All language subtitles for The.Search.for.Instagrams.Worst.Con.Artist.S01E02.1080p.WEB.h264-EN

Belle Gibson was an Australian blogger

who wrote about
being diagnosed with brain cancer.

Fraudster, Belle Gibson…

Cancer con woman Belle Gibson…

Fake wellness blogger…

A spectacular rise and fall
in the age of the internet.

[man] She's made so much
cash off it, it's disgusting.

[woman] I just think she's horrible

and she deserves to
pay for what she's done.

[typing sound effect]

[tense music]

[typing sound effect]

I messaged Belle once I heard that
the news had broke.

I just said to her, "Are you okay?

What's happening?"

You know, just break your silence.

And she just came back and
stone-walled me, basically,

and just said, "Police have been here,

you know, they're worried about my safety.

I've had death threats.

You don't understand what it's like."

In response, Belle went to ground.

Suddenly this person who was
really out there and updating her profile

and very much had a strong online presence
just disappeared.

And it kind of left this void.
If you were a follower of hers,

you'd been through
all of the ups and downs, the seizures,

the new diagnoses and the heart-wrenching
"I could die soon."

All these people who've had
this passionate engagement with her,

just left in a complete quandary.

I went on to Instagram to have a look

and that's when she started
deleting all of her posts.

You know, at first it was just
one or two here and there

and then all of a sudden
they all started going.

I kept refreshing the page
and it was just, like, disappearing.

Posts were being deleted,
like, literally right in front of me

and I'm thinking, "My gosh,
she's doing this right now.

Like, it's all going.

You don't do that if your story's legit.

There's just no reason other than the fact
that she's trying to hide something

and she's trying to remove all evidence.

[pensive music]

[Richard] When I first approached Belle
for an interview,

I wanted to try and find
her pre-"Whole Pantry" history.

When I started looking online,
the first thing I noticed was

although she had
massive presence on social media,

it all started in 2013.

Her entire social media history
prior to 2013

just seemed to have been wiped.

So, I decided to do
some deep dives into Google

to go back earlier.

And when I did that,

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

I came across this skateboard chat forum

and to my surprise

there's this girl on there
called Belle Gibson.

But this Belle Gibson on the skate forums

was completely different from
the Earth mother, natural foods guru.

She was this kind of trash-talking chick

and she's got dark hair.

Really goth looking.

I just thought, "Well, that's weird
because it can't be her."

A just completely different persona.

And then I saw this post that she'd put up

where she talked about
this tattoo that she'd just had done

and it was the same tattoo

that Belle Gibson
from The Whole Pantry has.

And so, there was
a whole other side of her life

that she had kept out of public view.

And, of course, that really intrigued me.

And so, I started making calls,
trying to find anybody

who had known her
during her previous life.

[tense music]

[Shelby] Yeah, we were out one night
in St. Kilda and, um,

pretty drunk,
and we both got matching tattoos.

I first met Belle when I was 13 years old.

She was older than me.

Belle was very confident, outspoken,
very sure of herself

and she had a personality
that just drew you to her.

Everyone wanted to be her friend.

[tense music]

We were just out to have fun
on most weekends and it…

Yeah, had a lot of it which was good.

[camera shutter clicks]

We were still quite young
so I'm not gonna divulge too much.

[laughs]

Um…

She was my best friend back then.

And Belle was very much
all about the internet.

I do remember her
heavily into blogging and everything,

I didn't ever read it.

Um…

yeah, I just, I don't know,

I feel weird
reading my friend's blog sometimes

when I can just talk to them.

Um, so no, I never really did that
but yeah, she loved the internet.

She was into the skater scene.

Belle liked the skate scene
more so for the culture of it.

Um, the guys were really sort of
laid back, easy to get along with.

And yeah, they were just
kind of fun to hang out with.

My name's Anthony.

I'm…

Should I say my age? I'm already stumped.

My name's Anthony, I'm 33 years old now.

[tense music]

I met Belle in February 2009.

First impressions were

she was very much a person
at the front of the room, making friends,

you know, laughing, having a good time.
Nothing ever really negative.

You know, very much the opposite of
an advocate for healthy living.

She'd eat anything, drink anything.

You know, like, a lot of fast food.

You have beers, you have alcohol,
you go to parties, you…

You might drink all night
and not eat at all.

So, back then there wasn't
too much social media around at all

so forums were, I guess, the place to go.

