What Happened To The Real Belle Gibson & Where She Is Today

This text incorporates SPOILERS for Apple Cider Vinegar!

The miniseries Apple Cider Vinegar tells the true-ish story of Australian scammer Belle Gibson’s life between 2009 and 2015, elevating the questions of what occurred after reporters uncovered her lies. Netflix has gained a fame for its true crime content material, and Apple Cider Vinegar is a good addition to its catalog. The present starring Kaitlyn Dever is similar to Netflix’s Inventing Anna, as they each observe a fairly younger lady who lied and ripped folks off to get forward.

Nonetheless, the 2025 miniseries has extra darkish humor and an edgy tone to the story that has led to positive reviews for Apple Cider Vinegar. The present diverges from the norm in a single different approach as nicely. Although it’s primarily based on a real story, the collection doesn’t embody slides on the finish which reveal the characters’ destiny after Gibson is uncovered. Nonetheless, since 2015, Gibson has gone to court docket, evaded penalties, and began going by a distinct title.

Apple Cider Vinegar was impressed by the true crime e-book The Girl Who Fooled The World by Beau Donelly and Nick Toscano.

Belle Gibson Admitted To Mendacity About Her Most cancers Claims In 2015

Penguin Random Home Stopped Printing The Complete Pantry

After getting uncovered by investigative journalists Beau Donelly and Nick Toscano in The Sydney Morning Herald, Belle Gibson offered The Australian Women’s Weekly with an unique interview the place she admitted to mendacity about her most cancers claims for the primary time ever. When requested immediately whether or not she had most cancers beforehand or within the current, she mentioned, “No, none off it’s true.” Nonetheless, the precise statements within the article are frustratingly contradictory and push blame onto others.

The largest takeaway from The Australian Girls’s Weekly interview is that Belle Gibson is an unreliable narrator whose phrases can’t be trusted.

In the identical interview, Belle Gibson claims she obtained most cancers diagnoses in 2009 and 2014, explaining it as one thing she held true about herself, alongside being tall, blonde, and having hazel eyes. She gives zero concrete or verifiable particulars about her alleged diagnoses, and Clair Weaver states that Gibson’s mates reached out to warn of her lies. The scammer additionally makes many statements within the interview that scream of exaggeration. The largest takeaway from the Girls’s Weekly interview is that Belle Gibson is an unreliable narrator whose phrases can’t be trusted.

Belle Gibson Was Fined Nearly $410,000 For The False Claims About Her Donations To Charity

Belle Gibson Nonetheless Owes Cash To The Australian Authorities

On the finish of the Netflix miniseries, the Apple Cider Vinegar predominant character cheekily tells the viewers that they will go google what occurred subsequent, somewhat than doing the entire “what occurred after” section that’s conventional in true crime TV shows. It seems, the Australian authorities lastly took Belle Gibson to court docket in 2017.

Kaitlyn Dever in Apple Cider Vinegar next to a fresh ripe tomato

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Gibson went earlier than the Australian Federal Court docket for breaking client legal guidelines. She’d promised to to donate proceeds from her The Complete Pantry e-book and app. Nonetheless, the charities and proclaimed recipients didn’t have any document of her donations. In line with the Herald Sun, the Australian courts hit her with these fines (in AUD):

$90,000 for 2 claims that she donated cash to charities from the corporate and app gross sales
$150,000 for conning the household of Joshua Schwarz, a nine-year-old baby who died of a terminal mind tumor. She’d promised proceeds from The Complete Pantry would generate revenue for his household.
$30,000 for a Mom’s Day promotion the place she promised funds can be donated to The 2H mission and the Bumi Sehat Basis
$50,000 for false claims about charitable donations when launching The Complete Pantry

Added collectively, her fines had been $410,000 AUD, which is roughly $256,500 USD. That is a lot lower than the $1.1 million AUD she may have confronted. The decide barred her from saying that she was recognized with mind most cancers earlier than Could 24, 2016, and she will’t say that she cured her most cancers by rejecting standard medication. Nonetheless, they gave her leniency in a single huge approach – Belle Gibson wasn’t required to make a public apology.

Regardless of the fines, Gibson wouldn’t pay, in accordance with Australian Broadcasting Corporation, claiming that she couldn’t afford to pay the $410,000. Nonetheless, the patron watchdog discovered that she’d spent $91,000 between 2017 and 2019 on issues like garments and touring to Bali and Africa. In 2021, the Victorian Sheriff’s workplace raided her home below a seizure and sale warrant to recooperate a number of the excellent fines, which have reached over $500,000 AUD due to penalties and curiosity (through Australian Broadcasting Corporation). Sadly, as of the time of Apple Cider Vinegar’s launch, she hadn’t paid something, in accordance with the Herald Sun.

Belle Gibson Has Largely Stayed Out Of The Public Eye Since Her Scandal

Belle Gibson’s Precise Whereabouts Are Unknown

Kaitlyn Dever as Belle chewing on her thumb and looking at a computer screen in Apple Cider Vinegar

For the reason that information of Belle Gibson’s rip-off broke in 2015, the fraudster has maintained a personal life. In 2020, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation reported that Gibson had built-in herself into the Etheopia’s Oromo group in Melbourne, Australia, going by the title Sabontu. Though she’d been concerned since 2016, the group was allegedly unaware of her id till January 2020. Nonetheless, in accordance with The Australian Women’s Weekly, the chief of the group requested her to go away in 2021 after studying her id, claiming to the publication that she was “exploiting the great coronary heart of the folks in our group.”

The book covers for American Sherlock by Kate Winkler Dawson, Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil by John Berendt, and The People Who Eat Darkness by Richard Lloyd Parry.

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It’s unclear what she’s been doing since leaving the Oromo group. In February 2024, A Present Affair caught up along with her when she was at a fuel station and residing within the Northern Suberbs of Australia. When requested in regards to the superb by the information reporter, she claimed to A Current Affair that she hadn’t paid her superb as a result of she couldn’t afford it, and she or he refused to reply the questions on whether or not her victims deserved an apology. Primarily based on her need to stay out of the general public eye, it’s extremely unlikely she is going to ever touch upon Netflix’s Apple Cider Vinegar.