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The Woman Who Fooled the World

the true story of fake wellness guru Belle Gibson

ebook
15 of 16 copies available
15 of 16 copies available

The jaw-dropping story of Instagram influencer and wellness scammer Belle Gibson, whose cancer diagnosis and cure was all a lie.

NOW A NETFLIX LIMITED SERIES STARRING KAITLYN DEVER

Entrepreneur. Inspiration. Guru. Australian wellness influencer Belle Gibson shot to fame after she convinced the world she had cured her terminal brain cancer with just a healthy diet. But there was one problem: she lied — she'd never had cancer.

Gibson, a high school dropout and teenage mother, built a global business in less than eighteen months that vaulted her to fame and fortune. She had 200,000 Instagram followers from Melbourne to Los Angeles to London, international book deals, and a best-selling smartphone app, having fooled both Penguin Books and Apple. She was a digital-age celebrity, a one-woman cult, a hero of the "wellness" world, and an inspiration to many.

Written by the two journalists who assiduously uncovered the details of Gibson's lies, The Woman Who Fooled the World unravels the mystery and motivation behind this deception. It follows the public reaction to the scandal, which included headlines in Time magazine and Gibson being named as a top-ten villain of the year by The Washington Post.

The Woman Who Fooled the World also explores the lure of alternative cancer treatments, the cottage industry flourishing behind the wellness movement, and the rise of social media. It documents not only Gibson's folly but the devastating impact this con had on hers fans and on people suffering from cancer.

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    • Books+Publishing

      September 27, 2017
      The now infamous story of how Belle Gibson gave false hope to cancer patients in a global health and wellness scam is a treasure trove of lies and complicit enabling. It is story that journalists Beau Donelly and Nick Toscano—who broke the news of Gibson’s deceit—unpack, charting Gibson’s life, from her childhood to the heights of her success and her eventual unravelling. The journalists’ task is not without its challenges, particularly given none of Gibson’s old friends and business partners would speak to them. As a result, rather than simply recounting Gibson’s story, Donelly and Toscano contextualise her meteoric rise to fame by situating it at the nexus of several forces—a burgeoning, whitewashed wellness industry that eschews science in favour of aesthetics, a social media-driven culture where fake news proliferates, and the hopelessness felt by cancer patients. In doing so, the authors widen their focus to examine what Gibson’s success says about us as a society. Particular ire is reserved for the companies who aided Gibson in her quest without the proper due diligence, such as Apple and Penguin, with compassion reserved for the ultimate victims of the saga—the cancer patients who followed Gibson’s advice and suffered for it. This book will appeal to those who enjoy reading in-depth reportage and examinations of the wellness industry, such as Brigid Delaney’s Wellmania. Sonia Nair is a Melbourne-based writer and critic

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  • English

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