Belle Gibson: A Spoonful of Vinegar

Accountability can be uncomfortable. But I can tell you what feels worse – living with an apology you’ve held onto for over a decade. Watching Apple Cider Vinegar starring Kaitlyn Dever on Netflix this past week has brought up a cascade of emotions. The new series follows the story of Belle Gibson – the woman who fooled the world – as exposed by journalists Beau Donnelly and Nick Toscano from The Age, and in the book of the same name. For those who don’t know of her, Belle was one of the first ‘wellness influencers’, leveraging her many cancer diagnoses to inspire her followers to live a holistic life, through her Instagram, app and book The Whole Pantry. Only Belle didn’t have cancer. It was all a lie.

KAITLYN DEVER AS BELLE GIBSON IN APPLE CIDER VINEGAR / NETFLIX – IN A REPLICA OF OUR PHOTO SHOOT.

The world of wellness was a burgeoning groundswell of healthy eating, superfoods and supplements in 2014, usually touted by thin white women. The beautifully curated Instagram feeds of these new coconut-and-cacao-coated celebrities sold us empowerment – they sold us hope, and the alluring promise of eternal health at the bottom of a sugar-free smoothie cup. ‘Health coaches’ were starting to pop up, often after ‘training’ online at the US-based Institute of Integrative Nutrition (IIN). I say ‘training’, because the course is in no way designed to make its graduates qualified to give health advice. Their T&Cs explicitly state that “health coaches are not doctors, nutritionists, or dieticians and you acknowledge that, insofar as the Services involve the teaching or dissemination of  information about matters concerning health or wellness, such information is not meant to serve as medical advice to you or anyone else and you should not use any Services as a preventative health measure, for purposes of health assessment, or to diagnose or treat any health issues”. I’m not sure how many read the fine print. Many well-known bloggers and influencers came from IIN, including celebrity chef turned conspiracy theorist Pete Evans and Jess Ainscough. If you’ve watched Apple Cider Vinegar, the character Milla is based on Jess, a Sunshine Coast journalist known as ‘The Wellness Warrior’. I met Jess a few times at events; she was sweet, gentle and radiated kindness. The difference being between her and Belle though, is that Jess actually did have cancer. As did her mother. And tragically no amount of juicing or coffee enemas saved either of them. 

It was June 2014 when we started working on our main feature for the Spring Issue 24 of Peppermint. We decided Belle was to be on our cover, as well as being part of our ‘Food For Thought’ main feature. We were as enamored with Belle as everyone else. She was charismatic, confident and oh-so-inspiring. We sent her a list of interview questions and asked her to talk about her app and her community. Admittedly we were slightly uncomfortable about centering the story on her actual illness and what she was doing to ‘treat’ it. The reality is that the app was really good – the photos and recipes were beautiful and meticulously created. The answers came back and we were a little… disappointed. Confused. She spoke at length about the technical aspects of the app. There was no heart and soul. Hindsight is 20/20, hey? We should have stopped there. Instead we went back to Belle and asked if she could possibly include some more about her community, the recipes, her story. This time it came back with very different answers – it was full of emotive stories of her upbringing, wellness claims, sweeping declarations of charity donations, building schools, of creating a “mini revolution”. “Our love and hands are all over the globe”, she gushed. I’ll give her one thing; she was great with words. 

BELLE GIBSON PHOTOGRAPHED BY BROOKE HOLM FOR PEPPERMINT MAGAZINE 2014

We sent photographer Brooke Holm to take the images; Belle had a rash on her neck that day and she told Brooke it was because of the cancer. My memory is murky, (it was more than ten years ago) but I am sure it was either the night of the shoot or only a few days later that Belle posted the now infamous ‘pink balloons’ post. “With frustration and ache in my heart // my beautiful, gamechanging community, it hurts me to find space tonight to let you all know with love and strength that I’ve been diagnosed with a third and forth (sic) cancer.” The post read like a goodbye. My editor Bec and I sat in tears. Why did she go through with the shoot, when she obviously had more pressing issues going on? We were just so incredibly heartbroken for her. And what would this mean for our story? Should we remove it? We were literally about to go to print and the last thing we wanted to be doing was trying to get Belle to finish a story when that should have been the least of her worries. We emailed her and sent her our love and asked if she would like us to cancel the story – for now, at the very least. She was adamant that we continued. She said it would be her legacy for her community. We felt ill – what if she wasn’t around to see it being published? We were worried that if she didn’t make it that far (which was the impression she gave), it would seem insensitive or like we were capitalising on her impending death. No, said Belle, this needs to go ahead, it’s important. Oh, the pressure.

