It’s hard to think of a more blatant exploitation of vulnerable people than someone faking they have cancer to grow a social media following of millions.
That’s what the Australian convicted scammer Belle Gibson did in the early 2010s. She claimed to have beaten brain cancer with the support of a healthy diet. She never had any such diagnosis. She launched a recipe app with the support of Apple and published a cookbook. She raised money for several charities but donated just a tiny proportion to those she’d promised money to.
The outing of Gibson came slowly at first. There were the allegations of charity fraud published in The Age, which subsequently turned to Gibson’s followers questioning her diagnosis and later to an awkward, infamous interview with 60 Minutes. Australia was outraged. How could anyone be so cruel and opportunistic? How could anyone carry a lie for so long? And how could others – from Apple to her publisher and those who profiled and celebrated her along the way – not have done more basic fact-checking to unearth the monumental lie?
That’s why the Netflix depiction of the story is so surprising in the wide range of emotions it leaves you feeling every episode, the least of which is actually anger.
Created by Samantha Strauss, Apple Cidar Vinegar is skillfully told, albeit with embellishments, which will have you Googling along the way to try and determine what was and was not created in the writers room. Most episodes start with a different character declaring “this is a true story based on a lie”. From episode one it’s made clear that Gibson did not receive any payment for the recreation of the story.
But what is most remarkable about this series is how it weaves in multiple stories about those who truly are suffering from cancer, including the fictionalised influencer Milla Blake (played by Alycia Debnam-Carer) whose story is also eerily familiar, given the tragic real-life events that inspired the character. There is Milla’s mother, Tamara (Susie Porter), and Lucy (Tilda Cobjam-harvey) who is taken in by Gibson’s wellness strategies. There is the 8-year-old Hunter, diagnosed with a malignant brain tumour, whose mother is working with Gibson to raise money for his surgery through Gibson’s promised charity donations.
Rarely do we see such multiple stories of cancer depicted in one series, and from multiple angles, including the perspectives of parents, children and friends, as well as the individual suffering.
At the heart of all of it is the critical message on the dangers of alternative therapies and those who’ll cruelly seek to exploit people at their most vulnerable. We see how enticing such therapies are, notably rejecting chemotherapy and science-backed treatments that poison cancer cells over food-based plans and fads that promise (according to those backing them) to nurture and heal.
There’s a powerful message in this series that is particularly timely, especially given recent events in the United States. In the days before and after the series first aired, the US pulled out of the World Health Organisation and anointed Robert F Kennedy Jr. to secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS), despite him holding public views that reject medical science, including on vaccines.
As such, this series could be the most important such series of the year.
Stories of cancer are incredibly relatable and personal and yet mostly avoided as the core plot lines of major television shows — perhaps because they are simply so close to home. Of course, this series is sanitised. The characters are effortlessly beautiful. The landscapes are lush. The relationships are romanticised. All of it will keep you hooked and engaged. And if you don’t know the ending you may even, for moment, get caught on the fantasy of avoiding science in favour of something much more aesthetically pure.
More remarkable is that you may even finish the series not completely hating Belle Gibson, the woman who was once “the most hated woman in Australia.” You may hold space for the personal trauma she’s experienced – at least from what’s presented in this series – and the comfort she seemingly found in social media likes and followers.
The sad reality of our current times is that a Belle Gibson of 2025 may barely create headlines. Such is the proliferation of health misinformation now, the allure of influencers who may or may not have the health issues they claim to be able to treat, and the ever more dangerous battle for attention online.