All language subtitles for The.Search.for.Instagrams.Worst.Con.Artist.S01E01.1080p.WEB.h264-EN

[violin music playing]

[police sirens wailing in the distance]

I was sitting at my desk
at The Australian and I'm sure

my jaw dropped open when I found it.

And that's when I realized if it's a scam,

it's a really big scam.

She had hundreds of thousands of followers
all around the world.

This girl has this deadly brain cancer
and she's healing herself.

She was curing her cancer using
natural foods and a natural lifestyle.

The Whole Pantry is the world's
first health, wellness and lifestyle app.

She found herself suddenly the author of
probably the most successful app

that the country had produced.

[Clair] Belle got a book deal.

Penguin knew this book was
going to be a huge success

so they were going to launch it worldwide.

What was it about her?

She just had this presence, had this way
of writing that really drew you in.

Wow. I don't know if I want to be this
woman or be this woman's best friend.

She was going to turn the world onto this
natural way of living.

The growth of her fame
and followers was just huge.

-Belle Gibson.
-The courageous Belle Gibson.

-Belle Gibson.
-Belle.

-Belle.
-Belle.

-Belle.
-Belle.

At no point did anybody go, "But hang on
is the story true?"

The story just set off a firestorm.

Belle is my baby sister.

If she did have cancer,
why wasn't I informed about it?

The things that I knew about her
were just all crumbling.

I was gobsmacked.

[Clair] People were appalled
and people hated her.

Every journalist in the country was hot
on this story.

Isn't it about time that
the truth came out?

I started to suspect that she was
committing charity fraud.

How can we believe anything you say now?

What happened? How did she get there?
What's in her world that made her do it?

There is no reason for me to lie.

I think she hurt a lot of people
a lot of families.

And some of them want you to go to jail.

Did people die?

Belle Gibson has broken down in tears
while being grilled in court.

They couldn't really care what she was
telling the truth about,

what she wasn't telling the truth about,

and the whole story, it didn't add up.

There were so many holes.

But there's more to this story
than meets the eye.

He said to me that I had
a stage 4 brain tumor

and that I had approximately
four months to live.

Nobody wants to live with the fear of
a terminal illness or dying.

My name is Richard Guilliatt.
I'm a journalist from Australia

and in 2014 I was a staff writer at
The Australian newspaper.

My wife had been diagnosed with cancer

and we had experienced how bewildering and
frightening that can be.

Once you went onto Google and
started researching that stuff,

you ended up in this kind of bewildering
conflicting information zone

and I just remember that time as being
extremely confusing and confronting.

I kept researching and I stumbled upon a
discussion online about Belle Gibson.

Well, to be perfectly honest,
I hadn't heard of Belle Gibson.

I was not a regular Instagram user
and I went onto her page

and she had a malignant brain tumor that
she was said to have had for

about five years, maybe a bit longer.

And she was told that she had
six weeks to live

and she had some chemotherapy
and it had made her terribly sick

and she decided to abandon the treatment

and she'd adopted this wellness and
natural living lifestyle.

So she was not only curing herself
of cancer but she was actually

just a model of mental
and physical well-being.

I just looked at this and was just
completely intrigued because

a malignant brain tumor is… medically
it's very very difficult to treat.

It's usually-- a highly malignant brain
tumor is a death sentence.

[ominous music]

When I first discovered Healing Belle
on Instagram,

she was talking about how she had had
brain cancer and things like that and…

immediately I was like,

"Cancer? [scoffs]

I have cancer." [chuckles]

I didn't know any other 19-year-olds that
had cancer and felt like they were dying

for most of their teenage years.

And the only people I really saw in the
hospital were really, like, older people.

So I felt really isolated in my journey,

so I started to turn to social media
to really find, like,

my community.

Or I guess I just wanted…

I wanted to be heard and I wanted support.

So I was just looking for someone to tell
me what I was going through was normal.

I think that social media

can honestly be as addictive

as cocaine or crack

because I was just so sucked into
Belle's life.

