NZ Skeptics Articles

Apple Cider Vinegar

Katrina Borthwick - 18 February 2025

The new Australian mini-series Apple Cider Vinegar was just released on Netflix. The series dramatises the true story of Australian Belle Gibson, who was a wellness influencer who falsely claimed to have cured her terminal brain cancer through diet and alternative medicine. She released an app, and later a recipe book, called The Whole Pantry, and pocketed $300K in donations meant for charity.

The show is reminiscent of Inventing Anna, the dramatisation of the true story of a fake heiress who falls from grace spectacularly as all her lies come home to roost. Hearteningly, Apple Cider Vinegar does go some way to digging into the harm caused by Belle’s lies - not just the financial harm, but in particular the harsh outcomes that can come from not seeking appropriate medical treatment.

The series stars Hollywood actress Kaitlyn Dever as Belle Gibson. If you recognise the name or face, it might be from Unbelievable, which follows the story of a teenager who is charged with lying about being raped, or perhaps Booksmart, which is a teen coming-of-age comedy. Both were released back in 2019. She steps up into a more adult character in this new show.

While the series doesn’t stray too far from the facts of the deception, it is a dramatisation, and as such there are several key differences between the show and reality.

The series also tells the story of Gibson’s rival influencer Milla Blake (who does really have cancer), Chanelle (her PR manager and friend), Clive (her husband), Lucy (a cancer patient and follower), and the investigative journalists who expose her.

The Rival

Alycia Debnam-Carey plays Milla Blake, a character inspired by the real-life Australian wellness influencer Jessica Ainscough. Ainscough, who ran The Wellness Warrior blog, was diagnosed with cancer (epithelioid sarcoma) at 22, and it was recommended that she amputate her entire arm. Instead she tried chemo perfusion therapy on her arm, and when that didn’t work she chose to treat her cancer with Gerson Therapy. For some reason this is called ‘Hirsch’ therapy in the series.

Gerson therapy relies on a mainly plant-based diet, including hourly glasses of vegetable juice. It also advocates enemas of coffee, castor oil, hydrogen peroxide or ozone. In the series Milla refers to having five coffee enemas per day. It didn’t work, and we see her later in the series hiding tumours on her arm and smothering them in black salve.

Black salve is touted as a natural remedy, but there it really isn’t anything I would call ‘natural’. It contains a synthetic chemical called zinc chloride, which causes tissue necrosis and is dangerous. Also, it doesn’t work as a treatment, and is illegal to sell in Australia. All the images I found of disfigurement caused by black salve are too horrible to place here, but feel free to google it if you have a strong stomach.

Jessica Ainscough passed away in 2015 at the age of 30, and the character Milla in this story meets the same fate. Towards the end she admitted the therapy wasn’t working, as portrayed in the series, and she attempted chemotherapy - but it was too late.

The rivalry in the series, however, seems to be an exaggeration. According to the book “The Woman Who Fooled the World”, on which the series is based, the two briefly met at a conference outside of Melbourne. They were not friends, but several newspapers did report that Gibson attended Ainscough’s funeral.

The friend

The character of Chanelle is Gibson’s friend, as well as being rival Blake’s manager. In reality Chanelle is based on two people, Ainscough’s manager and Gibson’s close friend, Chanelle McAuliffe. So, again, those two ‘rivals’ were not in each others’ orbit as much as is portrayed. McAuliffe took a key role in exposing Gibson after the influencer had a (fake) seizure at her son’s birthday party.

“I said we need to call an ambulance, but as soon as I said that Belle came out of the seizure and said: ‘No, I don’t want Western medicine involved’ because she was healing in herself naturally.

When I left the party, I felt sick to my stomach about what I had just seen,” she continued. “This was the point where red flags really started to pop up for me. I was feeling really confused … [and] in my gut, something didn’t feel right.”

After this experience, McAuliffe straight-up asked Gibson about the diagnosis, but got a squirrelly answer. She then started working with reporters to uncover the truth, and it was discovered that the deception went even further. The charities Belle had said she was supporting had not received any of the donations promised.

The follower

Lucy in the series is a follower of Belle Gibson. She appears to be a composite character, representing numerous cancer sufferers embracing Gibson’s promoted alternative treatment and shunning medication. We see in this character the negative health outcomes and the intense desire to believe. But even Lucy’s character can’t help but notice that Belle has never shown any symptoms of cancer.

