Episode 38 - Belle Gibson

0:16 Welcome Crime Besties to episode 38 of Two Crime Besties.

0:19 We're talking about Belle Gibson today.

0:21 Yay, I'm excited for this one. Actually, I've got all my

0:24 paperwork. I'm good I.

0:25 Love it. Yeah, we were.

0:26 We were just sorting some stuff out right before we hit recall.

0:29 But it's all good. It's all good.

0:30 We got everything in order. We're fine.

0:32 We're good. We've had some pretty heavy

0:33 weeks too where this one is somewhat lighter.

0:36 It. It is, Yeah.

0:37 When I was telling Peter about about this yeah episode, he was

0:42 like, but where's the crime? And I'm like, well, there's so

0:45 much crime, but not a lot that she was necessarily convicted

0:48 for. But yeah, look it, it still ties

0:51 into our theme. Absolutely.

0:53 It is definitely lighter than yeah, than what we've covered in

0:57 the last sort of 3 or 4 episodes, I guess.

0:59 Yes, yes. I just thought we might even

1:02 take this opportunity just really quickly to maybe very

1:05 briefly introduce ourselves again because we've got a lot of

1:10 new listeners at the minute. It's true.

1:12 And I just thought if people are finding us sort of based on like

1:16 searches on Tiktok and only listening to certain episodes,

1:19 maybe we could give a brief quick intro.

1:22 Yeah, OK. Yeah.

1:24 Cool. Cool.

1:25 I've put you on me. Did you notice?

1:27 How about your panic? I did.

1:29 I'll start. I'll start.

1:30 OK, cool. My name's Emma and I love true

1:34 crime. Megan, I decided to do this

1:36 podcast years ago and we really only started it like actually

1:40 almost coming up for 12 months ago where we really started to

1:45 work hard on it and really get things going with it.

1:47 And then like about six months later, we actually committed to

1:50 sending it out to the world. We were, we were bloody panicked

1:52 about it. To be fair, I was.

1:54 And also, I mean, if you go back and listen to our earlier

1:57 episodes, production value was slightly less good than what it

2:02 is now. I know that terrifies me that

2:03 people start with those first episodes.

2:05 Yep. Yeah, yeah, I think, I think it

2:07 was the first. Was it 10, 8-10, something like

2:11 that until we got new equipment and really invested in what

2:14 we're doing? So yeah, you know, forgive us

2:16 for those first episodes. But then you listen to the first

2:18 episodes of any podcast and you know, everyone gets better as

2:22 they go along and. I still stand by content.

2:25 Fine, just content, great. Audio quality, I mean, I reckon

2:27 we've got better stealing content, but that's a good

2:30 start. Yeah, but it's the quality.

2:32 The audio quality gets me. Yeah.

2:34 Yeah. And there's still that level of

2:35 nervousness in our way when we speak to.

2:36 I reckon there's. Yeah.

2:38 Do you get nervous before we record now every.

2:40 Time. Every time.

2:41 Do you? I probably get nervous.

2:42 I mean, probably just it drifts off quicker.

2:46 OK, Yeah. Every time clicking that button,

2:48 I'm like, do I know everything? My brain, I think she goes for

2:52 everything. Yeah.

2:53 But it's like, yeah, but I panic.

2:54 I don't. Yeah.

2:56 Yeah, I think it's like that exam thing, isn't it?

2:58 Where you where you're just like, oh, I know nothing, I know

3:01 nothing. And then you get into the exam

3:02 and you're like, oh, actually, well, actually I would always

3:04 come out of exams and go, I failed that.

3:06 But then you'd get your muck. Oh, OK.

3:07 I just know a few things. Yeah, that's.

3:09 OK. I think with us though, because

3:10 it's we are completely non scripted, you know, like I mean

3:13 we might read a quote here and there sort of stuff, but it is.

3:17 And, you know, you listen to a lot of other podcasts, and it's

3:19 so polished because, yeah, it's scripted, but I think that's the

3:23 charm of us. That's right.

3:24 That's why people come back, I hope.

3:26 Yeah. So, yeah, I've got two young

3:29 boys, a 10 year old and an 8 year old.

3:32 And I guess my, my hobby is podcasting.

3:37 It is, you know, it's what Megan I do on a Friday.

3:39 It's our Friday, Friday. It's my best day of the week.

3:42 Love it. And yeah, it's been like a real

3:46 game changer in terms of like for me personally in the, the

3:50 cadence of my week. Like I feel like, you know, I'm

3:53 busier because obviously we're researching for a podcast and

3:55 that takes up so much time. Yeah, I think in one of our in

3:59 the Q&A episode that we released over Christmas, I think you and

4:03 I both sort of identified the fact that we probably spend at

4:06 least 10 hours a week researching for each episode.

4:09 Some episodes more, some episodes a little bit less, But

4:11 yeah, but it really takes a huge time commitment.

4:14 So it really has changed the way my weeks kind of run, but in a

4:18 really positive way. I love doing it.

4:20 I've just never felt like a chore.

4:22 Yes, sometimes on a Thursday night when I'm like, oh, I

4:25 haven't looked at this or I haven't researched this, I get a

4:27 bit panicked. But yeah, still love it.

4:30 Absolutely, I know because it's actually changed my like, it

4:32 used to be like, oh, what's the newest thing on Netflix?

4:34 Whatever to watch? Whereas now it's like now I'm

4:36 like so deep diving into it, one particular topic that I'm like,

4:40 I'm so behind on series and things like that that other

4:43 people are probably watching, you know, I mean, well, maths at

4:46 the moment I'm staying up with of course, because you have to,

4:48 I know you don't watch that, no. I haven't because I know once I

4:51 it's, that is too much of A time commitment for me.

4:54 I don't have the time for that. But I have gotten into the

4:56 latest season of The White Lotus.

4:58 Peter and I are watching that but it only comes out one

5:01 episode a week so it's actually fine.

5:04 It's an hour Holidays. I mean, I can't.

5:05 Maybe I can binge a fair bit of it then do it.

5:08 Yes, it's I mean the last episode was a little light on,

5:11 but I'm looking forward to like the.

5:13 Storyline on 40 I see. Some really great characters in

5:16 it. Well, there's the one particular

5:17 person who's not in these season, obviously, because she

5:19 did, but she did, yeah. That I'm like, what do I need to

5:24 watch? But I will, I will get into it.

5:27 But it's like it's one of those ones where I keep seeing it pop

5:29 up that I'm like, Oh yeah, yeah, I'm gonna research this instead.

5:32 But yeah, it's definitely in the back mind.

5:35 Love it. It's very good, yes.

5:37 I'm catching up on my Beverly Hills housewives this week

5:42 caught up. I think I'm up to date now with

5:43 that like you know, so you just. This reunion is going to be

5:47 amazing. Now, just really quickly, I know

5:50 we haven't gotten to your introduction yet, but just

5:53 really quickly, is it just me or is Kathy Hilton hitting

5:58 different this season? She is so freaking hilarious.

6:02 I just love that episode. The lemons in everything.

6:05 Like she's wearing a lemon outfit.

6:06 She's got lemons in her bouquets.

6:09 She's surfing it up. Actually I.

6:12 Just bloody love her, she's so good and I haven't watched the

6:15 latest episode. Haven't you?

6:16 Oh, wait. I can't wait, but I did see this

6:19 thing on TikTok so I think I have a vague idea of what she

6:21 does. I'm like, oh, I cannot wait, I'm

6:24 here. Literally yelling at the screen

6:25 the same as Kyle and all the others sitting on the sidelines

6:28 where I'm like oh. My God, Kathy.

6:29 Kathy, you get. Is this where she's like

6:31 standing in the middle of a catwalk?

6:33 She literally walks. So she just walks.

6:35 I think, look, I think the woman's so freaking wealthy that

6:38 the world evolves around her. Yeah.

6:40 And it literally looks like that in this episode because she just

6:43 like they're at a they're at a fashion show.

6:46 It's she just walks into the back of the back lot of it and

6:50 grabs Sutton and, you know, and like Sutton, I think you need a

6:53 narrator. It's just it's just next level.

6:57 And then she walks out the front, but she's injured herself

6:59 and she's limping. She's so good.

7:05 Yeah, she is so good. Yeah.

7:07 She's next level This. Yeah.

7:09 She. I think she's lost the plot a

7:10 little bit. Oh yeah, I mean, did she ever

7:12 have the plot Well. I mean, I've always believed

7:16 like, you know, Paris Hilton being her daughter, like, you

7:18 know, I've always believed that Paris Hilton is really super

7:21 intelligent and leans into the the silliness.

7:24 And I always thought, you know, her mom will be the same.

7:27 Just don't know that that is is the camera.

7:29 I think you're right. She just goes around in her own

7:31 little world and her own little. Yeah, every everything revolves

7:35 around her. Yeah.

7:36 Oh, she's so funny. She's really giving me life.

7:38 I just love it. I love it.

7:40 And then the other thing. I sent you a a a snapshot a

7:45 screenshot the other day of Jen Shaw from Real Housewives of

7:51 Salt Lake City and Elizabeth Holmes working out together in.

7:55 Prison. That's the best Oh, I wanna be a

8:00 family on the wall and hear those conversations.

8:01 Like what on earth would those two have to talk about other

8:05 than scamming people? Oh, it's the best.

8:08 I'm like, Oh yeah, that I I can see how they found each.

8:10 Other Oh, you did it that way. Oh, I did this.

8:12 What? Yeah.

8:14 Love it. I just can't.

8:16 That's so good. I want.

8:17 So good be a. Family on the wall for that for

8:20 sure, yeah. All right, tell us a little bit

8:21 about yourself. Oh.

8:22 OK, so Meg, I'm a mom of two boys.

8:26 I have a 10 year old and nearly 8 year old this weekend.

8:29 Yeah, good. Most gorgeous squishy kids ever.

8:32 I love them. And what else?

8:34 What else? They're mad on their sports, so

8:37 I just feel like I'm being dragged around and being taxi

8:39 driver 24/7. I work in a field of education

8:45 out of the classroom, and I love that.

8:48 But I love this more maybe. Oh my God, if this could be our

8:52 job, Oh my God, I would love it. Actually, I didn't.

8:55 Tell you this, the other day we were driving to school and Mason

8:58 was really upset. My eldest, he was really upset

9:00 that I don't let them listen to the podcast because of the

9:02 content for reasons. Yeah.