I just thought she was so courageous
and inspiring and…

immediately was just like, wow.
I don't know if I want to be this woman

or be this woman's best friend.

We had tapped into a really beautiful
network of people on our

online social media communities
and what we kept finding was

those in our community who were feeling
very unsupported and uninspired as well

but I feel I need to be doing more,
what can I be doing?

So in 2013, Belle Gibson was having
a huge impact on audiences.

She understood really well how to build
a personal brand.

She was ahead of the game when it comes
to being able to productize an audience

and turn that into revenue for a business.

That was really rare back then

and she really did it on her own.

Belle Gibson blew up overnight.
It was surreal.

It's not that different to someone that
becomes a celebrity overnight.

Like, suddenly you've got

a million people watching a piece of
content that you create.

Um, that's madness.

The Whole Pantry is the world's first
health, wellness and lifestyle app.

We fuse together whole food
recipe collection,

health, wellness and lifestyle guides.

[producer] And speak.

I probably signed up
as one of the first.

It was probably the first time that there
was something that was all in one place

I was in the dessert section where
I was often going.

When they told me I had cancer
it was, um…

It was a complete, complete shock

feeling like you've landed
in a foreign land.

The cancer community, one that you'd never
want a membership to be part of.

You never want an invite in but once
you are it's just full of super generous,

kind, thoughtful people.

The Whole Pantry app, something
to download to support a chick going

through terminal brain cancer.
So we wanted to see her succeed.

I-- I didn't have much money at the time
but I bought her app.

It was designed really beautifully and all
the food looked amazing.

There was nothing like that before.

Very like greens and blues and browns
really like earthy tones.

[laughs] Um, the food photos
were beautiful.

So she actually forged
a bit of a path, um,

and it would have been really challenging
to do back then

to turn your media value on social
into a product based business

uh, mind you a highly successful
product based business

in the health and wellness space.

It was nicely done.
It was a good app.

I'm really honest about my journey
with my health

and that opened up everyone else's
honesty and everyone else's stories.

[Bella] Seeing Belle Gibson looking
so good and so happy and healthy.

I started really comparing my life
with hers.

It really started to feed into my
insecurities about the way I looked.

I was so devastated about my face
and my body.

In the middle of the radiotherapy
I started fake tanning.

It took so much energy to put
fake tan on my body

but I was like I can't go to-- I can't go
to the hospital without a fake tan.

I got hair extensions to try and cover
all my baldness because I just…

I just didn't want anyone to know
that I was that sick.

I guess there was kind of that ideology
that it's the medicine

that makes you look sick.

And she's got cancer but she looks so good
because she fuels her body

with this amazing food,

and I look like shit because I went down
the modern medicine route.

I tried to discuss with my parents
about letting go of

the conventional medicine side of things
and exploring alternative medicine

and I used Belle Gibson as an example,
I was like, "Look at this woman.

Look how healthy she is.
She's got brain cancer."

So I started to just try and incorporate
the alternative medicine side of things

into my life as much as I could.

Green smoothies, juices.

You know, organic superfoods, coconut
water, like all that kind of stuff.

I totally changed my diet.
Um, I started meditating.

I started doing yoga, acupuncture,
anything, anything.

I wanted to be cured and
I wanted to be healthy again.

I wanted to just be like…
like she was, I guess.

I just put her on such a pedestal.

I… I just thought she was amazing.

[phones ringing]

[Richard] She had cultivated
an enormous following.

I mean there were just thousands of people

primarily young women and they were
kind of talking about her

in this most effusive way,

that she was this sort of angel
who had come to earth

and that she was this brave fighter
and heroic survivor of cancer.

I-- I just went into my editor and I said,
"Have you heard of Belle Gibson?"

I-- I can't see how this story is--
is true.

I just cannot see how this can be possible

and I wanted to look into it.

-Do you want me to say the whole thing?
-[producer] Yeah.

Okay. [laughs]

We were in similar circles of friends
and acquaintances and

a friendship kind of just naturally--
just formed,

and Belle invited me
to the formal launch of her app

which had already been out
for a few months.

