Wellness scammer Belle Gibson is back in the headlines again after the release of the new Netflix series Apple Cider Vinegar which is loosely based on the Australian health influencer who turned out to be a fraud.
What many people don’t realise is that I interviewed Belle Gibson for the Tech Guide podcast in 2014 where she falsely claimed she had been diagnosed with cancer again.
The interview – which you can hear below – is one of the only times where Gibson, in her own voice, tells her cancer lie on the record.
Our interview for Episode 114 of the Tech Guide podcast, was organised by Apple at the launch event in September 2014 in Cupertino where Apple had just unveiled the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus and the Apple Watch.
I even took several photos of Gibson wearing an Apple lanyard under a large Apple logo.
Gibson was flown to the US by Apple because her app The Whole Pantry was handpicked to be one of the first apps to be available on Apple Watch.
She was given early access to the Apple Watch after signing a hefty NDA (non-disclosure agreement) to protect Apple’s famous secrecy about their future products.
“If there was any company that we were going to jump for it was going to be Apple because it supported us for so long,” Gibson said in her Tech Guide interview.
When asked how she came up with the idea for The Whole Pantry, Gibson said:
“Five years ago I was diagnosed with terminal brain cancer. We had tapped into a really beautiful network of people on our online social media communities.
“I’m really honest about my journey with my health and that opened up everyone else’s honesty and everyone else’s stories.
And when asked about her health at the time here’s she had to say: “It’s funny that I’m here – all of my friends and family said, “Belle you can’t go”.
“Six weeks ago I was re-diagnosed with multiple cancers but I’m feeling on top of the world.
“I get out of bed for what we do, we really believe that we’re changing people’s lives and we have a giving back end of the company as well.
“With your app download transfers into community donation so not only are you choosing to change or create changes within your life you’re also financing us to be able to support changes to those it otherwise don’t have that access to.”
The move by Apple gave Gibson even more fame and a higher profile while also propelling her app The Whole Pantry into the stratosphere.
To be fair to Apple, it had no idea that Belle Gibson was a total fraud.
No one did.
In fact, after I interviewed her and asked her about her health, l I thought she was one of the bravest and most determined people I had ever met.
After thanking her in the interview she signed off and said, “it was an honour”.
I wished her luck with her health journey and for her app and even exchanged a hug.
At the time I thought she was telling the truth and was waging a brave battle against cancer.
But in 2015 Gibson’s world started to unravel after it was discovered that she lied about ever having cancer.
Her app, The Whole Pantry, was dropped by Apple’s App Store and a lucrative publishing deal with Penguin for The Whole Pantry book was also cancelled.
In 2017 two The Age journalists – Beau Donnelly and Nick Toscano, who broke the first stories about Gibson’s questionable claims – published their own book based on their investigations – The Woman Who Fooled the World.
It was this book that inspired the Netflix series Apple Cider Vinegar.
