Belle Gibson is facing allegations a range of illnesses she professed to have overcome were false. Source: Supplied
INTERNET wellness sensation Belle Gibson has been unmasked as a Brisbane high school dropout whose inspirational story of cancer survival could have been a sham.
Investigations have uncovered that not only does the businesswoman now admit serious illnesses may have been misdiagnosed, but she may have misled people with claims of donating to charity “a large part of everything” she made.
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Her US publishers were last night seeking urgent clarification about the bona fides of their star recruit, whose Whole Pantry app was to have been one of the new Apple Watch’s default apps.
The 23-year-old mother of one who has been living in a rented $1 million apartment in an upmarket Melbourne bayside suburb was not at home yesterday.
In 2009, Ms Gibson first described how she had undergone multiple heart surgery operations and, during one, briefly died on the operating table.
She also claimed to have been told at the time by a doctor that she had terminal brain cancer with just four months to live.
In the same year, Gibson posted a message on her Facebook page declaring she had “stage two malignant tumour of the brain” – a diagnosis that would not be so serious.
Belle Gibson’s Whole Pantry app has been showcased on the Apple Watch. Source: Supplied
But it was this brain cancer diagnosis that led her to develop her app, which encourages healthy eating, positive thinking and a wholesome lifestyle.
The $3.79 app has since been downloaded more than 300,000 times.
From 2013, her social media posts have described multiple cases of seizures, brain swelling and various health ailments – including “cancer in my blood, spleen, brain, uterus, and liver”.
But when quizzed about the cancers by The Australian newspaper this week, Ms Gibson said she now believes she had been misdiagnosed in 2013.
After she was questioned, posts about her illnesses were deleted from her social networking pages.
Amid growing doubts over her story The Courier-Mail can reveal Ms Gibson is a Brisbane high school dropout who once worked as a trainee at catering supply company PFD Food Services – where staff described her as a “lost soul”.
“She was always a bit out there,” one former colleague said.
Ms Gibson tweeted in September 2009: @bellmneb: “Is a distinguished physcopath (sic).”
The following month she vented: “Obama won the nobel peace prize. This is more f***ed then (sic) the government giving me cancer.”
An Apple spokeswoman said yesterday it was “too early to say” if Ms Gibson’s products would be removed from the company’s App Store.
BELLE GIBSON: SOCIAL MEDIA ENTREPRENEUR
* Claims a healthy diet cured her terminal cancer but friends have now called that into question
* Started The Whole Pantry app in August 2013, downloaded 300,000 times
* The app featured on the new Apple Watch released this week
* Author of cookbook published by Penguin in October
* 197,000 followers on Instagram @healing—belle
Originally published as Wellness sensation or just a sick joke?