For those asking where is Belle Gibson now, we look at the whereabouts of the Australian blogger fined for exploiting her Instagram followers with a shocking deception.
Belle Gibson shot to fame after claiming to have cured her terminal brain cancer through healthy eating. The young, single mother wanted to share her secret to beating the tragic diagnosis, launching a hugely successful app and gaining a book deal too. However, her friends and fans began to question her symptoms and the claims she made about donating money to charity. Her life unravelled when the truth eventually came out and a court case ensued. After disappearing from the public eye, many wonder what happened to Belle Gibson in the aftermath of her deception.
Other high-profile criminals regularly have the public eager to know what happened to them - Richard Sackler was responsible for one of the worst opioid crises in American history, while Rachel Lee and Nick Prugo made the headlines with their spree of robberies targeting celebrity mansions.
Where is Belle Gibson now?
The current whereabouts of Belle Gibson are not known, although she is believed to still reside in the Melbourne area. It's unsurprising the former influencer has kept a low profile since her lies were exposed back in 2015.
In 2017 Belle was fined around £240,000 after being found guilty of five breaches of consumer law. She failed to attend any of the civil court hearings, and when notified of the figure of the fine emailed saying, "Thank you for the update. Much appreciated".
Justice Debbie Mortimer, the judge in the case, ordered the money should be given to "some or all" of the charity groups and individuals Gibson had previously promised she would donate to.
In both 2020 and 2021, Belle Gibson's house was reportedly raided in an attempt to recoup the fine which she had not yet paid - despite the fact that in 2019 she was reportedly spotted at Melbourne airport after spending thousands on a safari holiday.
More recently, the disgraced blogger had been spending time with the Oromo ethnic group in Melbourne. However, according to Daily Mail Australia, the Australian Oromo Community Association cut ties with Belle Gibson after learning about her past.
What did Belle Gibson do?
Belle Gibson claimed she had terminal brain cancer and had cured herself with healthy eating. Her story gained her fans around the world and hundreds of thousands of followers on social media, but it was later discovered that she never had the disease.
Belle claimed she had undergone traditional cancer treatments including chemotherapy and radiotherapy, before deciding to follow a clean eating programme instead.
In 2013, she launched the now-defunct @healing_belle Instagram account where she gained a large following through sharing her recipes. She soon started to profit from her story, launching an app called The Whole Pantry, which was full of recipes, and gaining a book deal too. Both of these have since been withdrawn.
She reportedly had 200,000 users downloading the app within the first month, and ranked number one in the App Store. Apple chose the app as Best App of 2013 in the Food and Drink category.
Then, in 2014, Belle claimed her cancer had returned, and this time it had spread. However, it was at this point that her story began to unravel.
Chanelle McAuliffe, a former friend of Belle Gibson, previously spoke to This Morning, revealing that she had once confronted her friend over a lack of cancer symptoms. She said, "Belle was very convincing in her conviction of being sick and having an illness... she would take on other people's symptoms. She would meet other people that had cancer and take on their symptoms and kind of use them as her own."
However, Chanelle noticed that Belle had been drinking 'excessive' amounts of alcohol and using sunbeds, which led to her suspicions. She added, "I had a family friend who passed away of cancer and I had witnessed their journey with it.
"So I was kind of aware of someone who is actually very sick with cancer and what that looks like. They get to the point where they are very frail and bedridden and Belle never presented those kind of symptoms."
After confronting her friend and asking her to provide evidence of her diagnosis, Chanelle realised that Belle had been lying. She said, "The more she spoke, it just kind of confirmed my suspicions. There was nothing she could come to the table with to make me believe that she in fact had cancer."
How was Belle Gibson caught?
Suspicions around Belle Gibson's claims began to rise around the time her book was released in 2014, when people grew suspicious about the money she claimed to have donated to charity.
Belle claimed to have donated money from the proceeds of her book and her app, and she had also raised some donations with the help of her Instagram followers. But following an investigation by Fairfax Media, it was discovered that none of the charities Belle had named had received a penny from her.
In addition, the preface for her book stated she had been "stable for two years now with no growth of the cancer", a claim that was inconsistent with what she had previously told other media outlets.
According to The Independent, investigative journalist Richard Guillatt was also highly suspicious of Gibson. His own wife had been diagnosed with cancer, and he felt sure there was something amiss with Gibson’s illness claims.
Speaking on the ITV documentary about the events surrounding Gibson's lies, Instagram’s Worst Con Artist, Guillatt says "I realised, if it’s a scam, it’s a really big scam,” he told the documentary. “She had hundreds of thousands of followers all around the world."
Gibson agreed to meet Guillatt for an interview, and claimed her doctor had diagnosed her with brain cancer which had then disappeared. However, she admitted to Guillatt she might never have had cancer at all.
In a recording of the meeting shared with ITV, Guillatt says "Christ almighty, Belle, you’re kidding, you actually don’t have cancer? This was just the last thing I expected…Belle Gibson just recanted on the record. She’s basically saying she can’t back up her cancer claims."
In April 2015, Belle was forced to admit that she had lied in an interview with the Australian Woman's Weekly. "I don't want forgiveness," she said. "I just think [speaking out] was the responsible thing to do. Above anything, I would like people to say, 'Okay, she's human.'"
Following her admission, Apple withdrew her app from its store and Apple Watch. Her accountants wound up her business, and her book was withdrawn from publication.
Elsewhere, true crime fans were left asking about the whereabouts of Griselda Blanco's children now, and what happened to her three husbands, after tuning into Netflix true-crime dramatisation, Griselda - Sofia Vergara puts in an excellent performance in the series.
