Blogger Who Claimed Diet Healed Her Cancer Admits She Never Had Cancer

Perhaps you recall Belle Gibson, a popular Australian wellness blogger who claimed a whole food diet and assorted alternative medicines cured her brain cancer. Guess what? She never had cancer in the first place which, as we all know, is the very best cure for cancer.

Gibson rose to fame thanks to her fabulous fabulist tale, but around the time her book The Whole Pantry started getting coverage, people started asking questions. She said she’d donate part of her sales to charity but they never received the donations, for instance, and then she started hedging on her cancer diagnosis. The Guardian reports that after months of speculation, she’s finally come clean to The Australian Women’s Weekly:

“None of it’s true,” Gibson told the Australian Women’s Weekly in an interview to be published on Thursday.

“I don’t want forgiveness. I just think [speaking out] was the responsible thing to do. Above anything, I would like people to say, ‘OK, she’s human.’”

Well, not lying in the first place would’ve been the most responsible thing to do. According to News.com.au, who say they scored an advance copy, Gibson talks in detail about a troubled childhood and the Weekly suggests she may have “factitious disorder.” For her part, she told the Weekly: “If I don’t have an answer, then I will sort of theorise it myself and come up with one. I think that’s an easy thing to often revert to if you don’t know what the answer is.”

Oh, and also from the Guardian:

“During the interviews, whenever challenged, Belle cried easily and muddled her words,” the Women’s Weekly reports.

“She says she is passionate about avoiding gluten, dairy and coffee, but doesn’t really understand how cancer works.”

The full interview drops Thursday. The Weekly says they’ve “uncovered a web of half-truths” and they promise to reveal “the reality behind her cancer diagnosis, the current financial state of her business, The Whole Pantry – and her belief that she has been hard done by.” Can’t wait to hear that line of argument.