I was pals with Apple Cider Vinegar’s Belle Gibson but exposed her for the liar she was – her ‘seizures’ were a red flag
WHEN Chanelle McAuliffe struck up a friendship with Belle Gibson in October 2014, she thought she’d found a kindred spirit.
Despite Belle’s, 32, supposed terminal cancer diagnosis and the looming dread that she might not reach her next birthday, she was full of ambition – and that inspired Chanelle, 37.
Little did Chanelle know, it was all a lie.
Belle, who at the time was running Australia’s most known wellness account by claiming she’d curated a natural healing lifestyle that cured her of deadly brain cancer, had never been diagnosed with the deadly illness.
The incredible story of the world’s most devious con-woman and how her fraudulent business was finally uncovered was made into a Netflix series called Apple Cider Vinegar, which hit the platform earlier this month.
The Melbourne mum-of-one’s Instagram account, Healing Belle, had more than 300,000 followers by the time she was eventually caught out.
The influencer honed in on the fear and bewilderment of her followers and friends – including Chanelle.
Most of her followers were people genuinely battling terminal cancer, and she was fraudulently telling them to drink green juices and consume organic foods to cure themselves.
Her mantra? Western medicine, such as chemotherapy, could not cure you.
She kept up the facade of her supposed deadly illness by faking seizures, claiming her ‘cancer’ was spreading and telling people: “I’m going to die soon anyway.”
Initially, Chanelle believed it all.
But just a few months into their friendship, after she’d watched Belle roll around on the floor having a ‘seizure’ before miraculously jumping to her feet and wiping saliva from her mouth, alarm bells started to chime.
It was in that moment she realised her new pal was conning millions of people into believing she had terminal cancer — and was making hundreds of thousands of pounds in the process.
“I felt really sick in my stomach for what I had just seen,” Chanelle revealed in an exclusive interview with Fabulous.
“This is the point where red flags really started to pop up for me.
“I’ve always been good at spotting red flags as my dad was a cop. Things just weren’t adding up.”
How it all unraveled for cancer faker Belle Gibson
Australian blogger Belle Gibson fell from grace when it was revealed she lied about having terminal brain cancer.
2009 – Gibson, a single mom, rises to fame as a wellness influencer after claiming she overcame terminal brain cancer with dietary and lifestyle changes
August 2013 – Gibson launches The Whole Pantry mobile app
July 2014 – Gibson says her brain cancer spread to her blood, spleen, uterus, and liver
October 2014 – Gibson publishes her recipe book
2015 – Melbourne-based newspaper reporters Nick Toscano and Beau Donelly start to investigate Gibson’s health claims after an anonymous tip
March 2015 – Roscano and Donelly expose Gibson’s false public claims of charity donations in a story with the Sydney Morning Herald and the Whole Pantry app is removed from the app store
April 2015 – Gibson admits the truth in an interview with Australian Women’s Weekly
June 2015 – Gibson insists she had no bad intentions in an interview with 60 Minutes Australia
September 2017 – Federal court judge orders Gibson to pay $410,000 for her false claims of charity donations
February 6, 2025 – Apple Cider Vinegar, based on Gibson’s story, is released on Netflix
Belle set up her Instagram account in 2013, revealing in her first post that four years earlier she had been diagnosed with “malignant brain cancer” and was given “six weeks, four months tops” to live.
Then 21-years-old, she also claimed on social media and in interviews to have been diagnosed with blood, spleen, uterine, liver and kidney cancers.
Instead of undergoing chemotherapy or radiation for the fake diagnosis, Belle claimed she was taking an all-natural approach.
She told her followers that she had cured herself of cancer by eating natural, healthy foods – and she began sharing whole food recipes on the social media platform.
With each post came a wave of new followers from all over the globe.
Many of these were women fighting cancer and shunning much-needed medical intervention such as chemotherapy and radiotherapy to follow Belle’s advice.
They thought that as Belle had beaten stage four brain cancer with healthy food, they could too.