[uneasy music]

Belle, she was quite vocal on the forums.

She spoke a lot about different
health issues and things she had.

Around mid-2009
she started to post crazy stories,

I guess we can call them stories.

About health things.

And it was very hard to tell
what was real and what wasn't.

And there was a lot of people there
that took her story very seriously.

I come across this post from 2009

and she's telling all these guys
that she's having heart surgery in Perth.

And that's when,

really, the penny dropped
because I thought,

you know, this--

this is another incredibly dramatic,
unlikely medical drama story

that she's spun

about her apparently undergoing
open-heart surgery.

"I just woke up out of a coma type thing
and had no idea what was going on.

The nurse came in and said
I was no longer code blue or something.

I went into cardiac arrest and died
for just under three minutes."

"If one of you charming men
don't send me flowers, you're all dead."

It just is total bullshit.

Like, who…

It's just, yeah, it's insane.

I would've liked to think that
she would've told me

if she had a heart condition,
seeing as we were friends, definitely.

[pensive music]

These are posts that are supposedly
being sent in real time

while she's in the hospital.

I just immediately realized that
you had someone here

who told stories of medical drama

and she'd been doing it since she was 17.

I discovered through
this skateboarding chat forum

the story of a well-known figure
in the Brisbane skate community

who had suffered a brain tumor,

and he in fact had posted on
the skateboard chat forum

about his illness and his treatment

three or four months before
Belle went onto the same forum

and first made her claim
about having a malignant brain tumor.

Eventually that brain tumor killed him.

I remember at the time, like,
it was, it was a very sad thing.

There was a lot of people
that were really affected by it.

And, she could've very well
taken influence from

what was happening
in the local skateboarding community.

[Richard] And as I later discovered,

she had contacted him

and befriended him and spoken to him

about her own supposed illness.

And so, it appeared that she would
appropriate other people's stories

and absorbing them into her narrative.

My name is Bryce Corbett,

I was the news editor of
The Australian Women's Weekly,

the biggest selling magazine in Australia.

When Richard's story hit the newsstands,

every journalist in the country
was hot on this story.

Every journalist was desperate for
an interview with Belle Gibson.

We jumped at the opportunity
to do the first interview with Belle

since she had been exposed as a fraud.

We were determined to
get her to speak the truth.

Our chief reporter at the time
was Clair Weaver

who has an amazing ability
just to go down rabbit holes.

So we knew that she'd be perfect for this.

[Clair] I got this message

and suddenly I had an interview
with the person that

it seemed like every journalist
in the country was chasing.

And everyone in the country
wanted to hear from.

[gentle upbeat music]

[Clair] Belle seemed like
a nice young woman

but I think when I was interviewing her

she was on the back foot.

[camera flash whirrs]

During the photoshoot,

she seemed a little bit nervous
and a little bit distrustful.

A little bit on edge.

My approach to start was
I just wanted her to feel comfortable

because I wanted the truth.

[tape recorder clicks]

[Belle, tearfully] I don't know,
it's just very scary to be honest.

'Cause you start to doubt the crux of
things that make up who you are.

I'm blonde and I'm tall
and I've got hazel eyes and, you know…

[camera flash whirs]

And I've got cancer,
and all of a sudden you take away,

you know, some of those,

high level things.

I don't know, it's…
It is just really daunting.

[camera shutter clicks]

[Clair] To be honest,
I couldn't really get a read on Belle.

She doesn't answer a lot of questions

and she didn't have
good explanations for things,

you know,
really obvious gaps in her story.

And she would go blank on things,

um, so it was very frustrating.

[Belle] I don't actually remember really
the detail or saying a lot of that stuff.

I know what was happening in my life

during that time.

-[Clair] Mm.
-Um.

[Clair] These are my shorthand notes.

But even going through these,

I remember there was
so much that was confusing

and unclear.

Here she says there were times growing up

when her safety was at risk.

Um…

But it was quite difficult
to establish exactly why.

[Belle] It's hard because, um,

if I knew anybody was going to do
what I have done,

or I have not done,
or they think I might've done,

I would have personally
driven to their house

and chaperoned them to the hospital.

You know, I'm really protective of people.

Um, especially those that need support.

[camera shutter clicks]

I would describe to people
that it was like,

it was like trying to nail jelly to a wall

because it became obvious that
there were elements of truth

to parts of her story
but they were all intermixed.