This event was also a fundraiser
raising money for charities.

People were posting about it
on social media.

Belle at the event was in this
designer white dress.

She was barefoot.

She looked really well.

She seemed happy
and engaging with everyone.

She seemed to always be able
to find a way to…

to really understand
other people's hardships

and connect with people on a deeper level.

[indistinct chatter]

This is so weird being on this side
of the camera.

I'm Clair Weaver, I'm a journalist.
I'm from Sydney.

I joined the Women's Weekly
in around 2013.

I was writing features
about all kinds of things.

An incredible story, this girl has this
deadly brain cancer

and she's healing herself.

Belle had come up with this
Whole Pantry app.

She would donate proceeds or profit
to chosen charities

whether it was a family with a child
with brain cancer,

or people in Africa or whatever
the chosen charity was.

We really believed
that we're changing people's lives

and we have a giving backend of
the company as well with your app download

transfers into community donation.

So that's everything for funding,

medical support for children that are
living with cancer to building schools in…

in Sierra Leone.

We're really committed
to the overall picture

rather than just a segmented approach.

[Bella] The appeal for everyone was
that it was about the community,

it wasn't about her profiting.

That helped her image as a philanthropist

as well as being this
beautiful wellness warrior.

She was getting media interviews

and the growth of her fame and followers
was just huge.

So, in what was probably natural
progression, Belle got a book deal.

Penguin could see that Belle had this
product, The Whole Pantry.

It was selling, it was resonating.

A cook book is obviously
going to be successful.

She got an advance of $132,500,
which is huge.

Especially for a first book
by an unproven author.

And it was to write this book
with an emphasis on wellness,

on avoiding allergens and embracing whole
foods in your diet

with advice about how to live healthier.

Suddenly, Belle hit the mainstream.

It wasn't just the young
wellness warrior types.

Suddenly, she was everywhere.

She was on national television.

Belle Gibson is a mother, a business woman
and she's also living with brain cancer.

[Chanelle] Belle was living in
a million dollar house on the beach,

in a quiet and affluent suburb
in Melbourne.

She was flying first class
on international trips

to Silicone Valley, working with Apple.

Belle was increasingly getting
recognition.

Apple awarded The Whole Pantry
the best Food and Drink App in 2013

so she was getting more followers,
more popularity and more credibility

as she grew.

She really looked the picture of health.

In fact in one of the TV interviews
she did, the interviewer says…

For a person living with brain cancer
you look incredibly healthy.

[Clair] She was in women's magazines.

She had a presence and people had begun
to hear about her story.

So she'd… she'd hit the big time.

It was five years ago I was diagnosed
with terminal cancer

and…

we launched The Whole Pantry a year ago.

I remember Belle always being quite busy.

She was presenting a successful
entrepreneur jet setting lifestyle.

But also she's battling this
terminal illness at the same time.

Belle's son's birthday
was inside Belle's house

and it was quite
a close knit group that was there.

Just her inner-circle and her friends.

There was kids playing out on the patio.

The adults were mingling.

It was pretty cute.

[laughter]

The party was wrapping up.
People were starting to leave

and…

Belle just fell to the ground flat
and started convulsing.

There was saliva coming out of her mouth
and she was having a seizure.

Belle's son was very aware his mother
was on the ground

having a violent seizure.

I said, "We need to call an ambulance,"
and as soon as I said that,

Belle kind of came out of
the seizure and said,

"No, no, I don't want Western medicine
involved," 'cause

she was healing herself naturally.

I haven't witnessed someone have a seizure
in front of me before

but my initial reaction was
kind of confused.

Like she recovered quite quickly
from something that was

happening so violently and aggressively
to her body.

When I left the party I…

I felt really sick in my stomach

about what I had just seen.

This was the point where red flags really
started to pop up for me.

[Clair] So then Belle shared
devastating news with her followers.