Not long after, Belle posted that she was taking some time offline to be with her son, given the latest revelations. It was also around the time the issue came out. She was thrilled with the story, she had said. Then she sent us an email saying she was secretly in the US at Apple, working on the upcoming Apple Watch launch. She sent us a photo of copies of the magazines on the boardroom table at Apple. We were excited to see that… but also conflicted. Why was she not spending time with her son like she said? When her time was apparently limited? Her followers were inundating her posts with love and healing wishes while she spent this crucial time with her son. But we knew she was at Apple. That was uncomfortable to say the least.

When the story started to break around eight months later, we were mortified. HORRIFIED. The magazine was not in newsagents by that point thankfully but we removed any sales from our website and wrote a statement saying we did not condone her actions. Beau and Nick mentioned in their book that they had used Peppermint as one of their resources. A minor consolation was that we hadn’t written the story ourselves, we gave Belle all the space she wanted (which ended up being four pages) for her own first-person words. I mean, it was meant to be her legacy. But that also meant she had carte blanche to expand her lies. And that she did. 

We hadn’t had any doubts about her story – I mean, why would we? There were certainly instances where we thought she acted a little odd, but who were we to judge how someone living (or dying) with cancer should act? Should we have asked for her proof of her cancer? I don’t believe so. It’s not something I would do now, let alone back then. The difference is however, we didn’t have proof that she had successfully treated her cancer with her ‘whole life’ protocol, as she claimed. That’s the bit where the wheels fall off. 

I know she fooled everyone. I know that everyone who followed her online or crossed paths with her, who downloaded her app, who bought her book, who read our story, was conned and lied to. It was an alluring story – we all wanted it to be true. However, we should never have printed a story that even touched on such a subject. The lying was absolutely despicable, and the false hope she sold others, particularly those with cancer. But the lies about her cancer, which were unforgiveable, is not the only pain point for me personally, it’s that we – I – published a story about alternative therapies and cancer in general. It wasn’t just Belle making these claims, there have been and continue to be many others that make similar false assertions, preying on people in their most vulnerable state. Jess was as much a victim herself, believing and then on-selling the unqualified, unsupported idea that detoxes and superfoods were more effective than evidence-based medical treatment. 

The ‘food is medicine’ doctrine is complicated and misguided; health itself is nuanced and not that simple. It leans on the ‘appeal to nature fallacy’, where it’s perceived that something is ‘good’ because it’s ‘natural’, or ‘bad’ because it’s ‘unnatural’. Complementary therapies have their place for sure, as do lifestyle, food and exercise interventions – of course. But let’s be clear: we’re not talking about drinking celery juice to cure acne here. We’re talking about life or death. It was a different time then, to be sure, but I also don’t believe that’s an excuse. Those of us immersed in that heady, health-inspired world back then can easily say ‘but we all were hoodwinked’ – well, sorry to break the bliss ball bubble but there was a whole world of science and medicine outside of our rustic-filtered Instagram universe that firmly disagreed. 

I would also argue that things haven’t changed much, in fact I would say that disinformation, misinformation and pseudoscience is almost more of a problem now that it ever was. The social media landscape (and even certain governments) are now flooded with unqualified influencers, spruiking a multitude of first-person, unscientific claims. Anecdotal evidence is often more powerful than scientific evidence – it taps into our emotional responses and desire for connectivity. It builds and supports confirmation bias, and simplifies the world around us. We love stories – they unite us.  

KAITLYN DEVER AS BELLE GIBSON IN APPLE CIDER VINEGAR / NETFLIX – IN A REPLICA OF OUR COVER WITH A MADE-UP MASTHEAD TITLE ‘CLEAN & RAW’.