It would've been
a really easy story to write

if Belle had just been the villain,

the sociopath
who had tricked all these people

to get a lot of money and then,
oh, she'd been found out.

But I got more of a sense that
there was something going on,

she was troubled.

[Bryce] So a large part of her story
was that she had, you know,

she'd come from a broken home,

some sort of,
kinda Cinderella existence, you know,

doing all the cooking and cleaning.

She told us that her mother had
multiple sclerosis and as a result,

she'd given up her childhood

for the care of
her brother and her mother.

[Clair] Belle gave the impression that
she didn't have a relationship at all

with any of her family members

and she refused to give us any details

as they were excommunicated
as far as Belle was concerned.

So, this is the May 2015 issue of
The Australian Women's Weekly.

This is the first Belle Gibson story.

We've got "Belle Gibson: The girl who
conned us all" here on the cover.

"Belle Gibson:
My life-long struggle with the truth"

And this is Belle's first interview
after her empire came crashing down

where she admits that
she doesn't have brain cancer.

[Bryce] It was the first time,

possibly the only time,
that she has admitted

that none of her story was true.

And that was explosive.

[dramatic music]

[Bryce] So, I guess
not long after that article came out

I was at my desk and the phone rang.

[phone rings]

I took the call
and it was just, like, verbal assault.

It started as a torrent of abuse.

It was threats of legal action,
it was angry shouting, screaming.

And I had to say to her,
"I'm sorry, madam.

Sorry, who are you
and what are you talking about?"

It turns out it was Belle's mom,
Natalie, calling.

Um, and her husband, Andrew,
who turned out to be Belle's stepdad.

Yes, we saw the article
featured in Women's Weekly about Belle

and that's what Natalie was ready
to have her say after that.

She said, "Andrea, get on the phone
and tell 'em how it is."

I go, "Right."

So I look up
Women's Weekly's number, and I call.

When Natalie saw the article,
she burst into tears.

It became very overwhelming for her. Yeah.

Ah, Natalie was beside herself.

She said, "Andrea, first thing tomorrow,

as soon as the--
as soon as you get out of bed

I want you to ring The Women's Weekly
straight away and have a chat

and tell 'em what goes."

"Oh right, I'll do it."

We'd gone from
her wanting to sue the magazine

to where she was just pouring out
her entire life to me

and how, "All of the lies that
she's told you in that magazine article

about her background, none of it's true.

She talks about me and my illness.

She talks about her brother being sick
but that's not true."

No one had heard from
Belle's mother and stepfather.

No one had found them.

Here they were, it dropped into our lap.

They wanted to meet with us and,
and set the record straight.

Give us their version of events.

[Andrew] I think Natalie mainly wanted to
apologize for the people that got hurt

and also to, um,
verify a few things that, um…

What Belle was saying about
"unfunctional home."

That really got her mad.

[Bryce] And so, Clair and myself went
with Andrew and Natalie to dinner.

You know, it started out
pleasantly enough.

But the more wine that was imbibed,
the crazier the night became.

[Clair] I was most interested in
hearing about Belle's childhood

and checking off the claims that
she'd made about her upbringing.

Natalie would deny some things

but there were things that checked out

like she had multiple sclerosis
which Belle had talked about and was true.

Natalie's story was that

she had given Belle
everything she possibly could growing up

but that she'd found her
impossible to handle.

After that, things had broken down.

Natalie did struggle with parenting,
definitely.

She really lost control, I believe.

[Bryce] What became quite clear was that

hers probably had been
quite an unconventional

and probably
quite a challenging childhood.

And the truth to that part of,
of her story was far murkier

and-- and actually quite troubling.

I met Natalie round about June 2011.

But her health became worse
over a period of time and, um,

eventually in 2017, Natalie passed away.

I would say that they probably was
very close in the early part

but there's always been issues
in their relationship.

Yeah.

And also with Nick and Belle, definitely.

Um, I'm Nick Gibson.

Belle is my baby sister.

It was very shocking.
She said a lot of hurtful things

about the family.

I'm not autistic, she made all that up

because when I was growing up,
I may have been a little bit slower

or I was a little bit shyer

and quiet and unusual,
like a normal child would.

But that's who I was.

What she said about me
and the stuff about my mom…

I felt pretty upset and angry.

