Apple Cider Vinegar series about Instagram guru who faked cancer
Apple Cider Vinegar dramatizes the story of Belle Gibson, an Instagram influencer who falsely claimed to cure cancer to promote wellness products.
A new Netflix miniseries tells the story of an Australian influencer who lied about having a terminal illness to promote alternative treatments. Back in 2013, the amazing survival story made headlines when the young woman launched what would become a best-selling wellness program with advice on how she beat cancer, reported by BBC.
Just four years ago, in 2009, Australian blogger Belle Gibson, then 20, was diagnosed with malignant brain cancer and told herself she had six weeks to live, four months at most. However, she claimed she decided to stop chemotherapy and radiotherapy and instead began to seek out methods to heal herself naturally.
Netflix series about a fraud
After garnering 200,000 online fans on Instagram who eagerly followed her recovery journey, she then launched a best-selling wellness and nutrition program and then a cookbook called The Whole Pantry, in which her diet cured her of a terminal illness. But it was all a lie.
Gibson was never diagnosed with brain cancer, and “cancer in my blood, spleen, brain, uterus and liver,” which she later claimed she had also been diagnosed with in an Instagram post in 2014, when rumors first began to surface in Australian media that she might be a fraud.
Glossy Netflix miniseries
This obfuscation of reality is the basis of “Cider Vinegar,” a glossy Netflix miniseries that dramatizes the entire scandal, released this week. Showrunner Samantha Strauss relies on Gibson’s shaky relationship with the truth in the way she tells the story. The miniseries intentionally makes it difficult to understand what really happened. Elle Australia actually named her the most inspiring woman you’ve met this year, and in 2014, Cosmopolitan awarded her the “Fun, Fearless Woman” award.
