Spoilers below.
“This is a true story based on a lie,” are the first words you hear in each episode of Netflix’s new limited series Apple Cider Vinegar. The lie is one told by Belle Gibson, a real-life Australian wellness influencer who built an empire in the 2010s based on the fib that she had cured her terminal brain cancer with healthy eating.
Kaitlyn Dever plays a fictionalized version of Belle in the six-episode series, tracking her rise from fledgling blogger to full-time wellness entrepreneur. Apple Cider Vinegar also follows similar holistic medicine influencers from the period, cancer patients that clung to Belle’s story for inspiration, and families that she defrauded in her fake charitable work. The series as a whole is a dark look at the age of influencers and the greed of the wellness industry, utilizing this stranger than fiction story to examine the current technological moment that has been dubbed “Münchausen by Internet.”
So what’s true and what’s not? Like Belle, the closing moments of the series are surprising: instead of concluding with epilogue text explaining how Gibson’s story resolved, Dever cuts in to direct viewers to Google. If that’s what brought you here, welcome. Here’s the truth about Belle Gibson and the portrayal of her story on Apple Cider Vinegar.
Belle Gibson really did lie about cancer before launching The Whole Pantry cookbook and app.
In 2009, Gibson began posting online about an inoperable brain cancer diagnosis that gave her just four months to live. Gibson claimed that she had undergone medical procedures like radiation and chemotherapy, but none of these solutions worked; instead, healthy eating was her savior.
During this time, Gibson used her rising profile to launch a clean eating app and companion cookbook called The Whole Pantry, as depicted in Apple Cider Vinegar. The Whole Pantry was selected by Apple to be pre-installed on the Apple Watch during its Australian product launch. She also claimed to be a philanthropist raising money for various cancer-related organizations, all of which later confirmed they never received any donations. Gibson was later found guilty of charity fraud.
Kaitlin Dever as Belle in Apple Cider Vinegar.
Milla is based on deceased wellness influencer Jessica Ainscough.
Alycia Debnam-Carey plays Milla Blake on Apple Cider Vinegar, a fellow wellness influencer who advocated for a clean diet and holistic medicine as a treatment for cancer. While her name was changed, much of Ainscough’s life informed Milla’s story. Ainscough refused a forearm amputation for her epithelioid sarcoma diagnosis, opting for alternative medicine treatments. She, like Milla, became a famous influencer via her blog “The Wellness Warrior” where she regularly gave updates on her health. And like the series depicts, her mother also refused conventional treatment and eventually succumbed to breast cancer shortly before Ainscough herself died from her untreated cancer. Gibson really did attend Ainscough’s funeral when she died in 2015.
In Apple Cider Vinegar, Chanelle McAuliffe is Milla’s friend who is lured into Belle’s orbit, ultimately realizing that her friend’s story is all fiction. Chanelle is based on a person of the same name, though there is no apparent connection between her and Milla’s muse, Ainscough. Instead, McAuliffe said she met Gibson when she interviewed her for a writing internship. McAuliffe suspected Gibson was lying about her diagnosis after observing her drinking habits and excessive use of tanning beds.
Alycia Debnam-Carey as Milla.
Gibson lifted cancer stories and experiences from real patients to inform her own narrative.
Midway through Apple Cider Vinegar, Dever’s Belle meets a young mother whose son is battling a rare tumor. While playing on the playground, Belle witnesses the boy’s sudden seizure, a side effect from his diagnosis. Later, we see Belle have a seizure of her own during her son’s birthday party—a symptom she didn’t have prior to meeting this family.
It’s unclear whether this exact incident occurred in real life, but Gibson was suspected of gleaning the experiences of cancer patients to then use in her own life to back up her cancer claims. “It wasn’t until I started reading all of the recent media reports about Belle that I started to see the similarities,” the real mother of the young boy told Australia’s Herald Sun in 2015. “We can’t help but think, ‘Did she use us to get in the mind of Joshua?’ She’d always ask heaps of questions about Joshy’s cancer and treatments. Was it to give her more credibility?”
The real family was also unaware that Gibson was using their name and story for fundraising efforts. As depicted in episode 5, “Casseroles,” the family never received the money for their son’s treatment.
Journalists brought Gibson’s lies to the light, though the character Justin is fictionalized.
In 2015, journalists at the Sydney Sun Herald and The Age published an article detailing Gibson’s charity fraud. The exposé by Beau Donelly and Nick Toscano stated that Gibson had “solicited donations from a loyal following of 200,000 people in the name of at least five charities that have no record of receiving money from her.” Their investigation prompted media and fans to second-guess Gibson’s medical claims. Donelly and Toscano’s reporting later morphed into a book titled The Woman Who Fooled the World, which served as the primary inspiration for Apple Cider Vinegar creator Samantha Strauss.
During the media frenzy that followed the initial report, Gibson went on 60 Minutes and stated that she had been purposely misdiagnosed by a doctor with malintent. She blamed the Gardasil cervical cancer vaccine for her malignant brain tumor, which she also claimed had spread to her blood, spleen, uterine, liver, and kidney. Gibson later came clean and admitted to falsifying her medical history, telling Australia’s Women’s Weekly, “None of it’s true.”
The Australian Federal Court found her guilty of violating five counts of consumer law and fined her A$410,000 (equal to $322,000 at the time). Gibson failed to pay the fines, which increased the number to A$500,000. As of February 2024, Gibson had reportedly still not paid the balance and authorities had raided her home multiple times.
While the series accurately represents the real journalists’ investigation, the character of Justin (Mark Coles Smith) is likely fictionalized to further dramatize the story. On Apple Cider Vinegar, Justin’s wife Lucy is a cancer patient and disciple of both Belle and Milla, but there is no public evidence that Donelly or Toscano had an ailing wife.
Sources differ as to whether Clive Rothwell and Belle are still in each other’s lives.
If you’re like me, you probably wanted to reach through the screen and shake Clive (Ashley Zukerman), who was so obviously being manipulated by Belle, both for money and for child care. In the show, Clive chooses to stay with both Belle and her son. But in reality, there’s very little known about Rothwell and his current relationship to Gibson.
A 2024 Women’s Weekly article references Rothwell as “just a friend,” a housemate, and an acting step-father to Gibson’s son Oliver, but a 2023 Daily Mail report claims that Rothwell moved across town and is dating someone new. Both articles suggest that Rothwell paid for the majority of Gibson’s expenses, including legal fees, rent, and vacation.
Ashley Zukerman as Clive.
Little is known about Gibson today.
Gibson has kept a relatively low profile since her public implosion, but in 2020, an ABC News Australia report uncovered that she had been “adopted” by Ethiopia’s Oromo community in Melbourne. She appeared in a social media video wearing a headscarf and using a different name, speaking in the native Oromo language before saying in English, “my heart is deeply embedded in the Oromo people, I feel blessed to be adopted by you.”