Within a year, her success saw her open a paid-for app called The Whole Pantry, which listed a series of recipes supposedly designed to beat cancer.
I started to question everything, to go over it all in my mind. She always looked so well, she never looked sick
Chanelle McAuliffe
Her popular app, which cost $3.79, was downloaded over 300,000 times in 2014 and was set to be one of the first apps available on the Apple Watch at its 2015 launch.
On the back of her tech venture, she received an offer from industry giant Apple and a publishing deal with Penguin worth a reported £216,000.
As her brand grew, Belle won more hearts by saying the profits from her books and lavish fundraisers were going to cancer charities, hospitals and community projects.
A few days after the seizure, Belle took to Instagram to tell her followers her cancer had spread.
I started to think about times where she had gone on tanning beds and another time when we went to a nightclub and she was ordering shots and drinks
Chanelle McAuliffe
Chanelle found it weird that she found out such serious news about her mate on social media.
“I started to question everything, to go over it all in my mind,” she says.
“She always looked so well, she never looked sick.
“I started to think about times where she had gone on tanning beds and another time when we went to a nightclub and she was ordering shots and drinks.
I’m going to die soon anyway. Why not have some fun?
Belle Gibson
“I said to Belle, ‘This is not good’. But she said, ‘I’m going to die soon anyway. Why not have some fun?’
“Those weren’t things she was sharing with her online community. Things just didn’t add up for me.”
Chanelle confided in a close friend that she was starting to doubt that Belle was telling the truth and the pal revealed he had been having his own doubts too.
So, the pair drove to Belle’s house unannounced that evening to confront her.
“She looked bewildered and I asked her to go get some medical documents or scans – any type of medical evidence – that she would have in her house,” Chanelle recalls.
“She claimed she didn’t hold on to anything like that at home because it ‘had negative energy’, so I asked her which hospital she went to get diagnosed at and she said she hadn’t been, that a doctor came to her house.
“She was defensive. But the more she spoke, the more it became clear it was all a lie.”
Chanelle adds: “She was profiting from a web of lies she was spinning by targeting vulnerable people and it just made my blood boil.
She was profiting from a web of lies she was spinning by targeting vulnerable people and it just made my blood boil
Chanelle McAuliffe
“She was misleading people on such a major level – they were choosing to eat fruit and veg over medical treatment.
“I asked her if she was ready to come forward and she got really aggressive and told me to ‘f**k off’.”
Chanelle then made it her mission to unravel what Belle was doing and went to police, journalists and lawyers.
She continues: “With no proof, nobody would believe me. A lawyer accused me of defaming her. I couldn’t sleep.
For six months to a year, I was fighting to get her lies exposed. I was just so hell-bent on stopping her
Chanelle McAuliffe
“I knew someone was out there doing harm though, so I couldn’t stop.
“For six months to a year, I was fighting to get her lies exposed. I spoke to lawyers and that cost me money. I spent hours co-working with journalists.
“I was just so hell-bent on stopping her.”
In early 2015, an Australian paper revealed that none of the charities Belle had claimed to donate to had ever received the money.
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Instead, she’d spent it on a luxury car, an upmarket townhouse, designer clothes and cosmetic dental procedures.
Finally, in April 2015 after two years of spewing the lies online, Belle finally came clean in a 2015 Australian Women’s Weekly interview.
“None of it’s true,” she confessed.
“I don’t want forgiveness.”
None of it’s true
Belle Gibson
She didn’t apologise during the baffling interview – and gave a bizarrely vague and muddled excuse when she mentioned her “troubled” childhood.
She was fined £240,000 by the Federal Court in 2017 for lying about having cancer while promoting her app and cookbook.
But she later appeared in court claiming she was unable to pay the fine.
She is now believed to owe more than £257,000 in fines, penalties and interest yet still lives in Melbourne as a free woman, keeping out of the spotlight.
Chanelle says: “I feel for Belle’s victims, the cancer survivors who have never seen any justice . . . and the charities that were ripped off.
“She will always be a wolf in sheep’s clothing.”