9:04 And so we might listen, you know, to an intro here and there

9:07 or something like that. But no, I don't listen to the

9:09 the actual episodes. And he was really annoyed at me

9:12 for not letting him listen. And he says to me, how old do I

9:14 have to be to be able to listen to your podcast?

9:16 I go look, what, 16, you know, like.

9:19 And he goes, oh, what, by the time I'm 16, I'll have like

9:23 thousands of episodes to, to catch up on.

9:25 Oh. Bless him.

9:27 Yes you will mate, Yes you will. That that faith in me then are

9:31 we going to get to like he's going to be 6 years down the

9:33 track. We're still Can you imagine?

9:35 Hey, we are we better be making our a lot of money, a lot of

9:39 money. So just one thing actually,

9:41 while you mentioned that, yeah, we had a, a really lovely

9:45 listener contact us this week and she said, can you please put

9:49 together a Patreon? Because she's like, you should

9:53 be paid for what you do. There's a few comments we've had

9:56 like that. Similar recently, I would love

9:58 to know if people can like DMS or something.

10:01 Can you let us know what you would want from a Patreon?

10:04 Because we've got a couple of different ideas, but we're not

10:06 really sure how to go about it and what you would want.

10:10 Yeah. But to make sure we're offering.

10:11 Yeah. Something that you would want to

10:12 do valuable, but also something that we can actually add in

10:15 because, you know, time wise, time wise, that would, you know,

10:18 we we are really pressed for time And but it is something

10:22 that we're definitely willing to explore.

10:24 So yeah, let us know what you feel would be good to add in for

10:28 a Patreon. Yeah.

10:29 And because we certainly we'll, we'll definitely, we're looking

10:32 into it. Yeah, yeah.

10:33 We want to keep doing this because we love it and it is the

10:36 best it is, yeah. I've got a few shout outs for

10:38 today. Yes, bring it so.

10:40 We've got Emma, Annette, James and Kayla Smith, couple of

10:44 really lovely comments. And then we've got Tilly and

10:47 Nicole from TikTok who've been liking all our Tik Toks,

10:50 commenting, saving, doing all the things that we need them to

10:53 do to get our Tik Toks out there.

10:54 So thank you very much. Guys, TikTok count continues to

10:57 do well. I find that it's it is driving a

10:59 lot of our audience. So yeah, jump.

11:01 On Yeah, and if you've found us on TikTok, let us know.

11:04 Yeah. For sure.

11:06 And I also just jotted down a little thing as well.

11:09 It's just a reminder for everyone that we, the way that

11:13 we decide to make our podcast and produce our podcast and what

11:17 we release, you know, every week, we're definitely open to

11:21 feedback and we love getting feedback from people, but we

11:24 can't please everyone. So.

11:26 We've got we've had comment like some comments and people are

11:29 being lovely. I'm not saying that their, their

11:32 criticism isn't constructive, but we've got, you know, a

11:35 person who said to us this week, oh, I don't like the banter, get

11:39 rid of it. Just start the cases as you go.

11:41 And then we have other people, a lot of other people actually,

11:44 who are like, oh, we love the banter before you sort of get

11:46 into the seriousness of the case.

11:48 So while we appreciate everyone's feedback and we're,

11:51 we're more than welcoming of it, Please let us know what you

11:54 think and what you like. And, you know, if enough, if you

11:56 know, tips in a certain direction will absolutely be

11:59 guided by that. Yeah, but we can't please

12:02 everyone, so we always put in our show notes when like when

12:06 we're the case actually starts. If you wanna skip this bit where

12:09 we're chatting at the start of the episode, go right ahead.

12:11 Yeah, you'll look, you'll yeah, you can look for the timestamp

12:14 at the bottom of the notes. So yeah, absolutely, it's always

12:16 there. Just jump ahead.

12:17 No offence taken whatsoever. We get it.

12:19 No, sometimes when I'm listening to our episodes back, I'm like,

12:23 shut the fuck up, get on with the episode.

12:27 I'm sure these people, you know, screaming at us, at us all the

12:29 time, but. Well, Peter, Peter reckons when

12:31 he, because he listens on the train on the way to work on a

12:34 Tuesday morning and he's like, oh, your banter went two

12:36 stations longer than normal today.

12:39 I'm like, yeah, well, we had a lot to talk about.

12:41 I'm surprised he listens. He listens enough to us here,

12:43 I'm guessing. Jump ahead.

12:45 Oh no, we need, we need him for the stats.

12:48 But we still give you stats even if you jump ahead, you know,

12:51 it's still absolutely we're not, you know, like when.

12:53 Yeah. As I said, not offended at all.

12:55 Jump ahead a little bit. Tell us to shut the fuck up.

12:58 Yeah. Yeah.

13:00 All right, shall we get into today's episode?

13:02 Let's. Do it, Bell Gibson.

13:04 OK, who's been watching apple cider vinegar?

13:08 I think everyone, everyone, like around the world, I think

13:11 everyone's been watching apple cider vinegar.

13:12 However, we'll get into it because it's, I mean, it's, it's

13:15 not, not, it's not factual, no. So Annabelle Natalie Gibson was

13:19 born now again, OK. I'm just going to preface this

13:22 episode. By saying Belle lied about.

13:27 Everything. Everything, even her date of

13:29 birth. And So what we talk about a lot

13:33 of this is what Belle has reported.

13:36 I mean, we know her date of birth is the 8th of the 10th,

13:38 8th of October 1991. She then claimed it was 1989 and

13:43 then 1990. Oh, she's just all over the

13:48 show. I mean, I guess you know what

13:50 this what she's about. She was a path is a pathological

13:54 liar and what you you cannot take on face value anything she

14:01 says. And even when you're trying to

14:02 investigate certain claims she's made, you don't even get a

14:07 straight answer. So what we're going to talk

14:10 about today is a lot of what she's told us.

14:12 And then obviously what thing, what, what journalists and other

14:16 professionals and friends have been able to actually find out

14:19 for sure. Yeah.

14:20 So she was born on the 8th of October in 1991 in Launceston,

14:24 TAS. And she, although she grew up in

14:27 Queensland, so her family, she and her family moved now her

14:30 dad, so Belle's dad, this already gets me because in some

14:36 reports I see that he's, he's known as like a sperm donor and

14:40 that's it. And then in other reports, they

14:43 moved to Queensland and he left the family when Bell was 7.

14:46 So what's right? I actually don't know.

14:48 We don't know. I mean, that's the thing.

14:50 I read a couple of different things of similar sort of vein

14:53 and was like, well, you can't, you can't say because the

14:57 information is coming from Bell what's fact.

15:01 And even like there was a few childhood friends who'd

15:05 certainly dispute facts around many things that Bella said

15:09 about her childhood. So it's like, well, it's like a

15:12 lot of people were saying that my childhood was fine and

15:14 normal, but you don't know what's going on inside family

15:16 homes, you know. So maybe she was inferring he

15:19 was a bit of a sperm donor donor but lived with them.

15:21 And like, it wasn't a, you know, a father figure, OK.

15:24 Like, you know, so I don't know whether there's some fact in

15:26 there of that or whether it's or whether she just has outright

15:30 lied. I mean.

15:32 On both, you know, to make it, to make it look sadder, because

15:35 that's what she did. She just tried to elicit, you

15:39 know, sympathy from everyone. So if that made it look worse

15:42 that her dad left, you know, and she never knew him, then she

15:45 would have definitely. I guess depending on the person

15:47 of who she was speaking to, what would get more of a more

15:50 sympathy from them? Would it be that she never knew

15:52 him or that he left them at, you know, at a point in their life?

15:56 So that she. Yeah, which was gonna do

15:58 whichever was gonna serve her better with what she would tell

16:01 people, I think. Yeah, I think you'll find that.

16:03 Yeah, as we go along, we will. There are multiple, many

16:06 occasions of this. Yeah, where she just tailors a

16:08 story to the person and to what she thinks that, yeah, he's

16:11 gonna serve her best when talking to that particular

16:15 personal group. Inconsistencies are, yeah,

16:17 inconsistent. So her mom, Natalie, and she

16:22 lived with her mom, Natalie and stepfather Andrew Delbello for,

16:27 you know, part of her childhood. We'll get to that in a second.

16:29 Yeah. And she had a younger brother

16:31 named Nick. Sorry.

16:32 An older brother named Nick Gibson.

16:34 So there were the two kids in the family.

16:36 Yeah. Both to the same dad.

16:37 Oh, he was younger. No, he's older.

16:39 He's older. You would think she's he's

16:41 younger because of the way she talks about him, but he's

16:43 actually two years old. OK, right.

16:45 She talks about yeah, looking after him all the.

16:47 Time. Yes, exactly.

16:48 And so you do think he's. Yeah, but I mean, I've seen

16:51 interviews with him and. Oh my God.

16:53 Oh, she's, she is such a piece. Like she's a piece of shit.

16:57 There you go, Trish drink. Trish, Trish have a drink when

17:00 I'm paid up. Said he was going to do a shot

17:02 every time we said it. Belle describes her childhood as

17:09 non existent. Oh, let's get out the little

17:11 violin. Yeah, because she had to care

17:14 for her older brother and care for her mother who had MSI.

17:17 Mean her mom did have Ms. That is true.

17:20 She claimed that her brother was autistic, which he is absolutely

17:25 not. He, he look, I, I've seen

17:28 interviews with him, he says look, I did have some

17:31 difficulties with reading and writing, but it was by no means.

17:35 You've got autism. Well, it doesn't mean you've got

17:37 autism, number one. But also he said he got by.

17:40 It wasn't it wasn't inhibiting him from doing any anything.

17:43 Like he still attended a regular school, he still was able to

17:46 progress in life. It's just he found those things

17:49 slightly more difficult. Than having kids.

17:50 And with the interviews I've seen anything very articulate,

17:52 you know, like so, so yeah. Like she's really again tried to

17:57 gain sympathy from people for and making out, making false

18:00 claims on things. As an adult he's gone on to have

18:03 a couple of kids of his own and he leads a full and very

18:07 well-rounded life. Like what she's claiming is at

18:11 odds with what is actual reality in his situation, Which, again,

18:15 happens all the time. Absolutely.

18:18 So Belle's mom had Ms. and chronic fatigue, and Belle

18:21 claims that it was her responsibility to cook, clean,

18:25 do the washing, do the shopping, arrange medical appointments for

18:29 her mom, pick up her brother from school, which I'm like or

18:32 whatever. And none of that, according to

18:37 Belle's mum, was true. So Belle's mum has only been

18:41 interviewed a handful of times or not even a handful a few

18:44 times that I could find evidence of.