[suspenseful music]

[camera roll clicking]

We had a perfect relationship
when we were growing up.

We were like…

We were really close, we looked the same,

we had the same hair color.

You know, same figure.

So, for years a lot of people
though we were twins and

we were, like, stuck like glue.

We had a very strong bond.

We always did everything together.

I think it got harder when

me and Belle got older
and we drifted apart from each other.

It was probably a couple years
before high school started

we did have a lot of falling out.

Looking back on it, I think
it would've been pretty hard times

for Nick and Belle because Natalie was

dating people that, uh…

you and I perhaps wouldn't date,
if you know what I mean.

Took advantage of Natalie
and didn't really give a lot

but took a lot.

And also,

some of them also, uh,
did physical harm to Natalie.

It was, it was pretty tough times,
you know.

Belle said when she was growing up
that her name got changed several times

and that her age would be changed

and they sometimes seemed to be
hiding from something.

When we checked with Natalie,

Natalie confirmed that
they'd moved around a lot.

[Shelby] So when Belle was a bit younger,

when we first met,
there were things that she used to

tell us and talk to us about
that just didn't make sense

where she was, um,
in the Witness Protection Program.

She also told us that
Annabelle wasn't her real name

and at that age, you don't question,
you don't…

Well, I didn't. I didn't question it.

I didn't look into it, I was just like,
"Belle's just being Belle" sort of thing.

[producer] Belle and your mom,
what was their relationship like?

It was on and off for a long time,
like, their…

their relationship wasn't the best,

I'll be honest.

There was a lot to do with,
um, a lot of money.

Mainly just whatever teenage girls wanted,

like makeup and
going to the movies and whatever.

But the minute Mom turned around to Belle
and said, "Sorry,

you know, we don't,
we don't have that kind of money",

you know, Belle will get all offensive
and really upset about it

and take it out on Mom.

No, I didn't like the way
Mom was getting treated as well.

It was really, you know, not nice at all.

Belle can be very aggressive and very…

violent with her words.

It wasn't pleasant at all.

It was, it was very hard on
myself and my mom.

[Andrew] Eventually,
Belle moved out of home.

It was a pretty young age.
I'm probably thinking around 13 to 15.

According to Natalie,
she moved in with an old man

not far from where Belle was living.

[Nick] Yeah, he just took Belle in.

Personally, I--
I didn't like the guy from day dot.

I don't know. It was…

I don't know. There was something odd.

We didn't really know him that well. Like,

Mom should've really got to know the guy
a bit better before her daughter moved in.

But it wasn't done that way.

Well, that has always been
on my mind as well.

Why would you be letting

a 12 or 15-year-old
go and live with a man down the road?

An old man around a young girl
doesn't look too good to me.

Not the sort of thing that
I would've been doing, there's no way.

[Clair] I was very surprised.

That was the one thing Natalie said
that surprised me more than anything else.

[Richard] After the news stories appeared,

the word leaked out that
Belle was looking to do a TV interview

so there was a bidding war going on and
the word was the 60 Minutes had won it.

It turns out that they paid her $75,000
to do that interview.

And so, this was going to be
the first time that you saw her

explaining herself on television
after her exposure.

She seemed to think that she could
go on television and redeem herself.

That she could do it in her own words,
and this was an opportunity for her.

Clair, um, during the course of
the interviews that she did with Belle

said it's just a very bad idea
on every level.

Don't do it.

To have taken money to tell her story
after she had ripped off so many people,

it was just the ultimate insult.

It was a silly, silly thing for her to do.

Um, so sure enough, she did it.

["60 Minutes" intro music]

Belle, are you prepared to
tell the truth today?

-Yeah. Absolutely.
-The whole truth? No half truths,

no gobbledygook.

I thought the 60 Minutes interview
was really strong.

Tara Brown, the reporter,
absolutely held her to account.

You claimed also in your book

that you underwent chemotherapy
and radiotherapy for two months.

-Yeah.
-True or false?

-At the time--
-True or false?

True because at the time
I believed I was having radiotherapy.

So, false.

They were asking the questions

and they weren't gonna let her
get away with not answering them properly.

Um, and it was very compelling viewing.

[Tara] You're 23, right?

Well, actually, how old are you?

Um, I've always been raised,

um, as being currently a 26-year-old.

-Um, I--
-This is a really, really simple question.

How old are you?