Seeing our cover replicated on Apple Cider Vinegar (albeit with a different masthead, obviously designed to get around needing a release signed by us) sent me into a tailspin. I don’t want to be tied up with Belle Gibson, and it gave me a shock to say the least. But the reality is, we published that. It exists. We can’t hide that fact. And I hate it. “Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better,” Maya Angelou famously said. Well, to me that means being accountable and saying sorry. And I am SO, so sorry. We remained quiet when all the revelations hit in 2015; we should have spoken out. We felt immensely sick about it all. As a teeny independent company, we didn’t know what the consequences might be. It was scary. Worst still, the ultimate consequences may have been that someone, even one person, might have taken inspiration from our story. It’s always played heavily on my mind and heart. Especially so as my beliefs and knowledge have changed over the last ten years. Apologies certainly don’t remove our culpability, but if we don’t own up and take ownership of our own part in life, then how do we grow and learn?

So, how can I counter that uncomfortable part of our history? The best I can do now is to try and direct readers to experts who can help us all wade through the soup of misinformation, which seems more important than ever given the current state of global affairs. Health and wellness, however that may be defined, is so crucial, but truly inclusive healthcare is a complex stew of multi-faceted, intersectional practices and services. Evidence-based natural therapies can co-exist with mainstream medicine. Media literacy is key; there’s a few people and accounts below to get you started. 

Something Belle did say in our story I can personally get on board with: “I don’t get out of bed in the morning and feel that I inspired that change. I just did the hustling; I brought everyone together to a collective space where I communicate authentically about what we’re universally experiencing, learning about or appreciating”. Same Belle, same. I had always hoped this space would be a place of learning, inspiration and authenticity. And that means owning up when we – or I – get it wrong. It means knowing better, and doing better. 

We love stories too, here at Peppermint. They unite and inspire us. I can’t erase any previous pages, but I can make sure all future chapters tell stories of hope AND truth. Of kindness AND credibility. As they say, you can catch more flies with honey than with vinegar.    

Kelley / Peppermint Founder and Editor-in-chief

RESOURCES

Danielle Shine

Accredited Practising Dietitian (MNutr&Diet), Nutritionist (BNutr) and PhD candidate researching nutrition misinformation on social media. Listen to Danielle chat with Derek Beres (co-founder and host of Conspirituality podcast) on Clarity Lab – ‘3 Dangers of Nutrition Misinformation’.

Dr Andrea Love

Biomedical Scientist, Immunologist & Microbiologist, Science and Health Educator. Dr Andrea says “In a world of wellness pseudoscience, echo chambers driven by media outlets and social media algorithms, and a concerted attack on scientific integrity and literacy, there is a critical need for fact-based science and health information”.

Dr Jonathan N Stea

Dr Jonathan N. Stea, Ph.D., R. Psych., is a full-time practicing clinical psychologist and adjunct assistant professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of Calgary. He is the author of Mind the Science: Saving Your Mental Health from the Wellness Industry – “A takedown of mental health misinformation and pseudoscience to educate and embolden readers who wish to make informed decisions about their mental health.”

Dr Dan Wilson / Debunk The Funk

Dr Dan has a Ph.D. in molecular biology. He ‘debunks bad science and makes good science accessible’ on his podcast and Youtube channel.

Conspirituality 

A journalist, a cult researcher, and a philosophical skeptic discuss the stories, cognitive dissonances, and cultic dynamics tearing through the yoga, wellness, and new spirituality worlds.

Dr Raven Baxter / The Science Maven

A molecular biologist helping people and companies learn and share science, for a scientifically engaged world. Dr Raven is “on a mission to make the whole world scientifically literate”.

Dr Emma Beckett

B Biomedical Science (Hons I), G Cert Human Nutrition, G Dip Clinical Epidemiology, Masters (Science Management), PhD (Food Science), Registered Nutritionist. Dr Emma is the author of You Are More Than What You Eat: Science, Nutrition and a Perfectly Imperfect Approach to Eating. Dr Emma says that ‘the food and nutrition space is full of misinformation, marketing and hype, so she dedicates a large amount of time to sharing no-nonsense nutrition information in the media and on her social media’.

Dr Jessica Stokes-Parish

ICU Nurse and educator, RN, PhD, Masters in Nursing. “Critiquing science & wellness content, promoting public health, & helping you spot red flags online.”. Dr Jessica developed CRABS – The Credibility Framework: a framework designed to help you scan whatever you are reading, scholarly or non-scholarly, and identify anything that might need further consideration.