The Women Who Faked Cancer For Followers & Money | This Morning

is a story that seems absolutely unbelievable B Gibson no relation to Josie uh a 20-year-old mother from melburn was tragically diagnosed with terminal brain cancer and given four months to live but against all the odds through adopting a wellness diet she somehow managed to cure it yeah her miraculous story gained her thousands of followers online along with a lot of Fame and a lot of money however things did take a bit of a turn when journalists began to investigate and they discovered the shocking truth that in fact it was all a scam Bell had never had cancer now as a new ITX documentary in search of Instagram's worst con artist aims to dig into Belle's story we're joined by her former friend uh Chanel mff who's lives who's live in Australia and forensic psychiatrist Dr H sham da so um welcome to this morning this story is absolutely unbelievable when we were talking about it this morning is I can't believe how far people go with the lies now you were her friend um weren't you and you're live in in Australia um you went to school with there W with Belle didn't you no we actually didn't go to school together um I was actually doing a writing internship at the time and was assigned to do a story on her and then it turned out we had some mutual friends and we um yeah a friendship formed so a friend a friendship formed between the pair of you and obviously Belle said this tragic news that she she had terminal cancer now we were talking about this earlier when someone says that to you you've got no reason to disbelieve someone would ever say that so how how did she act because a lot of people around her obviously very concerned about her welfare but there was a few times that you sat there and went something's not right here yes Belle was very convincing um in her conviction of of being sick sick and and having an illness and and in fact um It's featured um a lot throughout the documentary how she would actually take on other people's symptoms she would meet other people uh that actually had cancer and would take on their symptoms and and kind of use them as her own but um yeah I things just started to not add up for me there was a few things that happened um you know like excessive drinking of alcohol going to a salarium and Tanning like obviously skin cancer is um a really uh big issue here in Australia um so those things didn't really make sense to me I um had a family friend who passed away of cancer and I um had witnessed their Journey with it so I uh was kind of aware of um someone who is actually very sick of cancer and what that looks like and they they um get to the point where that they're very frail um and bedridden and and Belle was never um presented that that kind of those kind of symptoms she was always very active very well kind of thriving running a business Empire um and Chanel what was B what was Belle like on Instagram what was she doing on Instagram to all her fans and her and her new followers yes she was um presenting this Wellness Lifestyle the whole pantry she was posting Wellness recipes she um at times would give nutrition advice um and yeah she very much portrayed um an image of of wellness and um Healthy Living one thing that really struck me is when I was reading about this story and I know it's all in the dark you had enough suspicion to call her out on this and actually try and find out what was going on you went around to her house unannounced what what was said when you saw her yeah that's right I went over to her house um and essentially confronted her I just straight out said to her do you have cancer um can you provide any scans any medical evidence um that that shows that you have cancer she stated that she didn't like to keep that sort sort of documentation in her home um and she had just announced that her brain cancer had now spread into her body into her liver her spleen um her uterus it was now stage four so it was very grave it was it was essentially a death sentence so I I said to her where um I wanted to know where she got that diagnosis at what major Melbourne Hospital uh she said it wasn't at a hospital it was um through a doctor out in the suburbs at his home practice I said what was the doctor's name and she said it was Dr Phil which was um kind quite comical at the time um so yeah the more she spoke it just kind of confirmed um you know my suspicion and yeah that there was nothing that she could come to the table with to to make me believe that um yeah that she in fact had cancer and should when you met her at the door and you confronted her which is very brave because is is a big thing to do to to call somebody out on their lies especially these sorts of Lies um what was what was her reaction like did she become really defensive or was she call as a cucumber Belle was extremely uh defensive she um stated that I was interrogating her I was actually very calm um when I was speaking to her I I definitely was was quite firm and and I I really wanted answers and um I kind of demanded answers but um I was very calm um still quite respectful she she was um caught very off guard um she was defensive and uh throughout the conversation she then um started to say that she felt very sick she kind of started to slump in her chair was almost um starting to act like she was passing out but I had kind of seen um her do things like that before and so I knew that she was pretending um and I knew that she was just kind of cracking under pressure Chanel we know so I knew I was Pro yeah we sorry we know um in the documentary uh it spoiler alert but we we know that she was lying it does unravel and it took you quite a lot of time you'd spoken to the police you'd spoken to journalist You' spoken to a lot of people about this and finally a journalist got on board with this and and it you did manage to find out that she was lying and prove that she was lying what was the reaction from her followers because she had gained such a big following she said she was donating money to Charities for sales of books and things like that what did people think of this woman initially her followers um were very loyal she had built quite a big community so um initially her followers um came to her defense um and you know were saying that the journalists had had got it wrong um outside of her immediate followers and her community um the general public which at this point it had started to be Global News uh there was yeah a huge kind of backlash against spell um the the general consensus was um disappointment and shock um and I think the the general public had realized what a dangerous message she was spreading um with her misinformation um and it and it was a dangerous me message she was um influencing a very vulnerable group of people that were potentially making um life or death decisions um based on her story it's absolutely disgusting thank you Chanel and Dr Daz like why would anyone pretend they were sick is it do you think she was a pathological liar so first of all thank you for having me on the show pleasure I think with with B Gibson there's a number of different motivating factors so absolutely some of it was simply for the attention some of it was for the social media following so she got thousands of extra followers on Instagram some of it was Financial I believe you know she she took all these donations and said that she was going to donate them to charity so she's quite atypical for what you might expect for a typical scammer because she has so many different motivations to answer your question about whether I think she's a pathological liar no the reason being is because path olical Liars they the whole motivation is the process of lying so it's not to gain any kind of specific benefit and also they're really compulsive hence the term compulsive lie they can't control it whereas it sounds like Bel Gibson was much more calculated she very in control of what she was doing absolutely and she changed the story when she's being channel uh challenged as we heard from Chanel which to me doesn't sound like a pathological Li we we speak we've spoken before on this show actually about mon hous um where you you actually believe that you are sick it makes you sick and and you live your life like that you don't think this was a case of that no I think there's there's a bit of an overlap so obviously she was trying to get some sympathy and empathy from people by pretending to be ill but the uh the key difference is this is that in Munch hous it's be being the patient role it's being looked after by doctors by nurses it's you know going Doctor shopping it's faking test results she didn't really do all of that to me it yeah people just believe and it also shows us that we need to be very very careful about who we're following online yeah absolutely and and you know there's so many influencers nowadays who like to portray a narrative portray an image of being rich and successful so sometimes it's snowballs I think out of their own control and they feel like they have to do anything to uphold this image well we don't want to show or say too much more because obviously it's all available in the documentary but would you want to show you this quick clip this is a clip of Belle after she had been found out make of it what you will take a look would you accept that you're a pathological liar no do you take responsibility for driving any people away from conventional medicine in seeking treatment for their cancer that would be really heartbreaking to me because I never intended on doing that actually how old are you um I've always been raised um as being currently a 26y old this is a really really simple question how old are you I believe that I'm 26 I have two birth two birth certificates and I've had my name change four times what do you know the truth to be now that's probably a question that we'll have to keep digging for well I think it's fair to say you need to look at that documentary definitely which is going to be available on ITX it's a fascinating story Chanel thank you so much for joining us we'll see you on the doc as well um thank you for joining us from Australia and Dr D once again thank you so much for joining us as well

Channel: This Morning

Views: 52,074

Keywords: this morning, this morning itv, holly willoughby, phillip schofield, this morning funniest moments, this morning interviews, alison hammond, itv

Id: 4mZNtY08njY

Length: 11min 27sec (687 seconds)

Published: Thu Nov 02 2023