The influencer scandal that fooled the world with fake cancer | World

A quick internet search brought her to the carefully crafted profile of an Australian health and wellness blogger, who at the time had over 300,000 followers.

Each post had dozens of rave reviews from followers around the world.

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Kylie, who is also Australian, was surprised by the discovery: "Belle was so beautiful, successful ... she was an inspiration to many people," he says.

On the internet, Belle Gibson told the story of how, after she was given just four months to live, she “cured” her inoperable brain cancer through healthy eating.

Kylie couldn't help but compare herself to her. While undergoing a daily round of chemotherapy, which causes her hair to fall out, and was close to having her eighteenth lumbar puncture—a painful procedure in which a large needle is inserted into the spinal cord—Belle was selling the recipe for her hair style. miraculous, cancer-free life that Kylie dreamed of.

“(I thought) maybe she was right, maybe I was doing it all wrong,” Kylie recalls.

“I was dying inside and it got worse with each treatment. I looked horrible while she was living her best life,” he adds.

At the time, the wellness industry, which is currently valued at around US$ 3.8 trillion (about R$ 19 trillion) worldwide, was booming.

The general public had already heard that avocados are “superfoods” and many people tried to emulate the “healthy” lifestyle that bloggers displayed without any (or little) concern about the veracity of the claims they made.

In her book, Belle said, "I empowered myself to save my own life through nutrition, patience, determination and love."

Fascinated by the idea of taking control of her own treatment, Kylie bought the cookbook and signed up for Belle's app, The Whole Pantry. The blogger's brand was backed by one of the biggest publishers, Penguin, and the tech giant Apple.

Desperate to get better, Kylie woke up one day to go to the hospital and decided she had had enough of "all the needles and pricks". For her, it was over.

“Chemotherapy was not working for me. (I told myself that) I should stop and try healthy eating,” she says.

"(Belle) said she was curing her own cancer, that it was getting better."

“I had this in front of me (as proof). It was on my phone, in magazines, on the news… so I trusted her,” details Kylie.

But Belle wasn't getting better...

In March 2015, an Australian publication exposed that Belle had lied to her followers that she donated part of the sale of her books and apps to charities.

Soon, many journalists began to question and investigate whether Belle was also deceiving people about her health status.

“I wish they had done that before they gave her the whole platform to become who she has become,” says Kylie.

After the lie about charitable donations came to light, it was discovered that Belle had also lied about her cancer.

In September 2017, the influencer was fined over US$ 300,000 (about R$ 1.5 million) by the Australian government for misleading readers about charitable donations, after she was found guilty of five consumer law violations.

A judge said Belle may have "genuinely believed" what she herself was saying and that she may have suffered "delusions" about her own health.

'I was just getting sicker'

Maxine, who lives in the UK, was at university when she started following Belle on social media.

Passionate about the culture of wellness on Instagram, she was drawn to the stories of people who abandoned traditional medical treatments to treat their illnesses in a “natural” way.

“(Belle) was the queen bee of well-being,” points out Maxine.

Since the age of 11, Maxine has struggled with ulcerative colitis, a chronic inflammation of the large intestine.

The most common symptoms are diarrhea, blood loss, abdominal pain and fatigue. It is a lifelong disease and is usually manageable with medication.

“I felt sick when I received the diagnosis”, reports Maxine.

“When I was 12, many doctors would tell me, 'It's your hormones' or 'It's just period pain,'” she says.

“It made me have a negative attitude towards doctors and their approach to chronic illness, because I didn't feel like there was long-term support,” he says.

After missing entire semesters of school due to her health condition, all Maxine wanted at university was to be like everyone else.

“I was disgusted with having to face this disease and not being a normal teenager”, she declares.

She was also frustrated that she had gained weight from the pills and high doses of steroids she had to take during her treatment. Maxine claims this had a negative effect on her body image.

Without her meds, Maxine clung to Belle's "clean eating" app.

"It reinforced the ridiculous belief that I didn't need medication to control my illness," Maxine tells the BBC.

“I was very involved in everything to do with food. I adopted a plant-based diet, which I believed would eliminate many 'toxic' ingredients,” he says.

Maxine has given up all animal products, gluten, and carbohydrates. “It was very extreme,” he says.

In a short time, she lost so much weight that she stopped menstruating and her health began to deteriorate. “After a sort of initial placebo effect, everything fell apart,” he reports.

“I felt that I just wasn't eating healthy enough, that I wasn't doing things well enough and that I could have an even cleaner diet,” he says.

“The more I followed this 'perfect' diet, the worse I felt and kept blaming myself,” he reveals.

In July 2014, Belle announced in an Instagram post that she had been diagnosed with four other types of cancer. "It's in my blood, spleen, brain, uterus and liver," she wrote.

His followers were devastated.

But it was at this time that doubts about her began to appear. And Maxine began to wonder about the influencer.

“Don't believe everything you see on the internet,” reflects Maxine.

Kylie was shocked when she learned that Belle had lied about having cancer. “I felt betrayed… Who invents something like that?”, she wonders.

Maxine remembers feeling very naive. “We were vulnerable and the wellness industry came in and said, hey, can I help?” he comments.

Nobody knows why Belle did what she did.

Since the influencer was discovered, the world has become more familiar with terms like “fake news” and “disinformation”.

But Maxine warns that there are still many lies promoted on social media by some who are part of the wellness industry that "is based on profit".

“They position themselves as people who care about the health of others, but all they really do is lie and promote fear,” he says.

“People create compelling and often completely false narratives to sell books, lifestyles or private labels. Don't trust everything you see on the internet,” says Maxine.

She hopes that by talking about it, many will stop blaming themselves for their illnesses, as she has in the past.

And he also hopes that social networks will establish controls to ensure that it is clear in publications whether they are based on scientific evidence or not and whether or not their authors are qualified to share advice about the health of others.

After discovering Belle's lies, Kylie restarted chemotherapy and is currently in remission for her lymphoma.

In May of this year, the Australian authorities decided to confiscate Belle's assets after she failed to pay the fine that had been imposed by the Court.

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