-I believe that I'm 26.
-And--

I have two bir-- two birth certificates

and I've had my name changed four times.

The identity crisis there is big,

but that was my normal
when I was growing up.

That was probably
one of the most brutal interviews

that I think I've ever watched on TV.

It was pretty overwhelming to, uh,
to watch, to be honest. Yeah.

I was thinking, "In a way, I really hope
these people who are watching this

will work out it's not true."

Um, for a long time I was afraid
to even walk out my front door because

she, you know, mentioned about me.

She said everything about me was awful
and wasn't true, none of it was true.

It was just all fake.

I've been openly conveying

and speaking about what was my reality
and what is my reality today.

And will you accept that your reality
does not actually match reality?

It does match your normal or your reality.

Would you accept that
you're a pathological liar?

No.

Ah, I think the most interesting thing is
who doesn't like to hear a story?

A story about people,
about understanding behavior.

I've been a psychologist for
over 25 years.

I think it's fascinating hearing
and trying to understand,

why do people lie?

Pathological lying is someone
who's really lost touch with reality

and has immersed themselves in
a story that they really believe.

Often, the lies have become their reality.

Part of lying is to create
a life that they didn't have

to be cared for, to be loved,

to create an image or a personhood

that they otherwise
wouldn't be able to experience.

It boosts their ego, it boosts their
internal need to be loved and accepted

and it perpetuates the lies.

There might be a little element of truth
in their stories that they create

and so it's really difficult

for them to then distinguish even further
between truth and fantasy.

And if the audience is accepting
and believing,

well, off we go.

It's like a great big,
you know, tumbleweed

getting bigger and bigger in the desert

as their lies take on
a whole life of their own.

He comes to your home
and he does some tests on you?

-Mm-hmm. He does.
-How d-- What sort of tests?

It was a box,
a machine with lights on the front

and that machine was apparently
German technology.

There's, uh, two pads, two metal pads.

One that goes below the chair
one that goes behind your back.

And then that measures…

what I believe
or remember to be frequencies.

And what was the results?

[exhales heavily]

Belle was still insisting that she had
honestly believed she had brain cancer

and that there had been
this doctor early on,

a Dr. Mark Johns,
who had diagnosed her with brain cancer

and then subsequently, another…

practitioner called Phil
who had told her her cancer had spread

and that she genuinely believed this
to be the case.

Given the nature of
everything Belle had told us

and some surprising things being true,

I really hunted hard for Mark Johns.

Uh, he certainly wasn't a medical doctor,
he wasn't registered.

We couldn't find trace of
even an alternative health practitioner

called Mark Johns.

[producer] Who's Dr. Phil?

He's not a doctor,
we can drop the doctor bit.

Um, Phil was
an alternative health practitioner

who did treat Belle.

He existed and it was another example

of something I found to be surprising
in this Alice in Wonderland tale.

I mean, 2009 was
a really bad year for you, wasn't it?

-Mm-hmm.
-You had three heart operations,

you suffered two cardiac arrests,
you died twice on the operating table,

-you had a stroke…
-Mm-hmm.

…and you were diagnosed
with an inoperable brain tumor

-and given four months to live.
-Correct.

It was, it was like
seeing a different person.

Like she'd gone from this
well rounded, well spoken,

intelligent woman

that was, like, kind of untouchable,
to, like…

an idiot.

[pensive music]

[Bryce] So, after
the 60 Minutes interview, I mean,

there was no coming back from that.

It was a spectacular own goal on her part

because she just came across as a--
as shifty

and somebody with a very,
very loose relationship with the truth.

The reaction was huge.

She was public enemy number one
so there was a lot of vitriol

and people hated her.

[Bella] I was gobsmacked.

I was just in shock.

How could this be real?

How can someone go to
that level of deceit?

[Bryce] You know, there were people who

came out of the woodwork
who talked about their own cancer journeys

and how they had been sucked in by Belle.

How could you possibly betray these people
who are at their most vulnerable?

It's devastating.
Honestly, it's devastating.

Like, I just think about
anyone who had cancer and listened to her

and maybe didn't make it.

Sorry, getting a bit emotional.

[laughs sadly]

Sorry.

[Clair] I think they wanted her
to be held to account.

What she did was awful
and I absolutely think that

anyone who does what she did
should be held to account.

But at the same time,

I didn't think it was necessarily fair
that she was just being

this kind of witch on the stake.

