the lie that she’s cured her terminal breain cancer through health and wellness. It also focuses on Milla Blake (Alycia Debnam-Carey), a character inspired by another blogger, Jessica Ainscough, who shared her journey of using alternative treatments to fight her cancer and became a wellness entrepreneur, before dying of her illness, untreated, at age 29. Milla’s close friend Chanelle (Aisha Dee) meets Belle Gibson at an event and begins working with her on growing her business. Apple Cider Vinegar arrives on Netflix on February 6, 2025.
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