18:46 And the most prominent interview that she did was with the

18:49 Australian Women's Weekly. So it was an article.

18:52 Belle had previously done an interview with the Australian

18:54 Women's Weekly, which we will absolutely get to, yes.

18:57 Down the track. Yeah.

18:58 But Belle's mum refutes this in that in her sort of counter

19:02 interview, I guess, to Belle's just after one, Yeah, where she

19:06 basically says the bell never cared for me, her brother is not

19:09 autistic, and she's barely done a minute's housework in her

19:11 life. So does the truth lies somewhere

19:15 in the middle there. I mean, to to have a mum with a

19:18 debilitating illness like Ms. And her mum did eventually die

19:22 from Ms. So. And we know it's a progressive

19:25 disease. And I would not.

19:28 Oh my God, to anybody out there who has Ms. Horrible, awful

19:33 thing to live with. So I'm sure there were instances

19:36 where Belle did have to do some extra caring.

19:38 And that that happens in so many households around the world

19:42 where parents, you know, are unwell and are unable to do

19:46 things. But by the sound, like, by the

19:48 sounds of it, Belle's actually really embellished what she

19:51 actually did. She.

19:55 Belle's mum Natalie claims that. She gave Belle everything she

20:02 could. So Belle wanted, you know, new

20:04 clothes. She'd do everything she could to

20:05 get it. Belle wanted to go and, I don't

20:07 know, buy makeup, do this, go here, do that.

20:11 Yeah. She said she tried really hard

20:13 to facilitate all of that and all for both of her kids.

20:17 Yeah. Belle said she and her brother

20:19 were sorry. Nick.

20:20 The brother said she, he and Belle were very close growing

20:22 up. And then something happened.

20:25 All of a sudden, they weren't. She changed and all of a sudden,

20:27 yeah, yeah. Which I was reading in one space

20:30 where she she claims this. So I'm not again, not sure if

20:33 it's true that 12 years of age she moved out of the family home

20:38 and moved in with a classmate. Would you, were you able to like

20:42 find anywhere that that confirm that?

20:44 No, no, all, all, all that we can see, All that I can see is

20:49 where? In her Whole Pantry app.

20:52 So, yeah, OK, going. We're moving a little bit ahead

20:57 now, but Belle ended up releasing a cookbook based on

21:00 the app that she'd created. We will get to details of that

21:03 in a SEC. But in this cookbook, in the

21:05 excerpt that she wrote at the start, it was like 3000 words or

21:08 something. And it was her story.

21:09 Yeah. And in that story, she claims

21:11 that she moved out of home at 12 years young.

21:13 She didn't say 12 years old, 12 years young to really elicit

21:17 that emotional response from people.

21:19 Yeah. And moved in with a friend's

21:20 family. That's.

21:21 All I think it's kind of inferring from doing that you're

21:23 basically saying like you're her family, family home was, you

21:26 know, not she wasn't able to stay there for whatever reason.

21:28 And she's had had to move out of home and move into with, you

21:31 know, friends who took me in like, and it's really eliciting

21:34 again, this empathy from people around, Oh, this poor girl.

21:37 But I don't know if that's the case because I also read that

21:40 she claimed that, well, she did drop out of school at year 10,

21:45 but she claimed that she didn't actually drop out.

21:46 She was homeschooled. And it's like, well, which is

21:49 it? Well, you're homeschooled and

21:50 your mom put in effort because I mean, homeschooling is not easy.

21:53 Oh we all well post COVID, we all know that.

21:57 You know, so which is it your parents have put in and you've

22:01 decided to home school or or they were so terrible you moved

22:04 out at 12? It doesn't make any sense.

22:06 No, which none of this woman makes any sense.

22:09 No, but again, she's probably told a story that suited her at

22:12 that moment in time. Yeah, exactly.

22:14 And the way she spins her lies. My God.

22:17 Yeah, because another claim that she had was that her mother had

22:19 changed her name five times during her childhood and as long

22:23 along with. And that was where the birth

22:24 certificate thing came into it as well.

22:26 That she claimed that, you know, she was raised was her words.

22:29 Yeah, I was raised as believing that I was 26 at this point, you

22:32 know? Their age, but she was actually

22:33 24. Yeah, she was No 23, I think. 23

22:36 was. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

22:38 I mean it's just insane, like. She's it's crazy and like this

22:42 wasn't you're referring to the 60 minutes interview with Tara

22:44 Brown, which is, Oh my God, was the most infuriating television

22:48 ever. But hats off to Tara Brown.

22:50 Gotcha. She is incredible.

22:52 I think we've actually mentioned her in a previous.

22:54 I'm sure of it. I can't remember, but yeah.

22:55 She's amazing, so good. And she, she basically says just

23:02 so tell us when what is your date of birth?

23:05 That's, this is a really simple, straightforward question.

23:07 She goes, well, I was raised to believe, yeah, no, fuck off.

23:10 Your, your, your date of birth, your date of birth.

23:12 And then she says she went by 5 different names, but she can't

23:15 name any of the names she's gone by.

23:16 And she, I mean, The thing is there'd be evidence of that in

23:19 terms of you could pull up very easily, go to birthday marriages

23:23 record and find those records of what the changes were of her

23:26 name. Those aliases will always exist.

23:29 You can change your name or you like the other name always

23:31 exists somewhere. Yeah.

23:33 Like, so as we all know who have changed our names, you know,

23:35 we've got when you've got married, you know, so it's not

23:38 as though that person doesn't exist anymore and you wipe it.

23:41 So she should have been able to pull out evidence of that.

23:44 And there's there's none to suggest that that her best of it

23:47 was ever changed or that her name was ever changed.

23:50 So. Only thing, the only thing I can

23:53 come out with this is that her given name is Annabelle.

23:56 Yeah, she goes by Bell and they're very early on.

23:59 I think one of her e-mail addresses that she was sending

24:02 correspondence from was Annabelle under score something

24:05 and that got. Hacked.

24:07 Hacked something. Yeah, by the porn site.

24:09 It's something. So she abandoned that address.

24:12 That's a very cool. That's a bit like.

24:15 Yeah, it was a bit loopy too. Very loopy, yeah.

24:18 But then everything else is by belt.

24:19 So that's the only sort of thing that I could possibly see where

24:23 that there may be. So like everything that she

24:25 says, yeah, there's like a tiny little bit of potentially a tiny

24:28 bit of truth in it. And that's what makes it really

24:30 hard to tease out. Yeah.

24:32 What's right and what's wrong? Yeah, so one of I'd need to also

24:36 mention just now because it just a quote that he stated in one of

24:39 the things I watched. Made me think of it.

24:41 But Bryce Corbett. Uh huh.

24:43 Which we we like, We listen. To him every single morning.

24:47 Oh, by the way, I heard Brody shout out this morning.

24:50 So Bryce Corbett hosts a podcast called Squeeze Kids and we

24:55 listen to it with our kids every single morning and it is

24:58 fantastic. Anyone who's got primary school

25:00 age children. Yeah, it's a Daily News podcast

25:03 and fun, free, refreshed and it is really great.

25:07 It's I find it incredible the stuff that they talk about on

25:10 there and they teach the kids about like they talked about the

25:13 Trump Zelensky thing. They like it just really have to

25:16 take. The Chinese submarines in the

25:19 Tasman Sea at the moment, although it really touched on

25:22 some quite heavy stuff, but in a real kid friendly way.

25:25 Yeah, it's great. It's so good.

25:26 Anyway, back in the day, Bryce Corbett was the news editor of

25:30 the Australian Women's Weekly, which was, you know, this is

25:33 back in magazine days where magazines were life.

25:37 Like people? You know, the the circulation

25:39 they got was incredible. My grandma used to go up to the

25:43 news agency every week and get a stack.

25:45 Of women's Weekly in a Yep, Women's Day women.

25:48 'S day a new idea and like you know, you and I, we would have

25:52 been reading like the Cosmopolitans and Ethanoli I

25:55 love. Cosmo and Cleo, I literally

25:57 bought that monthly. I was.

25:58 Yep. It was like a huge portion of my

26:00 pocket money, but I still bought it anyway.

26:02 Yeah. Yeah.

26:03 Loved. That I wouldn't, I didn't have

26:05 any sisters or anything like that.

26:06 So I learned all my makeup things and my everything about

26:09 women in there. Like yeah, 'cause my mum

26:11 certainly don't want to talk to. Yeah, like it's, you know, this

26:15 is in that era where, yeah, magazines were a really big

26:19 source of information into a household.

26:21 Yeah. So Bryce, sorry, I'm really

26:25 getting ahead of myself. But when he's talking about her

26:30 and in. I'm just sort of now referring

26:31 to what I was talking about before we started talking about

26:33 how amazing he is. And his podcast is, is that he

26:37 was like anything with Belle was like trying to nail Jelly to a

26:40 wall. And, you know, he's like, there

26:42 would be like a glimmer of something that's true.

26:46 And then you'd have to try and figure out like what that thing

26:49 was that might have had a bit of truth to it.

26:51 She'd talk. Around everything exactly, so

26:54 don't actually answer anything directly that's.

26:56 It it's just really difficult to get a hold of.

27:00 Yeah, but she goes right back. I mean, look, she started these

27:03 this line, as we're saying, from the very beginning.

27:05 But you go back to 2009 where she really started to get into

27:09 like this skate scene and so and there, but there was also forum

27:13 forums and you can still go back.

27:15 And so some of these forums are still live, but they're very

27:18 distant websites. And she has posted on these

27:22 these forums prolifically back in 2009.

27:25 And you can see like a, a real escalation in terms of what

27:29 she's posting about. It starts off with real skate

27:31 stuff and what have you, but then she.

27:33 Looks like gothic skater she's. Got dark hair?

27:36 Yeah, it looks she's wearing black.

27:38 No health guru look. No kind of thing to it.

27:41 Not that very different look to it all, but yeah.

27:44 And she, but she started posting in these forums about having

27:48 medical episodes, you know, and starting off, I think at first,

27:51 her first one was some sort of heart condition and having heart

27:54 surgery, you know, and there were people who in this

27:57 situation that were dragged into it of like really falling for

28:00 these things and thinking that she was genuinely I'll.

28:04 There was a boy on this, so this was on skateboard.com dot AU,

28:07 this forum that she was posting on a lot around the time.

28:10 And there was a boy on that forum, a teenager who did

28:14 actually have brain cancer. Yeah, about four months before

28:17 Bell claimed on these forums that she had brain cancer.