Sadly, Blake’s mother is another example of someone caught up in the Gerson therapy, and we see her painful journey play its way out as well, as she suffers from cancer. This is based on Ainscough’s mother, who died a few years after being diagnosed with breast cancer.

The boy

In the series Gibson befriends a boy, Hunter, who is suffering from cancer, and she raises funds on his behalf through her app. Which she pockets.

This character appears to be based on Joshua Schwarz, who was suffering from anaplastic astrocytoma grade III. As Gibson’s scams came to light, the family spoke with the Herald Sun, noting that many of Gibson’s claims about her brain cancer mimicked those of Joshua. Although the series shows them planning surgery on the basis of these anticipated funds, in real life they never knew about the fundraising at all.

“I wanted to believe her story so much but when I messaged her to see if she was okay and ask her about the allegations she would reply but avoided giving any clear answers, or chose to completely avoid my questions”

Joshua Schwarz died in 2017, at the age of 9.

The spouse

In the series Belle’s partner Clive Rothwell is portrayed as taking on the role of father to Gibson’s son, as well as taking on all the household expenses and housekeeping activities while Gibson roams free ignoring parenthood as best she can. There are numerous shots of him folding laundry and the like. I think perhaps we are supposed to feel sorry for a man folding laundry…

In reality, it is unclear how serious this relationship is, as Gibson makes light of it in real life - referring to them being ‘just friends’. However, she did mention to reporters when she appeared in Court that he had paid for many of her expenses, including her half of the rent, as well as travel, living costs and legal expenses. They appear to have broken up by November 2023. It’s unclear where her son is now - he’ll be around 14 years old.

The family

The series portrays Gibson’s mother, Natalie Dal-Bello, as a consummate self-centred narcissist. There are many references in the narrative to Gibson’s rocky experiences growing up, and the damage she believes this has done to her psyche.

It is true Gibson was estranged from her mother, who even spoke out against her when her deceptions were uncovered. Her mother did a tell-all interview with Women’s Weekly in 2015, which is covered in the series. In this she pleads with Gibson to tell the truth about her childhood and her scams.

“I can’t tell you how embarrassed we are about what she has done…. And we sincerely wish to apologise to anyone who was deceived by Belle. For what small part we played in her life, we would like to say sorry.”

In real life Gibson also has a brother who disputed some of her claims publicly, including that he had autism.

This isn’t the first time a pattern of lying comes up as the theme in the series. Earlier on, her rival Blake does some googling and finds some teenaged pictures of Gibson styled as an emo goth, alongside accounts of a heart condition and what appears to be a faked heart attack. It’s implied that Gibson was well known as a liar in her youth.

The gotcha

Despite being sure that Gibson is lying about her brain cancer, the journalists in the series can’t say that without solid evidence. That proves pretty much impossible, due to medical privacy laws. They need Gibson to confess.

So, instead, they run a story on the missing donations, and get Hunter’s mother to speak to this. Readers then quickly make a connection to fake cancer claims for them. This is pretty close to how things went down in real life, with investigative journalists Beau Donelly and Nick Toscano breaking the donation story.

The defence

Gibson took part in a 60 minutes interview in April 2015, and actually admitted to lying about her cancer diagnosis - though later in her interview she changed tack and claimed that it was actually her doctor who was misled about her diagnosis. This is pretty typical of the doublespeak and evasion portrayed throughout the series.

“I lived for years with the fear that I was dying”

The punishment

The series doesn’t really get into the Court outcome, so I looked it up. I can see why they didn’t go there.

Gibson has not faced criminal charges, meaning she has never been sentenced to prison. In 2017 she was found guilty of misleading and deceptive conduct under consumer law. This is a civil charge, for which she was ordered to pay a $410,000 fine for both falsely claiming she had terminal brain cancer and promoting unproven natural treatments. Reports indicate that Gibson has never paid the fine, and enforcement of it has been unsuccessful.

Gibson’s book The Whole Pantry didn’t go straight to the warehouse to be pulped, as implied in the series. The book was published in October 2014, and went to stores and was sold. But, when the scams came to light months later, the book’s publisher Penguin Books discontinued it, and it was removed from bookshop shelves in March 2015. Because Penguin Publishing failed to fact-check her cookbook, they were also fined. Apple took down her app.

To top it off, there is a rumour that Belle may or may not have received $45,000 Australian dollars for the 60 Minutes interview (sigh).