AN AUSTRALIAN HEALTH blogger who claimed to have cured her own brain cancer with diet and lifestyle has admitted she never had the disease.
Belle Gibson founded the wellness app The Whole Pantry and also produced a website and recipe book built up on her reputation. She has now confessed to her cancer claims being a lie.
“No. None of it’s true,” she tells The Australian Women’s Weekly magazine in an interview to be published tomorrow.
Gibson says that she isn’t looking for forgiveness:
I just think [speaking out] was the responsible thing to do. Above anything, I would like people to say, ‘Okay, she’s human.’
The 23-year-old rose to prominence in 2013 when she announced on social media that she had been healing her malignant brain cancer with healthy eating and alternative therapies.
Gibson began to grow a substantial following and garnered almost 200,000 followers on Instagram. All the photos have now been removed from the account and a number of her other social media accounts have also been closed.
Her website remains online.
The truth about the 23-year-old’s claims began to unravel last month when it was revealed that she hadn’t made a €217,000 donation to a cancer charity as promised.
Penguin have now stopped supplying her book and Apple have also dropped her app according News.com.au.
In her interview with The Australian Women’s Weekly, the magazine says that, “whenever challenged”, Gibson “cried easily and muddled her words”.
“She says she is passionate about avoiding gluten, dairy and coffee, but doesn’t really understand how cancer works,” they add.
Gibson has a four-year-old son and is still with her partner who reportedly declined to be interviewed.
News.com.au has seen the interview ahead of its publication and says the article speculates that Gibson suffers from Munchausen syndrome and feigns illness to get attention.
The blogger also speaks about her upbringing where she claims to have had to look after herself from the age of five.
To embed this post, copy the code below on your site
have your say