28:20 Yeah, this boy had disclosed that on there as well.

28:22 And he was receiving a lot of attention and support for that

28:24 on this forum. Yes, unfortunately he actually

28:28 passed away from his brain tumor and but then bells like run with

28:34 that, you know, because she saw the attention that he was

28:37 getting and. And that that would repeat

28:40 itself over and over and have bells life.

28:42 She would like find people in in life that had these conditions

28:45 and things and she would use their information as her own and

28:49 take it on and, and spread those sorts of things.

28:52 So that's where that there were elements of truth because there

28:55 were other people's stories. They weren't hers and she would

28:58 use them to manipulate everyone along the way.

29:00 But then a lot of it, if you really pin it down, when you

29:03 look at the things, some of like particularly medical stuff,

29:06 medical doctors kind of go, no, that's not even possible.

29:09 Like that's not like, so as a, as a layperson, you know, just

29:13 generally speaking, you can't be like, holy shit.

29:15 And. Teenagers on a forum like you

29:18 know, you don't start to necessarily even adults don't

29:20 think critically in situations like that.

29:22 You you take people on face value because you don't expect

29:25 someone to somebody to lie about having a range tumor.

29:28 But I think that's where like that mean we can get more into

29:30 this later. But this is where Belle Gibson

29:33 has, I think is the start of people now question if people

29:37 are sick. You know, like you do have to be

29:39 more critical sometimes when in getting into these sorts of

29:43 realms is particularly where there's a lot of money involved.

29:45 Yeah. Where, you know, people,

29:47 unfortunately. I mean, you should be able to

29:48 just take someone face value if they say to you, you know, that

29:50 they have this debilitating disease or what have you.

29:54 But people need to be critical and go, well, let's just check

29:57 this out first because it's. Yeah, Gofundmes and all these

30:00 sorts of things can go all sorts of sideways because people lie.

30:05 And I think Bell was almost the beginning, the starting of that.

30:08 Yeah, I think because she kind of got into the Internet scene

30:14 so early and we'll get to the Instagram bit in a second.

30:18 Yeah, but she was posting things on this skater forum like so on

30:23 the 24th of December in 2008, she actually posted my family

30:26 all sent me packages to my post box for Christmas and I didn't

30:29 have time to pick them up today. So Devo, I'm not going to have

30:32 anything to unwrap tomorrow. Inferring she's in hospital.

30:36 Yeah, then and on her. Own on Christmas and no gifts.

30:40 On the 3rd of May she posted. In 2009 she posted.

30:44 I'm going into hospital in a few hours.

30:46 If one of you charming men don't send me flowers, you're all

30:48 dead. And to a degree at that level, I

30:54 mean, it's obviously it's all bullshit, but I mean teenagers.

30:59 I mean, we all posted some absolutely horrific.

31:01 And the Internet was all new and shiny and.

31:04 Do you ever get those Facebook memories that come up of posts

31:07 that you made? And it's like Emma is going for

31:10 a walk today and I'm like why Gross.

31:12 Like why did I even post that? Who cares that I'm going for a

31:15 walk? Or Emery's feeling stressed

31:17 today? And why was I talking about

31:19 myself in the third person? Because we did, because that was

31:21 what Facebook came up with when it first started.

31:23 It was you had to do that. It was it Then it changed later.

31:26 You didn't do a status of like what you've typed out.

31:29 It was, it always had Your name is.

31:32 Yeah. That was how it was.

31:33 That was the premise of it from the from the beginning.

31:35 But, you know, OK, we were teenagers, that's why.

31:38 I'm claiming, Yeah, No, no, we were just regular teenagers

31:40 claiming, you know, well, well, maybe I wasn't, but I can

31:46 understand living in that world. I mean, this whole new social

31:49 media thing, it was new to everyone.

31:51 And, you know, it would have been quite amazing to be able to

31:54 communicate with people on that different platform.

31:58 But you should still be truthful and not lie.

32:02 Yeah. I mean, there's one thing about

32:03 lying about how delicious meal was and putting a photo of it

32:06 up. And there's one thing of

32:07 claiming you have brain cancer. Yeah.

32:09 And that's just sick out of people.

32:12 Absolutely. All of these all of these posts

32:16 continued throughout 2000 and nine, 2010.

32:19 And it was all things like I've, you know, I've cut my hair for

32:22 chemo and she actually did shave the side of her head.

32:24 She shaved and she posted photos of that.

32:28 She the, the, the things that she was writing were things like

32:33 I, I got told I can leave the hospital tomorrow for the first

32:37 time in eight weeks or something, you know, just stuff

32:39 like that. She was really, really honing

32:42 it, honing it in. Yeah.

32:43 On the 6th of June, this one, this one kind of gets me.

32:46 On the 6th of June in 2009, she wrote, I will never forget

32:51 sitting alone in the doctor's office waiting for my test

32:54 results. This this she wrote in her Whole

32:57 Pantry excerpt as well. So Ross's dad as.

33:01 Well, she. Used it there, but yeah, she

33:02 posted it because do we just say that at this point when she's

33:05 writing it, she's pregnant? Yeah, like legit not lying.

33:09 Yeah, no, like we actually do have a baby.

33:11 Yeah. He called me in and said you

33:13 have a you have malignant brain cancer, Belle, you're dying.

33:17 You have six weeks, four months, tops now.

33:21 She was. Probably 6 weeks away from

33:22 giving birth at that point cuz she gave birth in July 2009.

33:30 Was it July 2010 she gave birth? No, at 18 years late in 2000.

33:33 And nine. Yep.

33:34 OK, yeah, So what the fuck? The father of her son was, Well,

33:42 she calls him her best friend, but he has nothing to do with

33:46 any of the bullshit that she was peddling or anything like that.

33:50 So it's probably worth just, yeah.

33:51 I mean, well, she was she was 18 and I think so was he similar

33:54 age? So yeah, I mean, yeah, the

33:56 young, young parents, you know, obviously into full pregnant,

33:59 you know, at six, at 1718, you know, that's hard to to get your

34:03 head around. And I mean, obviously plenty of

34:05 people are pregnant and have babies at that age and, you

34:08 know, manage and everything, but usually with a big support

34:10 system around them, which at this point, I think I, I think

34:14 my take is that probably from her own doing at 18, she's

34:17 pregnant without a family unit and around her she.

34:20 Posted something about a baby shower.

34:23 I can't remember the direct quote but it was and I

34:26 definitely haven't written it down, but it was something like

34:29 I've got my baby shower tomorrow and I don't think anyone's

34:34 coming over for it. That's in apple cider vinegar

34:36 like that got me a bit like, but I don't know if that was

34:39 accurate like. Oh, it that that actually she

34:42 did definitely post that. I've read I've read it in a

34:44 yeah, like in where they've somebody has actually

34:48 transcribed all of her posts to a website.

34:51 Yeah yeah. And so she definitely posted

34:53 that. Yeah, no, but I.

34:54 Wasn't sure with the scene that they depicted that right in

34:57 apple cider vinegar. Yeah, yeah, that hit me hard

34:59 when I watched it kind of going on.

35:01 If that, if that's true, if that's what happened to her,

35:03 that yeah, then no one showed up.

35:05 Like legit like that's that is sad.

35:07 That is really. Sad, but why didn't they show?

35:10 Up. Well, this is it because

35:11 potentially people were already burnt by her.

35:13 You're not not my person. Like I don't really.

35:16 This isn't adding up for me or, you know, it's Yeah, I think

35:19 she's yeah. That's sad though, that she

35:21 can't. She should have been able to be

35:23 celebrated then. But yeah, again, it's a bit of

35:25 her own doing, isn't it? I think so, Yeah, I think so.

35:28 I mean, she'd already alienated her mum by that point.

35:30 Yes, Yeah, so. And she had she moved to Perth

35:34 then. No, she was in Melbourne by that

35:35 stage. I think she moved to Perth.

35:39 I'm sorry. She actually gave birth in 2010.

35:42 She moved to Melbourne in 20. Nine, 2009.

35:44 Yeah. OK.

35:44 She gave birth in 2010. Yeah.

35:46 Yeah. OK, yeah, so her little son

35:49 Oliver was born then? Yeah, now look, this is this is

35:55 like early Instagram times as well.

35:58 So she was probably one of the first Wellness, Bryce Corbett

36:04 actually said. She's the person who made

36:06 Wellness and now. Yeah, it wasn't even a thing

36:08 before her, really. Yeah, yeah.

36:09 So she was like the first Wellness influencer.

36:12 Influencer. Yeah, before we even knew what

36:14 an influencer was. Nobody called her that in 2012

36:17 when she was posting. That's it.

36:19 That's it's what we now refer to her as.

36:21 And now they're everywhere. Yeah, yeah.

36:23 So her handle was at healing under score bell and the

36:28 aesthetic of her what she was posting was.

36:30 Divine. Not like my Instagram feed in

36:33 2012, no. It's.

36:34 Reason like my Instagram feed now not that I really post much,

36:37 but yeah. But yeah, she it was so curated

36:40 and so aesthetically pleasing and it was very nice.

36:43 Just put that out there. She's talented.

36:46 Yeah. Like there is no doubt that I

36:49 think remove her lying that she couldn't have made something of

36:54 herself like with all that her skill and ability in doing that

36:58 was it's phenomenal. What she went and did was

37:00 amazing and. She had amazing instincts.

37:02 Take away all the lies and the well, we'll get to all of her

37:06 life. I mean some of her actual fraud.

37:08 Yeah. Take all that away, she could

37:10 have actually had an empire. Absolutely, absolutely.

37:13 She's a, she was a girl forefront of all of that.

37:16 You know, I mean, what influencer who didn't even know

37:18 the term yet? I mean, they weren't even she

37:20 was the first of that. She was a pioneer in that sense

37:22 was were doing apps and things like it was just she was legit a

37:27 pioneer in this sector that so many other people have followed

37:31 down the same path that she has without lying and have created a

37:35 very wealthy empire for themselves.

37:38 Yeah, she could have been there. Absolutely.

37:41 But no, she fucked it all up. Oh yeah, so this is about around

37:45 the same time in terms of Wellness influences that Pete

37:48 Evans came to the fore with his activated arms and Paleo diet

37:53 off. Funny, funny story on paleo.

37:56 The You know when you read a word, but you've never heard it

37:58 said before. What bit I the other week when?

38:01 I oh bit it bit it. That was funny, Peter.

38:05 We were talking about this and he said this was like years and

38:09 years and years ago. And he was like, yeah, you know,

38:11 like those paleo diets, right? It's paleo.