There was more to the story than that.

There's also shared accountability because

there were plenty of people
who came along for the ride

and there would have been
countless opportunities

for Belle's story to be picked up
and potentially found out earlier.

[Richard] She was in business with

major corporations,

Penguin and Apple, obviously,

and I just don't believe

that those people could have been
oblivious to the holes in her story.

And I think if you look at the media
training video that Penguin did with her

around the time of the book's publication,

I think it's quite clear that
they had concerns

about the veracity of what she was saying,

but they were kind of
in too deep at that point.

So the Penguin press video showed
rehearsals of Belle giving interviews.

Showed Belle…

answering questions
not in a very convincing manner.

She didn't present as
a young woman with brain cancer

who was taking her,
her condition very seriously.

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

Because the entire story is underpinned by
this idea that you've cured

or at least delayed the inevitable
with respect to your brain cancer

by drinking green juices?"

It was irresistible.

At a certain point, the adults in the room
should have stepped in and said,

"Hang on a minute, this is…
This doesn't stack up."

It's just,
you don't just believe somebody

when they tell you something.

If you're gonna publish someone,
you need to have facts behind you

and it just doesn't look like
anyone did that.

There would have been
countless opportunities

for Belle's story to be picked up and--
and potentially found out earlier.

A lot of people who were involved in
publishing that book and devising the app

and being involved in the business
have never spoken about it.

They cashed in on the story of
a young girl's cancer

without engaging in due diligence.

It-- it was an enormous crisis
for both of those organizations.

Apple and Penguin just left her there

to cop the brunt of this,
this phenomena that she had created.

[Clair] People felt really ripped off
and really angry

and they wanted her to go to jail.

They wanted their money back, a refund
for anything of hers that they'd bought

whether it was the book or the app.

And as pressure grew
and the story continued to grow,

it was clear they needed to take action.

[Bryce] And there were, you know,
there were people who

were baying for blood.

There was this deep sense of hurt,

a deep sense that
there needed to be retribution

and there needed to be a reckoning.

The self-cured miracle woman,
Belle Gibson, is still making waves

and not of the good variety.

The latest family
hit by her cancer cures are…

In quotes, "cancer cures", of course,

are the parents of a seven-year-old boy,
Joshua Schwarz.

He's terminally ill, really terminally ill
from brain cancer

and Penny and Wolfgang Schwarz
now think that Belle befriended them

so she could steal Joshua's symptoms
and claim they were her own.

[Bryce] So back in 2013, 2014,

Belle did some fundraising
on behalf of the Schwarz family.

The Schwarz family had a son, Joshua.

He was seven years old, he had
brain cancer and it was terminal

and Belle attached herself to that family.

So, this post is about
a little boy who's got brain cancer

like Belle, allegedly.

Um, she says
it's the same type of brain tumor

and she says that
she feels the boy's pain.

The greatest ache and pain in her heart.

And she's gonna donate
all the money from the app sales

for this week to help them.

And, um, they never saw a cent of it.

[typing sound effect]

And this was just another example of

the, you know, collateral damage that
the Belle Gibson story took along its way.

[reporters clamoring]

[woman] All those cancer sufferers,
they're waiting for an answer. What is it?

[cameras clicking]

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

So, she did find herself
subject to a civil lawsuit

because she represented she was gonna
give X amount of dollars to this charity

and X amount to that charity.

-[dramatic music]
-Do you feel ashamed, Belle?

So, eventually the Consumer Affairs
Department in Victoria

decided to bring proceedings against Belle

and she was fined $410,000.

And then she just refused to pay the fine
and…

I just think this fueled

the anger of a lot of people

that not only had she
never really been brought to account

but she kind of just ignored
the whole thing and just seemed to be

snubbing the whole process
and just refusing to even engage with it.

I suspect Belle was in denial,

that she didn't want to
face this new reality

where instead of being
this social media star

and loved by everyone,
it was the complete opposite.

It's not like
she's rotting in a jail cell or anything.

It's been clear that, you know,
in the period since

that she's traveled to Africa,
she's traveled to Bali.

She's still moving around Melbourne,
uh, with, with freedom

which is amazing in and of itself.

I-- I think Belle should be, um,
told to pay the money back, um,

to all those families
who got damaged by it all.

