brain cancer with wholefoods and natural therapies has admitted she never
had the disease.
Belle Gibson has confessed in an interview with Australian Women’s Weekly:
"None of it's true."
"I don’t want forgiveness. I just think (speaking out) was the responsible thing
to do. Above anything, I would like people to say, 'OK, she's human'."
The 23-year-old's "wellness" empire, which included a best-selling mobile
phone app called The Whole Pantry and a website and recipe book of the
same name, is now foundering in the face of a fierce public backlash over her
hoax.
Questions were already being raised about the blogger's claims when it
emerged she had failed to donate thousands of dollars to charity she had
promised with the cash raised through her success.
Gibson then revealed she had been "wrongly" diagnosed with other cancers
she claimed to have including in her blood, spleen and liver, but continued to
maintain her brain cancer was real.
She also refused to show journalists medical records or any proof to back her
claims she had healed her brain cancer through diet and natural treatments
alone.
The Women’s Weekly interview is the first time Gibson has spoken to the
media since her cancer claims began to unravel.
The magazine said: "During the interviews, whenever challenged, Belle cried
easily and muddled her words.
"She says she is passionate about avoiding gluten, dairy and coffee, but
doesn’t really understand how cancer works."
Many of her millions of online followers have turned on her, feeling betrayed
by her false claims, while critics argue she has put genuine cancer sufferers
in danger by suggesting diet alone could successfully treat them.
Gibson is now being investigated by consumer affairs, while Apple has
stopped offering her app for download, and Penguin has halted publication of
her recipe book.
Meanwhile, the website news.com.au, which appears to have obtained more of
the Women's Weekly interview, said she fails to explain in detail why she had
lied about her condition but refers to her "troubled" childhood.
Gibson, who has been in hiding since her lies were exposed, says the public
backlash against her has been “horrible”.
“In the last two years I have worked every single day living and raising up an
online community of people who supported each other.
"I understand the confusion and the suspicion, but I also know that people
need to draw a line in the sand where they still treat someone with some level
of respect or humility - and I have not been receiving that," she is quoted as
saying.
Her false illness claims date back to 2009, when she claimed on an internet
forum to have undergone multiple heart surgeries and to have died on the
operating table.
The media has also faced criticism for running articles about Gibson without
checking her claims.
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