[Bella] "With frustration
and ache in my heart…"

[Clair] "…my beautiful
game-changing community it hurts…"

[Chanelle] "…me to find space tonight
to let you all know…"

[Bella] "…with love and strength that
I've been diagnosed with a third…"

[Clair] "… and fourth cancer.
One is secondary…"

"and the other is primary.

I have cancer in my blood…"

"…spleen, brain…"

"…uterus and liver."

"I'm hurting."

[Chanelle] "Please don't carry my pain."

I think I just was completely shocked.

[Bella] I guess everyone
sort of felt like she was…

you know, dying now.

[Clair] I remember talking to
one of her friends

and how devastated they all were

because up until that point they thought
she'd been doing so well staving it off.

I do remember just feeling for her.
My heart going out to her.

[Clair] She had an outpouring
of love and support from her followers

who were really on this journey with her
all the way.

Floods and floods of comments from people.
Everyone was…

devastated.

[Chanelle] I was feeling really confused

feeling really conflicted
about what I was feeling.

Kind of in my gut and in my intuition
that something…

didn't feel right.

She announces to the world
that her brain cancer has

progressed to stage 4 and it's now
all through her body.

And I found out about this

through the post that she posted
on Instagram.

So yeah, this time I was someone
close to her and

this is how I learned of this new news.

At this point, I started
to question everything.

I started to go over things in my mind,

different things she had told me.

Things I had witnessed.

She always looked so well
and she never looked sick.

So, Belle was very passionate
about wellness,

but then there would be times where

I noticed her and another friend
went to a solarium

to do tanning and another time we went out
to a night club and

she was ordering shots and lots of drinks
and drinking quite excessively.

You know those weren't things that she
shared with her online community.

Things just didn't add up for me.

-[Kate] You know out of Game of Thrones?
-[producer] Yeah.

Yeah. They say I'm the mother of dragons.
[laughs]

My name's Kate Drummond.

I'm the director of neurosurgery
at the Royal Melbourne Hospital.

I'm a neurosurgeon specializing in
management of brain tumors.

There are hundreds of different kinds
of brain tumors of various seriousness

either because of their position

or because of how fast they're growing
or because they're cancerous.

The most common type of brain cancer
is something called a glioblastoma.

That's what we call a grade 4 tumor.
That's the worst grade of malignancy.

The fastest growing cancer.

The treatments are basically surgery,
radiotherapy, and chemotherapy,

and then sometimes there's some
experimental or clinical trial options.

But although those--

those three treatments or four treatments
certainly prolong a patient's life

none of them are curative.

All will eventually grow and be fatal.

[Chanelle] That night, I approached
one of our mutual friends

and told them that I didn't believe Belle
was telling the truth.

I didn't believe she was sick

and he started to make
his own assumptions,

and we decided to drive
to her house that night,

unannounced, and confront her.

When we arrived, she came to the door,

and she wasn't as warm
as she usually was,

and Belle looked really confused.

I cut to the chase
and just straight out said to her,

"Are you sick?"

She responded, "Of course I am."

She seemed really kind of bewildered as
to why we were coming to her with this.

And I…

implored her to go get medical documents,
papers, scans,

any type of medical evidence

that she would have in her house,

and she responded that she didn't like
to hold on to any of that…

kind of paper work because it's
negative energy.

I started to get pretty frustrated

and I said, "What hospital did you go to
to get that diagnosis?"

She said that she didn't go to a hospital,
that a doctor came to her house.

And I said, "What's the doctor's name?"

And she responded, "Doctor Phil."

And I said, "Where is Doctor Phil?"

And she said that he had gone to ground

and his colleagues didn't know where
he had gone but

he had all of a sudden disappeared.

She was very defensive.

She said that I was interrogating her

and she then started to say
she felt really sick.

When we left her place,
she maintained that she had cancer.

She maintained everything was true.

The more she spoke,
the more it confirmed it was all a lie.

I was angry and extremely frustrated.

Her book launch was the following night
and that was it.

It was going to be on the shelves
everywhere.

She was profiting…

from a web of lies that she was spinning
by targeting vulnerable people

and sick people.

And…

it just made my blood boil and it all
added up at that point.