38:18 Yeah. Like paleontology?

38:21 Paleontology. Anyway, you know, this is sort

38:25 of around the same time that he was coming to the fore with his

38:28 bloody bone broths and whatever else he was peddling.

38:31 Oh my God. Thank God that man's no longer.

38:32 Well, he is, but he's just underground more.

38:34 Well, he needs to be he's. Got tons of followers.

38:36 Yeah, but he needs to be like, OK, if you were to follow him,

38:39 that's on you. But cool, cool, cool, Bell

38:42 Gibson's Instagram bio at the time said Bell Gibson.

38:47 Game changer with brain cancer and A food obsession.

38:52 Game changer, Game changer. OK, self confess, self appointed

38:58 game changer. I mean, she was, I guess she,

39:01 she was, but I just find it like, I don't know, a bit on the

39:05 nose. I do because I reckon if you

39:08 really legit had brain cancer that wouldn't be in your bio.

39:11 No. But also if you had brain

39:13 cancer, I don't know, would would you be?

39:18 I guess everybody's different. I'm like, would you be posting

39:20 stuff and putting all your energy into making an app and

39:23 curating your Instagram? But then I guess for some people

39:27 that might be a welcome distraction from actual brain

39:30 cancer and chemo and treatment and whatever else goes along.

39:32 If you were having all those treatments.

39:34 If you were actually doing that, yeah, yeah, that Belle remained

39:38 to like. She looked very.

39:40 She was the picture of health. She she looked.

39:44 It like looked, I mean, she's she's too beautiful girl, but

39:47 you know, she had luscious thick hair.

39:48 I mean, many people with cancer do not have that, you know,

39:51 luxury along the way. She has skin glowy.

39:55 She was to me in a lot of ways the perfection of a figure in

39:59 terms of not. And she wasn't skin and bones.

40:01 She had a bit of meat on her. She was, you know, gorgeous.

40:04 Absolutely gorgeous, like. So to me, honestly, if, if the

40:09 people who were who were really suffering with cancer to look at

40:12 her, you would feel so. Shit about yourself.

40:14 People have said that. People have come out and said

40:16 that like, Oh my God, Belle's got cancer.

40:19 She's got the same. She's got brain cancer and I've

40:21 got brain cancer. I'm looking, like, deaf while

40:25 undergoing traditional conventional treatment.

40:28 And she looks amazing because what Beau actually claimed was

40:33 that she did a round of chemo and radiation, and then she

40:36 decided to explore alternative therapies.

40:38 So what she said was she was concentrating on diet, on Gerson

40:43 therapy and meditation. Yeah.

40:47 So I'm, I just wrote down what Gerson therapy is for everyone.

40:50 So it's it's called Hersh therapy in apple cider vinegar.

40:54 Hersh, therapies are made-up thing, yes, but what they're

40:57 actually referring to is a legit thing.

40:59 Yeah. Is a legit thing, yeah.

41:01 So if you're undergoing this Gerson therapy, yeah, you are

41:04 drinking 13 glasses of organic vegetable juice every single

41:08 day. Every.

41:09 Hour of the hour, yeah. You are eating organic vegan

41:13 meals with no sugar, fat, sugar or fat, minimal carbohydrate.

41:20 You are not drinking alcohol or having any type of drug, illicit

41:25 or not. You drink Castor oil every

41:28 second day which basically makes you shit yourself.

41:31 Yep, if the fruit smoothies and shit and the fruit vegetable

41:35 isn't already. Yep.

41:36 On top of that you then have 5 coffee enemas a day every.

41:40 Day 5 coffee enemas. Flora, after having five coffee

41:44 enemas a day, would be shot to shit.

41:47 We know it now, like how gut health is so important that that

41:50 many enemas cannot be good for you.

41:52 Oh. No, it can't.

41:55 Now, the other thing is, so I think it's probably worth just

41:58 really quickly touching on Jess Ainsco at this point in time.

42:02 So yeah, she was another Wellness influencer.

42:05 She was a journalist by trade, but she was a Wellness

42:09 influencer who was diagnosed with a like tumors in tumors,

42:13 arms in red stars. And yeah, she decided to not to

42:19 undertake conventional therapy or conventional treatment or

42:24 Western, you know, modern medicine treatment.

42:26 And she decided just to do Gerson therapy.

42:28 Now, she did it to the tee. She went over to Mexico.

42:32 She went to the Gerson Institute over there.

42:35 She did this hook, line and sinker, and she died.

42:39 Yeah. I mean, I think she certainly, I

42:43 mean, it might have given her a bit of extra time.

42:46 I know. Doctors are saying the the

42:48 medical professionals say that she had about two years to live

42:51 and she may have pushed it out by a few months.

42:53 Yeah, that's it, right? But even that could have

42:55 happened whether she did Gerson or not.

42:57 And her fear at the time was that because basically where

42:59 they're at was like, we need to amputate your arm, and that's

43:02 what will save you. And she wasn't prepared to do

43:05 that, which, you know, I mean. That's I don't understand.

43:08 That I I don't, but I guess each tell her own in that that

43:11 situation. Yeah, I understand that would be

43:12 huge and hard. Hard.

43:14 And she was a young woman. So identity is a big thing.

43:17 I know when you're when you're a, well, a person of any age,

43:20 but in particular when you're sort of.

43:22 And in the circles that she mixed into in terms of she was a

43:26 journalist for I think Cosmo even, was she?

43:29 Like yes, I believe. Cosmo wasn't point.

43:31 Yeah. So.

43:31 Yeah. So it would have been a very bit

43:34 of a vain thing, you know, in terms of, you know, that wanting

43:37 to keep the appearance that she had I.

43:40 Bet she was like absolutely hard line on this cell as well.

43:45 Her mom actually developed bowel cancer and her mom opted to sort

43:51 of try the same alternative medicine pathway and she died.

43:56 She died before before Jess did. But The thing is, you know, her

44:03 mom's cancer was actually curative, curable and so was

44:08 Jess's cancer. So, you know, they and they were

44:13 in or Jess in particular, she had a massive following as well.

44:16 Yeah. She was encouraging people to do

44:18 the same thing as her. So ethically, I find that so

44:21 tough. Yeah, absolutely.

44:22 Swallow. It's a it's.

44:24 But let's just also say though, so her character in Apple cider

44:27 vinegar, which is played by a Miller, they use her Miller

44:30 Blake is the name. And they sort of there's an

44:32 inference that this is that they're inferred to Jess in that

44:35 scenario. And in the in apple cider

44:38 vinegar, it's played out as if like these two were rivals in

44:41 terms of Belle Gibson and and Jess being rivals in the

44:44 influencer, how Wellness sector. You know that.

44:47 But that's actually that's one massive part of the story that

44:50 is not true. They knew of each other, but

44:53 they were not in any way rivalry.

44:56 They weren't friends. They were they didn't.

44:59 I mean, there's there is a common person between them of

45:01 Chanel. I can't remember the name in the

45:04 in the in the show that they use for her.

45:06 It might even be the same name. Oh.

45:07 They do they her name is Chanel in the show.

45:09 Yeah, but ATV in an apple cider video, they, they they call,

45:12 they plan her, plant her in the show as like Belle's manager and

45:15 was previously Jess's manager, but that she was never, she just

45:18 happened to know, she became friends with Belle.

45:22 She knew, she knew Jess, but only out of, you know, just

45:26 through other people. So that's all very false.

45:30 And I don't like it that that's how they play the storyline,

45:34 that this is two women who. You know, would have to put.

45:36 Against each other that that's just not what this was A very

45:41 they're very different stories in that yeah, so Jess was

45:45 legitimately unwell and legitimately fighting cancer and

45:50 was doing it in an in a different way to using

45:53 mainstream medicine and yes, pushing it potentially on to

45:58 other people. And I don't agree with that

45:59 ethically. Whereas Belle was doing the same

46:01 thing, but she was also lying about having cancer.

46:05 So I think there was. But then Belle also took it

46:09 another step further and, you know, claimed things that were

46:11 untrue as well, on top of outside of treatment and cancer.

46:15 Gerson's well known, not well known for everyone, but people

46:18 within that, you know, if you're looking into alternative

46:21 medicines for cancer, Gerson is well known.

46:25 So it wasn't like she was pulling from nowhere in terms of

46:27 making the stuff up herself. She was following other people's

46:32 recommendations or whatever and then and then spreaking it

46:35 herself. But so I mean, but I mean, those

46:39 people are charlatans. So aren't they?

46:40 Like, I mean, they've, they've that's an issue all together.

46:44 Yeah, it's a completely separate issue.

46:45 Look not all for people choosing their path and and you do.

46:49 You, you know, yeah, yeah. Don't then go out and trying to

46:53 tell us other people to do the same thing because.

46:55 And she was very influential. Yeah.

46:57 As was Belle. You know Belle Belle had people

47:01 who wanted to stop traditional treatment, proven treatment in

47:11 favour of bloody organic food. Thinking well, I could look as

47:15 healthy and well as she does, which that that's what I just

47:19 can't. Stand because you see these

47:21 really sick people who are undergoing traditional

47:24 treatments like chemotherapy. That's so rough on a person.

47:27 Yeah, and you should. And, and in that you're

47:29 fighting, you're you're in the in the absolute trenches of

47:32 fighting cancer. No judgement on whether you have

47:34 hair, No judgement on whether you look unwell.

47:37 Yeah, that should. Be the least of anyone's

47:40 concerns when you are, you are the hero in that and you are

47:43 fighting your battle. Yeah.

47:44 To then look at someone like Bell and think, oh, but I'm not

47:47 doing good good enough because I'm not looking like her and

47:50 being able to be as healthy as her, that's that.

47:53 That's just absolutely that's you manipulating people at the

47:56 absolutely heighten of it. It's just.

48:00 Horrible. Yeah.

48:01 In 2014, Bell released the world's first health, Wellness

48:08 and lifestyle app called The Whole Pantry.

48:10 Yeah, so it won the best food and drink app of 2013.

48:16 So she from Apple? From Apple.

48:18 Yeah, yeah, yeah. At the same around the same

48:22 time, around the launch of the The Whole Pantry, she claimed

48:25 that her cancer had spread to her blood, spleen, uterus and

48:29 liver. Yeah.

48:31 And her friends, her closest friends, found out about this

48:34 through Instagram. Like, she just posted that on

48:36 Instagram one day. Yeah.

48:37 And one of her friends was like, I can't believe she didn't talk

48:40 to us about this. Like, this is huge.

