Cancer Blogger Belle Gibson Now Says She Was Never Sick
Founder of Whole Pantry app tells magazine she never had cancer.
— -- Australian wellness guru Belle Gibson reportedly built her career around claims she survived several different kinds of cancer with alternative medicine, but this week, she confessed that it was all a lie.
"No. None of it's true," she reportedly told The Australian Women's Weekly magazine in an issue on stands today.
Gibson, 23, claimed to have had blood, brain, liver, spleen and uterus cancers, according to Mashable, which published a skeptical piece about the embattled entrepreneur last month. The Whole Pantry writer said she cured herself by shirking traditional medicine, eating whole foods and using alternative therapies instead, according to Australian Women's Weekly.
"I don't want forgiveness," the Australian Women's Weekly reported her saying. "I just think [speaking out] was the responsible thing to do. Above anything, I would like people to say, 'OK, she's human.'"
ABC News reached out to Gibson through The Whole Pantry App but did not receive a response.
In addition to blogging, Gibson founded The Whole Pantry app, published a recipe book and had hundreds of thousands of social media followers. She appears to have deleted her Instagram posts.
Earlier today, Gibson allegedly tweeted from the Whole Pantry App account, "For the record, I haven't retreated to the United States. and didn't. Media, continue to 'humiliate and condemn' - Belle."
Unfounded claims of having cancer aren't new, but this is different because Gibson was offering unproven advice to a wide audience for profit, NYU Langone bioethicist Arthur Caplan told ABC News. He said the case should serve "as a reminder that there are people out there willing to prey on the desperate and the vulnerable."
"It is beyond despicable that you would give advice to people with terminal diseases like cancer and have them forgo the only therapies that might offer some hope," Caplan said. "I admit that the therapies often are poor, but that's all there is. To talk about alternatives that don't work, claiming that they did work on you is to not only step over the ethical line, it is to throw yourself into ethics hell."