Where is Belle Gibson now? | AWW (2024)

Thanks to the new Netflix series Apple Cider Vinegar, Belle Gibson has returned to the limelight.This has led many to wonder, ‘Where is Belle Gibson now?’

The former wellness influencer was found guilty of engaging in misleading and deceptive conduct in 2017.

The Weekly investigated what Belle was up to just a few years ago. The following article appeared in our August 2021 issue.

When she first broke onto the scene in 2014, with her bouncy ponytail and bright-eyed claims that she had conquered her terminal brain cancer with “nutrition-based therapy”, Belle Gibson was difficult to ignore.

The inspirational story she had written for herself, of the single mother beating the odds and becoming an entrepreneurial success and philanthropic darling in the process, drew awards, magazine profiles and adulation.

But when journalists revealed that her whole persona was a tangle of elaborate lies, the world turned on her fast.

The self-anointed wholefood healer received death threats, while the authorities pursued her for her deceptive and unconscionable conduct. Photographs of her coming and going from her house, and global headlines, podcasts, and books fuelled her infamy.

She was prosecuted and fined but refused to pay.

As tales of her manipulating a new audience come to light, The Weekly has learnt that in February this year [2021], a Federal Court registrar marked the Belle Gibson file as “abandoned”.

Does this mean that the notorious fraudster will never see a public reckoning? We follow Belle’s trail to find out whether she has mended her ways or even shown remorse. And if she will ever face true justice.

Victoria’s Director of Consumer Affairs has been pursuing Belle for profiting from her lies since 2015. This was when the news broke that the inspiring young survivor in the hot pink lipstick was a fraud.

Months earlier, she had been flying high. Her book The Whole Pantry and app of the same name had grossed $440,500. She was enjoying the fame and wealth that came with creating an empire with global reach.

Her ascension was rapid. In just 18 months she had gone from obscurity to superstar.

The account @healing_belle debuted in May 2013, and her story was that she was using food to heal her brain cancer and that the gratitude she felt moved her to “fulfil all the change that I see is needed in this world” by donating the majority of her profits to charity.

“I have been healing a severe and malignant brain cancer for the past few years with natural medicine, Gerson therapy and foods. It’s working for me and I am grateful to be there sharing this journey…” she wrote in her first post.

The world was charmed. Instagram was gaining prominence as a social media platform. A new wellness movement was springing forth, as clean-eaters used the visual platform to connect with like-minded souls.

Online, Belle presented herself as a friend and kindred spirit of Jessica Ainscough, who in 2013 was arguably Australia’s biggest wellness influencer. Jess was “The Wellness Warrior” who credited organic food and juice cleanses with helping her overcome a rare cancer called epithelioid sarcoma.

“I was diagnosed with a rare, ‘incurable’ cancer at 22. At 26, I am healing myself naturally,” Jess announced. She said she had swapped cocktails for carrot juice. “I am ecstatic to report that it has worked for me.”

Her remarkable claims attracted hoards of followers and a book deal. At one point she estimated her words had reached 2.5 million people.

Belle was one of them, and as her star rose, Belle thanked Jess, calling her a “friend and mentor”. Jess’s philosophy was, “Alternative treatments offer patients hope, choice and understanding.”

This was the position Belle also adopted, and rode to success. Much of the praise Belle earned came from her apparent generosity. Her app launch in December 2013 was billed as a fundraising event that would funnel the proceeds of ‘virtual tickets’ to three charities, and one family.

Buying a virtual ticket was a way for people to “be part of creating social, global and radical change with us and our closest Wellness, Food and Lifestyle icons,” Belle wrote.

She pitched a book to Penguin and was paid an advance of $132,500. In an interview with its internal PR team before its release, Belle said, “So far we’ve given to nine charities. I’ll be the one that [reaches out] and [says] ‘Where do you need that support?’”

She indicated they had paid for a boy who was living with cancer to have vitamin C injections, and donated $6000 for air-conditioning for a boy with a brain tumour.

“A large part of everything [was being] donated to charities and organisations which support global health and wellbeing, protect the environment and provide education,” the book stated.

The charities Belle claimed to support included the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre, One Girl, and the Schwarz family. Penne and Wolfgang Schwarz’s little boy Joshua had been diagnosed with a rare, untreatable brain cancer when he was five years old.

“Josh has a similar malignant, inoperable brain tumour to the one I have,” Belle wrote. “From the greatest ache and pains in my heart, I feel this little boy’s journey and story.”