In my opinion, it was just strategy.

It was just a fucking business strategy.

I guess, um, when you know
Belle started rising to fame,

it was something that we were all
really proud of,

because she'd been a part of our community
and now the whole world knows her.

When the book first came out a while lot
of us we went out and bought the book

I've always loved cooking and I think
I really leaned into

this idea of like, you know, healing
yourself through whole raw foods and…

During my treatment, one the things that I
taught myself to love doing [laughs wryly]

was, uh, green juices.

Um, so through treatment I would have
probably a green juice every day.

The cashew cheese is good too [laughs].

Cashew cheese.

[producer] What's cashew cheese?

It's like a cheese made out of cashews but
it actually tastes like cheese

Oh, I used to make beetroot soup.

This is one that I made.

"Beetroot soup cleanses your liver,

purifying your blood and major organs
from environmental toxins.

It reduces inflammation and
improves skin and muscle health."

It also says here, "For those who
don't drink alcohol, like me."

This is where brand Belle Gibson
goes global.

Penguin knew this book was going to be
a huge success

so they weren't just launching it
in Australia.

They were going to launch it worldwide,
it was going to go to the UK, the US.

It was going to be a huge deal,

and so here's Belle who started out just
with her little blog suddenly

about to hit the big time worldwide.

[Richard] The book contained little bits
of information about her past

and I had the picture that she'd built up
in the media

but I really had nothing concrete about
who her friends were,

or any biographical information about her

like who which school she went to,
who her parents were.

You couldn't find any of that, really.

And her own interviews about it were
kind of vague, you know.

And so I thought I've got to meet this
woman and record her account of herself.

And also, if possible,

fill in some of
the missing backstory about

who her parents were,
or where she was from.

All of which was kind of quite mysterious.

[Chanelle] I went to her book launch.

It was really hard to be there
and see everyone praising her,

in awe of her,

and I felt like she was
misleading people in such a serious nature

that they were making decisions
about life threatening illnesses,

to stop seeking chemo or radiation,

to eat fruit and vegetables.

I said to her like, "Are you ready
to come forward?"

And she basically…

got really aggressive with me.
Basically told me to fuck off.

Uh, there's an acknowledgment
in the back…

uh, to me.

It says, "You were there from the
beginning and I'll always remember that.

Go chase your dreams now.
It's time for me to have your back."

But…

[producer] What do you think
she meant by that?

I don't know. Maybe…

she was hoping I would have hers…

but I didn't.

At that point that's
where the friendship ended.

I had to see how I could unravel
what she was doing.

People were incredibly caught up in the
idea that this--

this beautiful, sensitive young woman
who had a small child

was battling these terrible illnesses.

But at the same time was spreading
this gospel of wellness

and was telling people that there were
these alternatives to cancer,

you know, the illness that nearly all
of us fear the most.

She looked fantastic, you know?

Like, the honey blonde hair
and the perfect teeth

and the sculpted brows and, you know,

everything I knew about
particularly a malignant brain tumor

told you that this was just--
it was just not possible.

First thing I did was ring around a bunch
of cancer specialists

and I just outlined the scenario,
you know, what do you think of this?

[Emily] "I have been healing
a severe malignant brain cancer

for the past few years

with natural medicine,
Gerson therapy, and food.

It's working for me
and I am grateful to be here

sharing this journey
with over 70,000 people worldwide."

Well, nothing's impossible.
It's extremely unlikely.

I've never-- I've never seen it happen.

[Bella] "I've been diagnosed with a third
and fourth cancer.

One is secondary. The other is primary.

I have cancer in my blood, spleen, brain,
uterus and liver.

I'm hurting."

It's extremely, extremely uncommon.

And the-- the patient would be moribund.

Like… So…

There are case reports where brain cancer
gets out and--

and goes to other parts of the body.

As in it is so rare that someone writes it
in a journal somewhere.

But…

I haven't-- I've never seen brain cancer
in the spleen.

That-- that's an unusual place for cancer
to go in the first place, um…

Uterus, never seen it.