[camera shutter clicks]

[reporter]
It's not known if anything valuable

was taken from the property this morning

but Consumer Affairs has vowed to
continue to pursue Gibson for payment

until the substantial debt is paid.

So, it gets to the point where,

you know,
sheriffs are turning up at her home,

uh, to kind of take possession of items

towards this fine that she's never paid.

She's still living her life and

there haven't been really
any repercussions or consequences

served on Belle.

[tense music]

So, everything was
relatively quiet with Belle,

she went back to ground
and we forgot about her.

Then out of the blue, the weirdest thing

that you could--
you could never have even imagined.

Hiya, today we met
in Melbourne, Australia.

Our diaspora community,
Oromo community of Australia,

met to discuss, uh,
the current situation of Ethiopia,

specifically Oromia.

There was a video that surfaced of her,

um, dressed in Ethiopian attire,

speaking about her part
within the Ethiopian community.

She pops up and
she's been going to meetings

and calling herself Sabontu.

[speaking Ethiopian]

[chuckles]

And speaking in sort of broken
Ethiopian dialect of some kind.

[speaking Ethiopian]

Hold yourself. Don't make it worse
for our people at this time.

Defend yourselves and defend your honor,
defend your identity.

She's also doing fundraising for them.

And…

I don't know, like,
if I was fundraising for a project,

Belle Gibson is probably not
the first person I'd have on my team.

It's really bizarre.

Um, so, I honestly couldn't tell you
what's next.

They're shocked, of course,
to find out who she is

and she ends up, by all reports,
being rejected by that community.

[pensive music]

The last conversations I had with her,

I've been coming to realize that Belle's
a pretty sad and depressed person, also.

There's no winners here.

I mean, it's hurt a lot of people
and also,

I feel that it's also ruined Belle's life
for the rest of her life also.

She is a very intelligent young lady,
honestly, and, uh,

you know, she could, uh,
she could've really went places

instead of actually
ruining her life, yeah.

Yeah, she definitely could've been
successful if she didn't lie.

She was a great cook,
there was no questions about that.

You could still release a cookbook,

you don't have to lie about being sick
to get you there.

Yeah, I think in another world,
in another universe,

that she would have been…

She probably would have been
a really, really good CEO.

You've got to be a little bit pathological

to run a business
and to run it successfully.

Um, and I think she certainly
ticks the boxes in that respect.

She, um, honestly thought
that she was changing the world.

I wish that she apologized.

Yeah. Especially to people like myself

and, you know,
other cancer survivors that…

like, took her book like the bible,
like, you know,

you played with
a really vulnerable community,

and you profited off
a really vulnerable community.

That's the worst part about what you did.

I don't think
there's a punishment that would be

sufficient in what she's done.

I don't understand how she's been able
to get away with it.

[Nick] To be honest,
after all that happened, like,

her words don't matter to me anymore.

She's left a big scar on me.
Like, it's never gonna leave me.

She's never gonna be forgiven by me
and that's the truth.

You know, I will always love her.

Why did you do it? Please explain.

I'm, I'm here, you know. Talk to me. Um…

I'm here to listen.

I just think she seems
like someone who's…

sort of, to some extent, damaged,

um, and there's probably
a lot of reasons for that,

um, going back into her childhood.

And, you know, I don't know that
going to prison is going to…

fix that.

You do get the sense that
Belle just wants to belong somewhere

and she's trying out
all these different personalities,

these different identities,

in the hope of finding the right place
where she belongs, she's accepted,

and she's got
this community of people around her.

Perhaps she'll spend her entire life
moving from one group to the next.

Um, and shape-shifting as she goes.

Being whomever it is that
she thinks they want her to be.

[Chanelle] Have we seen
the last of Belle Gibson?

She is capable of reinventing herself
probably time and time again, so…

I'm not sure.

[dramatic music]

[Richard] There's a part of me that would
like to see her get some kind of hell.

I think ultimately,
her exposure has done something valuable

which is to alert people
to bogus ideas on the web

and the fact that
people who appear to be altruistic

and well-meaning and admirable

can be exactly the opposite.

I reflect back on
my own personal experience.

My wife's been cancer-free for 18 years
after seeking conventional treatment

and I think that
if this story did anything

to make people wary of

people spruiking untested and un-backed up
wellness ideas about serious illness,

I'll be very happy about that.

But I, I don't think this is
the first or last time

you're gonna see
something like this happen.

[dramatic music continues]