“Apple Cider Vinegar” bills itself as a “true-ish story based on a lie, about the rise and fall of a wellness empire,” but centers its focus on a very real conwoman.
Belle Gibson, who is portrayed in the series by Kaitlyn Dever, is in fact, a real person whose social media following and wellness business is based on a fake cancer diagnosis.
Following Gibson’s rise as a wellness influencer as well as her fall from grace, “Apple Cider Vinegar” portrays a handful of true consequences — down to Gibson’s damning “60 Minutes” interview in a hot pink turtleneck — while crafting some new characters for the Netflix series.
Keep on reading for a full breakdown of what is real and what is made up in “Apple Cider Vinegar.”
Is Belle Gibson a real person?
Yes, Gibson is a real person who used a fake cancer diagnosis to grow her social media following, eventually expanding her The Whole Pantry business to include an app and cookbook published by Penguin, leading her to win Cosmopolitan’s “Fun, Fearless Female” award.
She claimed that healthy eating and other wellness adjacent activities helped cure her brain cancer and other health issues. Moreover, she was raising money for charities that were never received by the organizations. She told Australian Women’s Weekly in April 2015 that “none of it’s true.”
Gibson’s story is documented in a book titled “The Woman Who Fooled the World,” written by Australian journalists Beau Donelly and Nick Toscano.
What happened to Belle Gibson?
Gibson was found guilty of breaching five counts of consumer laws and was ordered to pay $410,000 to the state of Victoria for her false promises in 2017, according to the BBC. By 2021, a report from The Guardian reported that her unpaid fines led to her house being raided, and that her current fines stood at over $500,000.
Her whereabouts are not currently known.
Why did “Apple Cider Vinegar” use Belle’s real name?
Show creator Samantha Strauss told TheWrap there was no legal concern to use Belle’s real name, and that she felt fine about it, morally.
Is Milla a real person?
No, Alycia Debnam-Carey’s character is not based on one real person, according to Strauss. She is an “amalgamation of lots of people” intended to “juxtapose Belle’s story,” per Strauss.
There is speculation, however, that the character of Milla was inspired by late wellness blogger Jessica Ainscough, who was known as the “wellness warrior.” Like Milla, Ainscough was an advocate of alternative treatments for cancer, including Mexico’s Gerson Institute, which includes juices and you guessed it, coffee enemas. Despite promoting this treatment to her followers, she died of cancer at age 30.
Which other characters are real and which are made up?
- Clive: Real
- Ashley Zukerman’s Clive is based on Belle’s real-life, partner, Clive, who also had no involvement in “Apple Cider Vinegar.”
- Chanelle: Real
- Chanelle (Aisha Dee) is based on her former friend, Chanelle McAuliffe.
- Justin: Real-ish
- Justin (Mark Coles Smith) and Sean (Richard Davies) are based on Donelly and Toscano, who wrote “The Woman Who Fooled the World.” The real Justin was not married to a cancer patient, though.
- Lucy: Made up
- Lucy (Tilda Cobham-Hervey) is not based on one real person, but instead is invented to represent “a real-life person … someone that we know … that is at the coalface of medicine and has a diagnosis … who could have fallen victim to Belle,” according to Strauss.
- Julie: Real
- Julie (Catherine McClements) is loosely based on Belle’s publisher, Julie.
