“A true-ish story based on a lie” — that’s what Netflix’s Apple Cider Vinegar teases viewers with. The miniseries focuses on Belle Gibson: a convicted scammer from Australia, who was once a wellness guru that lied about beating cancer with certain diet, exercise and medicinal choices. Since Gibson’s rise and fall is depicted in the new show, viewers are dying to learn more about the mysteries ex-influencer whom Apple Cider Vinegar is based on.
The six-episode show explores the early days of Instagram and how wellness culture became a whole new world thanks to social media. The series is not a biopic, though, as Netflix clarified; it includes a few fictional characters but unravels a dramatized version of Gibson’s story.
Below, News47.us has compiled all the details about Gibson and the Netflix series.
Gibson was a wellness guru who lied about living with multiple forms of cancer, including malignant brain, kidney and blood cancer. She started a fitness and diet empire by launching an app and a book, both titled The Whole Pantry.
During a 2015 interview with Australia’s Women’s Weekly, Gibson claimed she grew up in a difficult household in Brisbane, Queensland, Australia, with a mom who battled multiple sclerosis and brother who was allegedly on the autism spectrum.
“When I started school, my mum went, ‘My daughter is grown up now,’” she told the publication at the time. “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.”
Eventually, Gibson admitted she fabricated the cancer claims, and her family members disputed her backstory. While speaking with the Herald Sun in 2015, Gibson’s mother, Natalie Dal-Bello (who later died in 2017 from MS) called her daughter’s story “a lot of rubbish” and noted, “Belle never cared for me, her brother is not autistic and she’s barely done a minute’s housework in her life.”