48:42 And this is going to be devastating, you know, and she's

48:46 like, you know, I've got primary and secondary cancers.

48:48 Now, world leading neurologists and neurosurgeons have been

48:56 asked about this. Now, first of all, Belle never

49:00 officially, I think she told friends that her brain cancer

49:04 was a glioblastoma. Yeah, she did.

49:06 I don't think she ever posted that publicly.

49:08 She only said she had a malignant brain cancer.

49:12 There are hundreds of different types of brain cancer, and you

49:14 don't know which one you had. Yeah.

49:16 Yeah, you know. Well, yes, if you had it.

49:18 If you had it. Yeah, Yeah, your doctor would

49:20 certainly explain to you what was what 1 you had and that's

49:23 the path of treatment for that would be and.

49:25 With a globlastoma, which is the most common type of brain

49:29 cancer, it is essentially a fatal cancer.

49:32 There are treatments that can prolong your life.

49:35 The other thing to note with it is that it almost never spreads

49:41 beyond the brain and spinal cord.

49:45 Yeah, she claimed that it spread to a blood spleen, uterus and

49:51 liver. Yep, she also claimed that,

49:54 well, how she got the cancer, she blamed it on the Gardasil

49:57 cervical vaccine. In and of itself, that has been

50:01 transformative for our generation.

50:04 Of I legit know people who we were talking about who didn't go

50:08 and get that vaccine because they were followers of Bell and

50:13 that it's because she was constantly like she would put a

50:16 post on her Instagram things like fuck the government for

50:19 giving me cancer when it's not true.

50:23 It's not. True.

50:24 And also, how did the how did she claimed the Gardasil

50:27 vaccination gave her a fucking brain cancer?

50:31 Like what the fuck? Yeah, her app was chosen by

50:37 Apple around this time too. Yeah, to feature.

50:40 So this is when Apple watches came out Yeah and and it was her

50:47 app was chosen as one of the apps that were going to come pre

50:50 loaded on the 1st Apple Watch. Huge, huge.

50:53 So apparently what they wanted it to do was basically if you

50:57 say you would you'd chosen a meal plan on the app yeah.

51:01 When you walked past a Whole Foods or this is like American

51:05 centric, but say you walked past a supermarket, it would ping you

51:10 and be like, oh, organic, this organic produce is available.

51:13 Yeah, basically. Oh my God.

51:16 So they worked really hard to make it, you know, really I

51:21 guess user friendly for those who wanted to use it in that way

51:24 and it was integrated. It's massive.

51:27 I mean, she was over. Twitter yeah were hard loaded

51:31 onto this and then yeah the whole pantry like so random so

51:35 random, but they she had them hook line and sinker.

51:39 She was over there for months helping them develop the like to

51:42 migrate the app onto the what I would.

51:43 Think that I mean, she was standing in in you look at

51:46 though the crowd of people who were going to be loaded onto

51:48 this app onto this watch to begin with.

51:50 I mean the names that reeled off of like different apps that it

51:53 was they are huge corporations. Yeah, you're talking the Twitter

51:57 target, you know, like these sorts of places that were named

52:00 as also being hard loaded onto the watch.

52:02 They would have had massive teams of people at Apple

52:07 developing these apps to be included on that.

52:10 And there's Bell on our own. Wasn't there be a red flag to

52:14 you that this maybe won't be someone we can work with?

52:16 OK, another this is another thing.

52:18 We've talked about this in other episodes as well.

52:20 Where was the due diligence? How did Apple be like, Yep,

52:24 we're going to do this and not have any record, any proof that

52:29 her story was true and legitimate?

52:31 The only way I can come at it is, and I'll say this again,

52:34 again, there are elements of that and it's been very much her

52:36 book and things that we she did bring out next.

52:39 You know, it can be on its own, can be used as a healthy, there

52:44 are parts of it within there that are untrue, absolute

52:48 bullshit and really dangerous. But the majority of like the

52:52 recipes and these sorts of things as just a healthy way of

52:55 living. Nothing wrong with it.

52:58 Yeah, but but she sold it totally.

53:01 Brain cancer survivor. Absolutely.

53:02 So the only way I can come at it is if Apple we're looking at it

53:05 as a, you know, organic foods kind of app.

53:08 If you if that's how, if that was what their intention of it

53:10 was, I can see the idea of them not looking into her cancer

53:14 because they're not going. This is a cancer treatment app.

53:17 This is a everybody's kind of organic access to food app that

53:22 I can I can see a path, but you still have to look into the

53:26 person that you're that's overseeing all of that.

53:28 Did you? Find out how much you got paid

53:30 for this. No, Nowhere.

53:31 It's not disclosed anywhere, no. They backed away very quickly

53:35 and very quietly, yes. So all of a sudden it was so in

53:37 20, in 2014, in the September, it was announced that it would

53:41 be loaded onto the app. By the March of 2015, the

53:45 articles had started to come out like basically or that she was,

53:49 you know, a charlatan. And by and so the April, April

53:52 2015, the watch was launching and by the time it launched, it

53:56 was nowhere to be seen. No.

53:57 And no mention of it? No, she landed a book deal with

54:02 Penguin to produce a cookbook under the same name.

54:05 So under the whole pantry sort of umbrella, she was given a

54:09 $132,000 advance. Now, apparently this is unheard

54:13 of for an unproven author. Yeah.

54:15 So authors like I'm talking the JK Rowlings of the world,

54:19 they're the ones who get these massive advances because they

54:22 know. They're gonna be gonna make

54:23 they. Know what's gonna come?

54:26 Mel was unproven. Like how did she get this?

54:29 I know it's it is. Crazy.

54:31 She Yeah, it's, it's mental. She also won the Cosmopolitan

54:35 magazine Fun Fearless Female award that year.

54:38 And there's a photo of her. You can look it up wherever you

54:42 go, like, look it up online, Google it, whatever.

54:46 She's wearing this white top or white dress with she's got

54:50 bright red lips. Her hair's beautifully like, you

54:53 know, thick and gorgeous in a in a ponytail.

54:56 And she's the one with supposed terminal brain cancer.

55:02 Yeah. Yeah.

55:04 Winning this award. And she gave a real heartstring

55:09 pool like speech that day. And from all accounts of people

55:13 who were there, that was, you know, not a dry eye in the house

55:16 because it's a. Harrowing story, but it was all

55:19 fake. It's all bullshit.

55:21 Yeah, all bullshit. Just really quickly I I looked

55:25 up how much it cost to download The Whole Pantry.

55:27 App Yep, Yep. So it's $3.79 per download.

55:31 That was US, yeah, $3.79. And it was downloaded in the

55:35 first month 200,000 times, yeah. So that just gives you a bit of

55:38 an idea where we're at. I.

55:39 Think within the first I was just was actually just looking

55:42 for my figures. It was around $1,000,000 worth

55:44 of sales were between the app and and the and the book.

55:48 By the time like and we're talking fairly short space of

55:50 time within 12 months, less than 12 months of the app and the

55:52 book coming out and this being all shut down and then pulling

55:56 out, it was over $1,000,000 worth of sales.

56:00 It's. That was a lot of money.

56:00 That was app alone. Sorry, Apple loan, Apple loan

56:03 you. Think Yep 100% it was apple loan

56:06 but I mean the book sold. I think they originally printed

56:09 something like 16,000 copies that were sold in a in a

56:12 heartbeat. They're now selling I know eBay

56:14 for like 650 bucks. I know because people just want

56:18 to get their hands on it because it's like such a topic of

56:20 interest at the minute. Yeah, don't buy a book.

56:22 Don't. Well, I mean, at least the

56:23 money's not going to her, I guess.

56:25 Well, that's true. They're not.

56:26 They haven't of. Course they're not gonna really

56:27 reprint copies. Yeah.

56:29 No, no, I mean, it's just insane.

56:32 But so around this time though, where she was like this is also

56:35 it's at an absolute peak. You know, the apps out, the

56:38 books coming out. The book was launched in October

56:40 2014. Yep.

56:41 By December 2014, she was looking at growing this into

56:44 something else again. And we don't really know what

56:46 because it was only at early stages, but she was an

56:49 advertisement she put out to recruit an IT specialist and she

56:54 also registered the name. The whole life, yes.

56:57 So she was gonna be shifting this from not just, I guess food

57:01 based stuff, yeah, into something else as well.

57:04 So I feel like it was like it gonna be a whole lifestyle type

57:06 app. I feel like it was she was kind

57:08 of trying to develop what she'd done with Apple.

57:12 Yeah, that she could then obviously own and release and

57:14 whatever. And again.

57:17 This is an intelligent freaking woman to be able to, you know,

57:21 this is the start of apps. This is the start of all that

57:23 stuff in the, you know, in your Instagram and influence the

57:26 stuff again. And she's evolving her company

57:29 and her business as it's got as it's going.

57:31 And again, if you remove all this bullshit lie and have just

57:35 done that with without that side of it, I still think she would

57:38 have been an incredibly successful person.

57:40 Possibly even to this day because people like the Wellness

57:44 industry is a multi billion dollar industry.

57:47 Worldwide, people gonna pay money.

57:48 People are out there wanna use this stuff.

57:50 And Instagram, it's all about the aesthetics and and she had

57:54 it. All Yep, she knew you had to do

57:56 that before the rest of us knew you had.

57:58 To exactly before we started posting like the bullshit you

58:02 know Valencia filters on our photos.

58:04 She she knew not to do that early on.

58:06 Oh, she told me. Because God, this shit.

58:08 I know it's so bad. She also around this time, she

58:12 started to, like, do interviews. I mean, not start to do

58:16 interviews. She'd been doing interviews all

58:17 the way through because people were so interested in her story.

58:20 But around this time is when she was like, oh, we donate so much

58:23 of a portion of our, of our income to charities.

58:25 Yeah, she said that in the month in the month where they earned

58:29 the least amount in the whole pantry app, they earned $700.00

58:32 and they still donated 25% of that to charity.

58:36 She also bullshit she also, excuse me, she also claimed that

58:43 most months she would either donate 1995 or 100% of the

58:49 proceeds of the app to charities.

58:52 Now, OK, I get donating to charity, that's great and I

58:57 think she absolutely should be because she's earning all this

59:00 money. She's got a platform, she's

59:02 obviously attracting people who have cancer and other diagnosis

59:08 who would benefit from a whole food diet and all that sort of

59:11 stuff. Great.

59:12 Yes, you should be giving back. No company sustainable, giving

59:18 back ninety 95100% of your profits.