Um, it just doesn't make any sense.

But if a patient had brain cancer
that was that widespread,

they are not walking and talking.

[Richard] She had a little bit of
conventional treatment at the beginning

and all she's done since then is
drink juices and give herself enemas,

and eat organic food and they all said--

Healthy food doesn't cure cancer.

I've got to sort of dig into this.
If this is a scam,

she had a deal with Apple computers.
She had a deal with Penguin books

and she had a massive following
which she was monetizing online,

and so if it was a scam
it was, like, a big scam.

But I just thought I need to get her
on tape saying what she's claiming,

and so I contacted her
and tried to get an interview.

I just didn't hear anything back.
You know there was just this silence.

But it turns out that
Belle Gibson was overseas

We've been working here in total
secrecy for the last 3 or 4 weeks,

and it's been a whirlwind,
and that's also, you know,

we're really emotional
and proud about it and…

I have a feeling now that Australia's
waking up that… they're spotting it.

The text messages and,
and the Instagram comments,

and the tweets are coming in saying,
"Did we just spot your icon

on the new Apple Watch?"

And you did and it's exciting.

Apple invited her in for a meeting
and they proposed that her app

should become one of the first apps
on the soon to be released Apple Watch.

We have one more thing.

[crowd cheers]

So The Whole Pantry was to be preloaded
onto the Apple Watch.

So this is huge, this is worldwide.

[Belle] It was daunting but if there was
any company we were going to jump for,

it was going to be Apple because they've
supported us for so long

We had the support of the best
engineers and designers

in the world at our fingertips
and they've done a very great job.

It just shows how successful
she was becoming.

Cosmo Magazine gave her
the Fun Fearless Female award.

Belle's winning awards.
Her star is continuing to rise.

Her business is growing.

The more time she has
to spread misinformation

the more people that are reached,
that are potentially vulnerable

and making life changing decisions
based on her story.

I started to look for other ways to see
what steps I could take to intervene

in the lies that she was spreading
so I went to

a journalist, a lawyer,
the police, with this story,

and I explained who Belle was
and that she was faking cancer

and essentially running a fraud.

And they all told me I was making very
serious allegations of slander

and defamation against
this poor, young, sick woman,

who's a single mom.

At this point I was feeling like I had
exhausted a lot of options.

You know, I'd gone to so many different
avenues to try and

stop her and people won't believe me.

[Richard] There was this difficulty
getting in touch with her and

this sort of reluctance to meet me
face to face, you know.

So in mid-February 2015,
she finally agrees to meet me

and she says, let's meet at this café
called Pillar of Salt,

which I look back on and think, you know
it was a strange choice because

it's named after a woman who has offended
God and was struck down.

I went to this café.

I got there early and I was waiting for
her to turn up and…

I was not going to challenge her.

I was going to get her on the record about
her story and about her cancer claims.

That was my primary objective.

I'm waiting. She's late and so, you know,
there was a sort of thing of, like,

is she going to turn up?

She did turn up and she was very flustered
and she explained that--

[Belle] I'm good. I'm just a bit shaken up
by the fact that I just had an accident.

-So I'm a bit all over the place.
-[Richard] Right.

-[Belle] Sorry.
-I… I could tell

it was going to be very difficult to pin
her down to specifics once we got to

the nitty gritty of the interview.

But I was kind of prepared
to just roll with that.

At a certain point I asked her about the…
the brain tumor

and I said look, now as I understand it,

you know, you were diagnosed about
five years ago by a doctor in Perth.

[Belle] I'd been given a prognosis
of four months.

She confirmed all of that and said that--

[Belle] I've been on
a rollercoaster of a journey.

I know that it's time to figure out
exactly where I stand.

I'm sort of thinking like,
where's this going, you-- you know?

Like what-- what's-- it was like she was
leading to something that I did…

I just couldn't work out where she was
going with this but I sort of just let it…

let it flow.

[Belle] I've gone through some difficult
relationships with doctors my whole life.

You know, there are people in my family
just that-- just are angry

at that team that…

-had lead me astray.
-[Richard] Yeah.