Not long after she launched her app, she pledged to donate 100 per cent of one week of app sale profits to the family “in hopes to find them a medicine [sic], holistic or happy miracle.”

The Belle Gibson juggernaut seemed unstoppable. Dramatic health scares kept her audience enthralled.

In July 2014, she took to Instagram to announce that her cancer had spread. “With frustration and ache in my heart … it hurts me to find space tonight to let you all know with love and strength that I’ve been diagnosed with a third and fourth cancer,” she wrote.

In September 2014, she was chosen by Apple for her app to be featured in its new smartwatch. The Whole Pantry book came out the following month.

She was awarded Cosmopolitan’s Fun Fearless Female award. Accepting her prize, she spoke tearfully about the legacy she was leaving.

As Belle ascended, Jess was not doing so well. After watching her mother die from breast cancer in 2013, she began radiotherapy in an attempt to stave off the advancing cancer. She died in March 2015.

It was a dark day for the community. For Belle, it was the beginning of the end. As she flew to the Gold Coast for the funeral, journalists who had been chasing a tip that she was a fraud were closing in.

Beau Donelly and Nick Toscano from The Age had been speaking to the charities Belle claimed to support. As of February 2015, she had not made a single donation to any organisation.

After being contacted by The Age, Belle hastily sent $1000 to One Girl. It was too late. In March 2015, the story broke.

Belle’s fall was even faster than her rise. Reporters learned that for years before she entered the mainstream she spun fantastical tales of her cancer battle in online chat groups.

“She just plucked bits and pieces of other people’s medical problems and assumed them as her own,” Belle’s mother, Natalie Dal-Bello, told The Weekly in 2015. “She’s just a girl who always had ideas above her station. Her tastes just became more and more expensive.”

In 2014, Belle said that “as a small child” she had “confronted” her brother’s specialists about how they were treating his autism, and how they should make food a higher priority.

Her brother Nick does not have autism and has publicly distanced himself from Belle. “It’s about attention. She’s always been like this,” he said.

Her bond with Jess Ainscough was a lie too. As Beau Donelly and Nick Toscano wrote in their book The Woman Who Fooled the World, Belle’s ingress was unwelcome. And that Jess’ friends and family were particularly upset when Belle showed up uninvited to Jess’ funeral.

Jess Ainscough’s former manager, and fellow wellness guide, Yvette Luciano, said that guests were confused by Belle’s presence. She reportedly cried and wailed obtrusively.

Another guest told reporters: “It was like she was making a point of being seen and heard.”

“There was definitely a feeling like she [was] trying to force something with Jess,” Yvette said.

The Weekly contacted half a dozen close contacts of Belle’s from her @healing_ belle days. However, none wanted to have their names publicly associated with her.

Years later they still feel betrayed and angry. Yvette Luciano, sadly, died of breast cancer in February 2020.

After the truth came out, Belle gave two interviews (including one to 60 Minutes for a fee of $75,000) in which she gave circular and contradictory accounts of her life.

She confessed to The Weekly that the cancer diagnosis was a lie, stating: “None of it’s true.”

But she also claimed she had been told by two separate men that she had cancer. Medical records make it clear Belle had been told unequivocally by a neurologist that she did not have brain cancer when she had a brain scan at the Alfred Hospital in Melbourne in 2011.

“Even if Belle thought at one time she had a brain tumour, she definitely knew in 2011 she didn’t,” court documents say. The Director of Consumer Affairs filed charges in May 2015 but Belle declined to participate.

In 2017, Federal Court judge Debra Mortimer found Belle had “played on the public’s desire to help those less fortunate” and fined her $410,000.

Debra reserved her most scathing comments for the way Belle used the Schwarz’s terminally ill little boy to boost her profits and her profile.

“She did this to encourage members of the public to buy her product, to generate income for herself and her company, and generally to promote herself and her commercial activities. She consciously chose to use the terminal illness of a little boy in this way,” Justice Mortimer said.

Josh Schwarz died in 2017.

In imposing the penalty, Justice Mortimer said “if Ms Gibson were to actually pay the pecuniary penalties imposed” it might be appropriate to see if the funds can be donated to “some or all of the organisations and people which Ms Gibson promised would receive donations. In that way, some good might still come for the vulnerable people which were indirectly drawn into this unconscionable sequence of events.”

Belle, however, behaved as if it wasn’t happening. For two years she dodged her responsibilities. In 2019, she was ordered to face court or be jailed. She incensed the community by arriving in a new $200 dress and $370 Saint Laurent sunglasses, then telling the court she had no money.