59:20 You can't sustain that. No one can sustain that.

59:24 So red flag, yeah. Yeah, she claimed that they were

59:29 promising $300,000 worth of of donations in to charity.

59:34 All of $7000 was able to be found that were actually

59:38 donated. Weren't they donated in Clive's

59:40 name? One of them was OK, one of them

59:43 was get to Clive in one. So yeah, let's and but to like

59:47 $1000 and then another $1000 of that 7000 were done right as she

59:53 literally got emails from journalists asking questions

59:57 like you can track. Yeah.

59:59 So she was like she was trying to cover her tracks with a $1000

1:00:03 donation when you're promising 300,000.

1:00:05 She was living such a lavish lifestyle as well.

1:00:08 She was flying first class, she was going on international

1:00:11 holidays all the time. She lived in this $1,000,000

1:00:14 beachfront. Rented an upmarket townhouse,

1:00:17 leasing a luxury car and office space, undergoing cosmetic

1:00:20 dental procedures, purchased designer clothing and holidaying

1:00:23 internationally was how she spent most of her money.

1:00:26 She had like a $15,000 handbag. Yeah, now donate that $15,000 to

1:00:32 charity. Nobody needs a $15,000 handbag.

1:00:35 No, come on, come on. That just makes me so fucking

1:00:40 angry. It makes me so mad.

1:00:42 When you're claiming that's who you are out in public, that

1:00:45 those sorts of things wouldn't matter to you, that you're

1:00:49 living this particularly a different lifestyle to that, but

1:00:51 then in the background you are, yeah, doing those things.

1:00:54 That's what makes it off. It's the lie about it.

1:00:56 If you want to buy $15,000 handbags and you can afford

1:00:59 them, then go for it. Don't worry.

1:01:00 Absolutely no judgement. You're claiming your, your, your

1:01:02 money's going to charity and then you're not doing that and

1:01:04 buying handbags. Fuck you Totally, yeah.

1:01:07 Totally. Should we talk about Clive for a

1:01:09 minute? Let's because this guy, OK, I

1:01:11 have to say so the apple cider vinegar drama series, it's not

1:01:16 factual. Like there's so many things in

1:01:18 it that aren't true. And but I got to like the Clive

1:01:20 character right in it because I watched this actually when it

1:01:23 first came out, which is before we were researching for this.

1:01:26 I kind of stupidly watched it early, but anyway, went back and

1:01:28 watched, rewatched my initial reaction to Clive in watching

1:01:32 that was well, clearly this is the part of the story that's not

1:01:35 true, right? He because I'm like, in my mind,

1:01:39 I'm like, no one is either this dumb or no one is like this sort

1:01:43 of person. Like he's so unusual in the

1:01:46 show. And I turns out in my research,

1:01:50 that's a character they got literally down to a tea spot on

1:01:54 exactly who he was. That blows my mind.

1:01:57 I know, I know. Blows my mind.

1:02:00 So Clive Rothwell met Belle when Oliver was really young.

1:02:05 Her son Oliver was very, very young.

1:02:07 They lived together for well over a decade.

1:02:11 Yeah, they met in 22,000 and 10. Yeah.

1:02:13 So I'm pretty sure Oliver was only a few months old.

1:02:16 Yeah, he is an IT consultant, I think.

1:02:19 Well. No one really knows, and neither

1:02:20 does Bell. Well, yeah, apparently because

1:02:22 Bell, Bell went to like in her testimony in court, they asked

1:02:25 her what he does for a job and he she said.

1:02:27 I don't know. Yeah.

1:02:28 And then they said what sort of income does he have?

1:02:30 Oh, that's none of my business. Yeah.

1:02:31 And that they're not in a relationship.

1:02:33 Yeah. They were just friends.

1:02:34 They were just friends, but in every way everyone else around

1:02:39 them called them, you know, that was her partner.

1:02:40 Well. He basically raised Oliver.

1:02:43 Yeah. He was, he was Oliver's father

1:02:45 for all intents and purposes. I know Oliver had a had a

1:02:48 relationship with his biological father, but he wasn't present

1:02:51 day-to-day. No, that was Clive.

1:02:53 That's another thing around the like with Oliver with his son

1:02:56 and stuff in the show. There's some really harrowing

1:02:58 scenes around her being a pretty shit ass mother and everyone,

1:03:01 her friends and stuff that knew her.

1:03:03 That is something they said about her was that she was a

1:03:05 really good mum. Yeah, and I think that's awful

1:03:07 and they've depicted that in that show.

1:03:08 To make out that she wasn't, that makes me a bit.

1:03:12 Oh, it doesn't seem right. It's not nice, no.

1:03:14 So I mean, I think it's easy to sort of think that, you know,

1:03:18 Clive was sort of there protecting her son from her

1:03:21 being an evil mother and stuff too.

1:03:23 But that's not the case. He but I think he very much

1:03:25 cared for her son. Yeah, I was gonna say I think

1:03:27 he's the more present parent because she was, well, she was

1:03:29 busy. And she was.

1:03:30 Very busy, you know if it was these lies.

1:03:32 Takes a long lot of energy and time.

1:03:35 Absolutely, yeah. I mean, you know, working mum,

1:03:37 you know, like, you know, I get it.

1:03:39 Like, you know, you gotta, you know, come together as partners

1:03:42 and, you know, raise, raise the child.

1:03:43 But from all accounts, from friends, et cetera, she was a

1:03:46 good mum. So I'd.

1:03:47 Yeah. Just want to say that

1:03:48 technically linked with any of her crimes, but as in, I guess

1:03:55 officially, yeah. But then he lived in a house

1:03:57 with her for over a decade and he saw all of the things he

1:04:03 surely he questioned what the fuck was going on.

1:04:06 And the fact that she said when he met her that she had a

1:04:11 terminal brain tumor on malignant brain tumor or however

1:04:15 she described it, and 10 odd years later she's still alive.

1:04:21 That's an interesting one. Yeah, I mean, I think he knew

1:04:26 that. I think he was just in on it.

1:04:29 He must. Have been, but there's no

1:04:30 evidence like really to that's alleged.

1:04:33 He got lifestyle and that's like what kept him there, but then

1:04:37 from keeping him there. But it seems as though he had a

1:04:38 bit of money, to be honest. Like, because he's, well, he's

1:04:42 kept up the things now. Like, yeah, like later, after

1:04:46 all this, he's the one who's paid for stuff.

1:04:48 I. Believe that might be due to an

1:04:49 inheritance. Yeah, right.

1:04:51 Allegedly. Yeah, right.

1:04:54 So I think he's been able to continue that on because of.

1:04:56 That. Yeah, because what what you're

1:04:59 referring to is the fact that like literally this year was it

1:05:02 or like. No, it would have been earlier

1:05:04 because it's 2023. He was seen with a new partner.

1:05:07 OK. So maybe it was in 2020.

1:05:09 So yeah, somewhere around that. So up until about 2019, they

1:05:14 were definitely living together and definitely part of each

1:05:16 other's lives. And then they went off the radar

1:05:18 because there was no court hearings and things.

1:05:20 He wasn't part of any of that. But they, it was, it's believed

1:05:23 that they've been, they were living together and up until

1:05:25 2023, they hadn't. There's nothing sort of to prove

1:05:27 that they weren't together. Yeah.

1:05:29 As of 2023, he was seen with another woman.

1:05:31 He was clearly his partner. So we we sort of can make the

1:05:36 assumption that they were together until, you know, till

1:05:38 then. Yeah, but when all this shit

1:05:40 came tumbling down, which we'll get to now for Bell, he

1:05:45 definitely fiscally, yeah, supported her through that.

1:05:49 So you're right. He obviously had some money and

1:05:52 then wanted to help her out in this situation, which again.

1:05:56 But he has he has remained completely he has not answered

1:05:58 any questions. He has never never done come

1:06:01 forward whatsoever publicly. No, he's he's completely, you

1:06:06 know, out of it this picture with, you know, it's completely

1:06:09 bell in front forefront of all this and not him.

1:06:12 But I think he's complicit in it, like.

1:06:15 I feel like he could not, even as a bystander and not saying

1:06:18 anything. Yeah, you know, if you see

1:06:20 something, say something. And he didn't.

1:06:23 Yeah, I mean, there's quite an age gap between him and Bell.

1:06:27 And I wondered then where the this is where her faking her age

1:06:30 thing might have come into it because obviously when she's met

1:06:33 him, she was, what, 1818? Yeah.

1:06:36 And I mean, he would have been 30s.

1:06:38 I think he was pushing 40. Yeah, yeah.

1:06:42 So. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

1:06:45 But then so she said that she's like two or three years older

1:06:48 and that made all the difference.

1:06:49 I know, really. But anyway, just going back to

1:06:53 the donations and pledges to charities, One of the things

1:06:58 that got me was that she pledged to donate from her app download

1:07:04 Income to Joshua Schwartz. Yes.

1:07:07 And his family. Now they are depicted in apple

1:07:11 cider vinegar. Oh.

1:07:12 What's their character's name? I think I've written it down.

1:07:18 Oh, where is it? I want to say like Charlie or

1:07:20 something like, Oh no A. Hunter.

1:07:23 Hunter. And he this is a boy who did

1:07:27 have a globoblastoma and he actually passed away from, from

1:07:34 the disease. She never gave a single cent to

1:07:38 that family. She promised to help raise money

1:07:41 for him and then yeah, just never gave any.

1:07:44 Never gave it. So it's one thing to deny a

1:07:47 claim to a charity organization, I think, but when it's personal

1:07:51 like that and she befriended his mom, they kind of really became

1:07:55 intertwined in each other's lives.

1:07:56 Yes. And she used him.

1:07:59 She used him well. She used photos of him on her

1:08:02 blogs and websites and all of that.

1:08:05 Disgusting. Like she used him for his story

1:08:07 too because she would then use parts of what he was

1:08:11 experiencing and be and saying Oh yeah, this is how he's

1:08:14 talking. About the seizure, yeah, So at

1:08:17 her at Bell's son Oliver's 4th birthday, she we now know fake

1:08:22 the seizure. Apparently it was traumatizing

1:08:26 to everyone who saw it because she just collapsed and

1:08:29 apparently it went on for 40. Minutes.

1:08:31 Yes, like that's ridiculous. And I've heard Chanel talk about

1:08:34 this. Who was witness of it?