Well, and-- and it was at this point
that she…

she started to really obfuscate.

I mean, it just became very slippery.

[Richard] So from what you're saying,
it seems that they lead you astray?

[Belle] No. I still… for the main person
that was leading this team,

I still respect.

[Richard] Um, I think I'd read that you
also were diagnosed

with other secondary cancers
elsewhere then, or…?

[Belle] That is what this highly
recommended doctor

had diagnosed me with
and then disappeared.

The doctor who'd…

diagnosed those cancers

had kind of abandoned her and…

she hadn't been able to contact him
for quite some time.

[Belle] It's hard. It's hard to respect
someone who does something that

-has no moral or ethic backbone to it.
-[Richard] Right.

[Belle] And he's not entirely incorrect
but I know that he's not

entirely correct either.
I'm still waiting

-to know where I stand.
-[Richard] Right. Right.

Are you saying that you now have doubts
about the diagnosis

of these four cancers?

[Belle] I would say that it was more of a…
a misdiagnosis than completely

uh, fictional.

Christ Almighty, Belle. You're kidding,
you know. Like, what?

You actually don't have cancer?

This was just the last thing I expected.

After I left the interview I got in my car
and I just called my editor straight away

and I said, like, "You are
not going to believe this.

But, like, Belle Gibson just recanted on--
on the record."

She's basically saying she can't back up
her cancer claims.

I was halfway or maybe three quarters
of the way through writing this article

and suddenly this story appeared in a
rival newspaper The Age down in Melbourne

and it said that Belle Gibson had held
these charity fundraising events

and the charities
had not received the money.

[Chanelle] Finally, a journalist
from The Age phoned me and…

began telling him everything that I knew.
The little details that didn't add up.

We don't have any evidence,
especially medical evidence

stating that she doesn't have cancer, but

the journalists, they started to suspect
that her charity claims

were also fraudulent.

They then confirmed with the other
charities that

they had not received any donations either
so then we knew we had the story

and we knew once that broke that
the rest would unravel.

It was spreading really quickly.
It became a news story.

Just as it was published I sent a text
message to Belle

and…

I wrote, "You should check the news.

Dot dot dot. But you've got this, right?"

And…

was just kind of my last fuck you to her.

Belle responded by letting
the journalist know

she was really busy and that she just had
cash flow problems,

so she started to pay some of these
charities a bit of money,

and she claimed it was a misunderstanding.

I messaged Belle once I heard that the
news had broke because if it's not true,

then I want to be a place that she can
get support, you know?

And have someone that's on her side.

[Clair] Belle had developed this tribe of
people who were really loyal to her

and they stood by her. They were like,
you know, who are these journalists

trying to take her down?

You know, they were very protective
and they defended her and so

it seemed, you know, that she was going
to continue in a way,

it wasn't going to be this--
this big problem.

[Richard] For me, it meant that,

hell, there's another journalist
who's sniffing around this story

and I've got to get my story out right now
like there's no more delays.

We just have to publish tomorrow.

I kind of laid out what I had.

So I had her saying, on the record,

that she may have been misdiagnosed
and that she now had a new medical team

who were trying to work out whether her
cancers were malignant or not,

which completely contradicted everything
she had been saying up to that point.

So I decided to do some deep dives
into Google to try and find

her pre Whole Pantry history.

That's when I found stuff
that just floored me.

That's when I realized that there was
a whole history to this person

that had been sort of buried.

My jaw dropped open when I found it.

So my story ran on the front page
of The Australian the next day.

Her house of cards was about
to come crashing down.

She was public enemy number one.

You're 23, right?
Well, actually, how old are you?

Belle is my baby sister.

If she did have cancer,
why wasn't I informed about it?

The things that I knew about her had all
of a sudden were just all crumbling.

There's a fundamental problem here
with her and the truth.

Will you accept that your reality does not
actually match reality?

I will always love her
but I will never forgive her.

Would you accept that you're
a pathological liar?

No.

[closing theme playing]