The anger was as raw as it ever was, with social media calling for her to be locked up, or worse.

“Those of us who could really use help have been tarnished by your greed,” is one comment that sums up the mood.

Justice Mortimer ordered her to provide details of her crypto-currency accounts, her Paypal and Afterpay accounts and online gambling records.

Reporters who attended her 2019 court date wrote that she thought it was “sad” people were covering her story. It was the last time she spoke publicly on the matter.

Belle did not show her face for several months after she faced court. Then in January 2020, she emerged. Her face was scrubbed of expensive cosmetics and her ponytail was hidden under a gold-brown scarf.

Belle had reinvented herself, this time as an adopted member of Melbourne’s Oromo community, from Ethiopia. And she wanted everybody to call her Sabontu.

“Ask me what my name is now,” she says in the footage as she laughs with an off-camera interviewer. She playfully hits him. “Today our diaspora community met to discuss the current situation of Ethiopia.”

She speaks for more than 10 minutes about “our diaspora, Oromo” and refers to Ethiopia as “back home”.

“My heart is deeply embedded in the Oromo people,” she says. “I feel blessed to be adopted by you.” Belle was photographed at an Oromo community meeting, jotting down notes.

One concerned community member wrote on Facebook: “I have been telling our people to be careful with this lady as I have seen her story from day one but no one is listening. The sad part is she’s not only attending the community events but she also [sic] coming to every wedding we have.”

The head of Melbourne’s Ethiopian community, Dr Tarekegn Chimdi, told The Weekly that, at first, he thought she was somebody’s girlfriend. After reporters told him the truth, he asked her to leave.

“She is exploiting the good heart of the people in our community,” he said. “People are not questioning when people are approaching them [whether] this is a good person. They did not know what evil she was carrying.”

In another video that has since been removed, she was recorded speaking at a meeting. This time her head is covered by a dusty pink scarf. She’s unpolished but emphatic. When she finishes, the audience applauds. She giggles, covering her mouth with her hand with an apparent nervousness that is disarming.

It is easy to see how Belle Gibson suckered the entire world.

Belle’s name cropped up next in the unremarkable case of a small-time drug nuisance. The court heard that the offender’s wife, from Morocco, had been locked out of the house by her volatile husband. She was approached by Belle, who presented herself as an ally and someone who could offer guidance.

The offender’s barrister, Phillip Dunn, claimed Belle had offered to move in with the wife and help her with the case. As the barrister and judge discussed Belle’s misdeeds, including the fact she had been flying overseas business class while her fine remained unpaid, Mr Dunn paused to reflect, “Your honour, we may hear of her again.”

The judge replied, “Sounds like we may indeed.”

But in January this yea r[2021], the Office of Consumer Affairs filed an affidavit in Federal Court. Belle’s file was marked “abandoned”. She has not paid a single cent of the penalty imposed for profiting from a fabricated illness and lying about charitable donations, and now her case is closed.

When approached by The Weekly, the Sheriff would not comment. The minister responsible would only say that the government would continue to pursue repayment of the substantial debt Belle owes the Victorian public.

Her possessions will likely be sold in an attempt to make up the debt, which has ballooned to half a million dollars.

“We know how much distress Ms Gibson’s actions have caused,” Consumer Affairs Minister Melissa Horne said. In May, the Victorian Sheriff raided Belle’s house in fashionable Northcote, where she lives with her son and a man named Clive Rothwell, who she claims is “just a friend” despite evidence of a relationship dating back to 2013.

It was the second time officers had executed a warrant on Belle’s home to enforce a seize and sell order, going from room to room looking for items of value that could be sold to pay her debt.

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It’s a semi-detached Victorian home, with a garden of native plants. Inside it’s as modern and sleek as her signature blonde ponytail – all warm woods and white walls. Sunlight gushes in from the skylights, and out the back, a modern water feature gently burbles.

She lives in comfort but has no assets. Clive often paid the rent, Belle told the Federal Court. Neighbours told the press that the raids left her in tears — though few would be moved by her sadness, or even believe it.

The Weekly reached out to Belle for comment, reminding her of what she said in her interview with this magazine shortly after she was busted.

“I would like people to say, ‘Okay, she’s human. She’s obviously had a big life. She’s respectfully come to the table and said what she’s needed to say and now it’s time to grow and heal.”

We asked: Would she speak again? Belle did not respond.

This article “Where Is Belle Gibson Now? originally appeared in the August 2021 issue of The Australian Women’s Weekly.