FUCK YOU, BELLE GIBSON

Some months ago I came across yet another health guru spewing the usual crap of TOXINS and CHEMICALS (OH MY!), and using such words in a way that you immediately know they have little concept of what either term actually means. Except this charlatan was different. This modern day snake oil salesperson was caught out, in a very public way. 

Source: Facebook

For those of you that don’t know, bushy-tailed, bright-eyed Belle Gibson created an app (and later a book) called ‘The Whole Pantry’. In this she began her mountain of lies -having brain cancer, her cancer spreading all over her body, saying no to conventional (IE real) treatments and insisting that she was being kept alive by whole food goodness, #WokeAsFuck and all that. In 2015 media investigations revealed that not only had she fraudulently collected money telling her followers it was for charity, but she had in fact made her whole cancer story up from thin air and even lied about her age as well many other details of her life. She was a pathological liar, wanting fame, attention, pity and a quick buck, and it wouldn’t stop there. 

She lied for years about having cancer and made up doctors - Source: The Whole Pantry

When pressed in interviews she blamed other people (including imaginary), played the victim, tried to distract from the questions being asked and most importantly -played down her role in persuading cancer patients to follow her example; health advice she had dished out so easily with little regard for others wellbeing. And that really is her biggest crime of all. She spoke directly with cancer patients and give them hope and guidance, she pretended to be one of them and stood as a beacon of health and wellbeing. She preyed on the most vulnerable and right out lied that she could prevent them from dying, as she had done with herself. 

But we aren't blameless here. We are a gullible society, wanting to believe in magic and fairytales, too lazy to look beyond and question, too egotistical to say "I don't know enough about this topic" and maybe we should listen to the real experts. We want hope and romance and we want it delivered by blonde white women in stylish clothes.

Because of this we only ever hear of those rare, freak accounts of people recovering from cancer when there were initially told they had no hope. In other instances we read bullshit stories online of how someone forwent all treatment for A, B and C (insert “natural” nonsense here), only to read their story and actually see they had their initial treatment. It some cases for example, this is surgery to remove the cancer. While they may have decided against their secondary medical care such a chemotherapy, they have in fact had treatment, so don’t be fooled by thinking surgery is nothing. As another example, in my own case (Hodgkin’s Lymphoma), chemotherapy was my primary medicine with radiotherapy being used after as a longevity tool. Having my primary care rid me of nearly all of the cancer and without my follow up of radiotherapy I could have easily lived. Like with those sneaky online tricksters, this is not the same as having zero medical attention. But none of that's magical, and no one cares about the truth. 

Belle Gibson had conned the world - Source: ELLE Magazine

We rarely hear of the far more common occurrence of the cancer patient who decides against treatment (after reading rubbish like from this shitehawk, David Wolfe, and of course “The Truth About Cancer”, etc. etc.) who fall gravely ill and then have to go back to the doctors with their tail between their legs begging not to die. I cannot express how common this is, I have conversations with these patients online all of the time. Trying to be supportive while also pushing them to go for that test 6 months down the line. All because of scam artists who say you can aLKaLiNe YoUr BodY, jUice CuRes aLL, sUgAr iS a ToxiN. Do me a favor, if you plan to make mad claims off a clickbait article you read on Facebook, just don’t. You are as bad as this charlatan whether you are selling something or not, whether you are being intentionally dimwitted or not. It takes two minutes to go “wait, wait a second... my knowledge of anything scientific and medical is extremely limited so maybe this article from healthgreeninfowap.org.com isn't the best resource and I shouldn’t be giving out medical advice”.

Now in 2019, yet to pay her $410,000 fine and dodging court dates repeatedly since 2017, Belle-shithawk-Gibson returns from a 5 week luxury safari in East Africa and rightly so, those she conned (both in terms of money, and their lives) are annoyed.

Source: A Current Affair

People make mistakes and perhaps shouldn’t have that held over them forever, and also can have serious mental health issues beyond what we might notice straight away. But FFS -leaving the country while this is hanging over her head? Laughing all the way it would seem at the judicial system by not paying one cent, and by pretending she hasn’t been given a second chance to avoid jail time.

She has never shown true remorse or admittance of her dangerous and stupid actions, there's always a "but", a doe-eyed glance and of course tears. I think until now, watching the documentaries, seeing her being interviewed, I usually had a twinge of sympathy for the clearly unwell mind that is Belle Gibson. Whatever way she processes information, whatever has happened to her in her life to have this compulsion to lie, the actual confusion in her face as she continues to push herself down this rabbit hole with each question she answers… It’s an innate human reaction to want to see the good in people, to want to think they have remorse and understand their actions even when they are unable to express that outwardly.

Source: Facebook

But with each appearance of her stupid face (yes I’m being childish now) I remember my own cancer diagnosis. I remember the gut wrenching feeling that I’m going to have to tell people and they are going to be devastated, I remember the first time the chemotherapy burned my skin, I remember looking around the room knowing everyone there for treatment wouldn’t survive this, I remember the hair falling out, and the eyebrows, I remember having to leave college and putting my life on hold completely, I remember the steroids swelling and my skin aching, I remember the insensitivity of wannabe health experts on a topic they knew zero about, I remember the “what’s with the headscarf” and the survival guilt -fuck, the survival guilt. And I remember each and every time I’m in an online support group and someone says they have said no to chemotherapy and/ or radiotherapy because some moron on the internet has promised them the world. Some moron like you, Belle Gibson.

So when I have that feeling, that twinge of pity for your life being temporarily in the shitter, I now just think FUCK YOU, BELLE GIBSON -from each and every one of us. 

If you are yet to follow this story, sit back and get ready to cringe and enjoy this documentary from 60 Minutes Australia.