1:08:36 Yeah, this is one of her friends who was there and apparently

1:08:39 like midway through her having this seizure, which knows

1:08:44 seizures can be not too serious for people that you just need to

1:08:48 make maintain, as, you know, as a first aid kind of situation,

1:08:51 maintain that they've got their Airways and things like that

1:08:53 and, you know, protect them and that sort of stuff.

1:08:55 And that's all you can really do.

1:08:57 And but as they're witnessing this and it's getting in more

1:08:58 intense, like, well, maybe we do need help.

1:09:00 And she and she just made the statement.

1:09:01 I think we need to call an ambulance now.

1:09:03 Like it's been going on for too long.

1:09:04 And she made that statement and Bell just kind of came out of

1:09:07 the seizure and said, no, I don't want any Western medicine.

1:09:11 Like no, no, don't, don't call an ambulance and then went back

1:09:14 into the seizure. What the fuck?

1:09:17 Apparently this is like for Chanel.

1:09:19 This was sort of the moment when she went home from this

1:09:21 happening, kind of went that's not sitting right with me that.

1:09:23 That was it. It made her then critically

1:09:25 think about everything. Lots of other things that

1:09:28 happened. Yeah.

1:09:29 So Chanel then decided that it was time to confront Belle about

1:09:34 all this because and as you said, this was the straw that

1:09:37 broke the camel's back for her. I think she'd had some red flags

1:09:39 along the way. But this was the thing where she

1:09:41 was like, fuck, mate, this is this has gone beyond now.

1:09:45 And so Chanel actually enlisted one of their other friends, a

1:09:48 male friend, and they decided to do what is known as like an

1:09:52 intervention, I guess. So they rock up to Belle's house

1:09:55 and they're like, right, we need to talk to you.

1:09:58 Tell me, do you have cancer? Yeah, show me.

1:10:02 Show me some evidence. But even even just that, that

1:10:05 simple question which is has a yes or no answer.

1:10:07 She didn't have a yes or no answer.

1:10:09 It should have been up. Of course I do, you

1:10:11 motherfuckers. How dare.

1:10:12 You. Yeah.

1:10:12 Question me. Yeah.

1:10:14 I mean no. It wasn't that, but it also

1:10:17 wasn't. A No, I don't.

1:10:18 I believe I do, yeah. So what Chanel actually gained

1:10:24 from this conversation was that Chanel had been diagnosed, not

1:10:30 by a doctor in a hospital. Sorry.

1:10:33 Bell Sorry, sorry, sorry. Did I say Chanel sorry?

1:10:36 Chanel gleaned from Belle that she had not been diagnosed in a

1:10:41 hospital, that she'd been diagnosed by a doctor in the

1:10:44 suburbs to hold. I just read a bit about to.

1:10:49 Keep a straight face when she said.

1:10:51 It. Oh my God.

1:10:52 I mean, even when Chanel tells the story now, she gets a smirk

1:10:55 when she says that. Yeah, it's so cracking.

1:10:58 Ridiculous. Call him.

1:11:00 Anything else? Doctor Craig.

1:11:02 Doctor Brad. Whatever Doctor Phil it was

1:11:06 like, because she had to be quick, quick, quick.

1:11:08 Doctor Phil. Doctor Phil in his own right,

1:11:12 Yeah, is problematic. The actual like Doctor Phil

1:11:14 McGrath. Let's that's a whole other show.

1:11:16 We can definitely, absolutely. There's so much wrong.

1:11:21 So much. I mean, he's got lots to answer

1:11:23 for, but anyway, so the fact that she used him as the

1:11:27 interesting, but not that Doctor Phil, obviously.

1:11:30 Not no, just a random quack. She admitted that his that her

1:11:37 diagnosis from him was questionable because he'd gone

1:11:39 missing. What?

1:11:40 The fuck went missing? Now let's just say also he's

1:11:43 gone missing to the point of like, no one can actually find

1:11:46 that this man ever existed. Yeah, because he he's made-up.

1:11:49 made-up. Oh, sorry.

1:11:50 He lives in LA with Robin. Yeah, there's no evidence of

1:11:59 this man ever existing. No, no, it's just, oh, it's so

1:12:04 complicated anyway, so. She claimed that Doctor Phil

1:12:06 like put these had a box, which I'm I'm getting such Elizabeth

1:12:11 Holmes vibes from this like when she starts explaining that there

1:12:14 was a box with lights on it and they attached these, you know,

1:12:17 electrodes to 1 to my back and one to the underneath of the

1:12:21 chair. What the?

1:12:22 When the breeding is under the chair, yeah.

1:12:24 The pop ups, yeah. Yeah.

1:12:28 And then it, you know, did its thing and then it that then that

1:12:30 told me that I had brain cancer and.

1:12:32 It came out and it had a number and that means I've got brain

1:12:35 cancer. And apparently this guy was like

1:12:38 an acupuncturist or something as well.

1:12:40 And like just. Yeah, nothing wrong with.

1:12:43 I mean, I'm all for acupuncture. Totally, absolutely an

1:12:45 acupuncturist can't diagnose brain cancer.

1:12:47 No, like I mean you're not going to acupuncturist to say do I

1:12:50 have cancer? Yeah, that's it.

1:12:52 And that's what she was claiming.

1:12:53 So. Yeah, so then she's sort of

1:12:56 claiming from this basically that I've been duped.

1:12:59 Like I believed I had cancer. I was told I had cancer when it

1:13:03 turns out I didn't. So all this time I, I was living

1:13:07 my life thinking I was curing cancer with what I was doing.

1:13:10 Turns out I wasn't even sick. What?

1:13:14 What the fuck? But then she backpedals on that

1:13:16 really quickly, too. So who are these multiple,

1:13:19 because I mean, if she's had multiple diagnosis along the

1:13:21 way, what she's touching base with this doctor Phil who's

1:13:23 telling her more of this story, which it's none of it adds.

1:13:26 Up but Chanel's like show me your brain scan, show me an MRI,

1:13:29 show me your doctors don't keep. Those things, Mr. Because

1:13:32 they've got negative energy. About the energy and my chakras

1:13:37 and and the Gerson therapy. Yeah, so.

1:13:42 Look, I don't think she's ever done a fucking coffee enema, no.

1:13:45 She of course she hasn't, of course, because.

1:13:48 Chanel also talks about where like once she sort of realized

1:13:50 about this or this episode with the seizure that was like, what

1:13:54 this That's not right. She started thinking about

1:13:56 things. I mean, hang on a minute.

1:13:57 There's that night where we drank shit loads.

1:13:59 She was the one ordering the shots.

1:14:00 And she did say to her at the time, she'd call her out at the

1:14:03 time and kind of go, hey, you shouldn't be doing this.

1:14:05 And she and she fobbed her off with the oh, we're just living.

1:14:07 Well, my one laugh. I haven't got 1 long to live so

1:14:09 I'm going to live it up. Like, yeah, no, she just lived

1:14:13 like that. But then other friends say she

1:14:15 drank wine all the time. Yeah, you know, she nothing with

1:14:18 that. No, there's not.

1:14:20 There's, but when you're claiming that you are.

1:14:22 Doing this Gerson therapy and that's being you're living.

1:14:25 And that's all you do not, you know, she was claiming that

1:14:29 that's what she was living on a day-to-day basis all the time.

1:14:31 She never stood anywhere away from it because that was what

1:14:34 was curing her cancer. Yeah.

1:14:36 And then that, yeah, it wasn't true.

1:14:38 God, no. So Chanel was like, I need.

1:14:42 So basically after this intervention, she still wouldn't

1:14:45 admit really to anything in concrete, you know?

1:14:48 And Chanel suspected that, yeah, the there was fraud in terms of

1:14:53 the donations to charities and things like that.

1:14:55 So Chanel tried to, she went to a lawyer, a criminal lawyer, and

1:14:59 they basically said, no, you're defaming her by saying this, but

1:15:02 they went, you need to fuck right off and stop it.

1:15:05 She went to the police. She tried multiple avenues to

1:15:10 catch her out and basically call her on her shit, and nobody was

1:15:14 really listening. So she decided to actually

1:15:17 contact a couple of journalists at the age.

1:15:21 Yeah. So these journalists, Nick

1:15:23 Toscano and Bo Donnelly, they took on her story and they

1:15:27 really run with it. They started investigating it

1:15:29 straight away and they decided to take the tact of, OK, we're

1:15:33 going to investigate the charity fraud because that's something

1:15:35 tangible that we can prove. Or they could prove straight

1:15:38 off, like so they could do research in the background.

1:15:40 I mean, you can't get access to people's medical, you know,

1:15:42 reformation, no. Whereas the charity stuff is

1:15:45 totally gettable. It should be transparent, like

1:15:48 if there's something that I find, we will find it.

1:15:51 So they released a story in The Age basically calling her out on

1:15:56 her charity fraud because every charity that they contacted had

1:15:59 no records of Bell ever donating to them.

1:16:01 Well. They they did send her an e-mail

1:16:03 asking her 21 questions yes. And she, she didn't respond.

1:16:08 Well, she did, she responded eventually with a 1500 word

1:16:11 e-mail that addressed next to none of the concerns in their

1:16:15 original e-mail. Yeah, but she was, she was just

1:16:18 talking around. So yeah, she just, she would,

1:16:20 that's what she would do. Like rather than actually

1:16:22 confronting it and answering those questions straight up and

1:16:25 being able to say, of course, I've donated to those charities,

1:16:27 here's the receipts. She would just be like, oh, but

1:16:30 this, it's a wait on that happening.

1:16:32 And it's just not, doesn't happen like that.

1:16:34 And talk, talk, talk, talk, talk.

1:16:36 Yeah, no. And it was all bullshit.

1:16:39 Yeah. Around the same time, Richard

1:16:41 Gilead, who is a or was a journalist at the Australian

1:16:45 newspaper, his wife actually had cancer and they were in the

1:16:50 process of sort of researching. And, you know, I guess you

1:16:54 receive a diagnosis like that, of course you're going to turn

1:16:56 to the Internet and do your own research like that, you know?

1:16:59 Whatever you can do like to make you know things easier or you

1:17:02 know help you through that stages you look for alternative

1:17:04 things as well as. Yeah, you want to be as healthy

1:17:07 as you can, I guess. And anyway, so in the in the

1:17:10 process of this, they came across Belle Gibson's page.

1:17:14 And Richard, of his own volition, was like something I

1:17:18 smell a rash, basically, Yeah. And so he decided that he was

1:17:22 going to do a piece on Belle. Unbeknownst to him, Nick Toscano

1:17:26 and Bo Donnelly from The Age were actually investigating her

1:17:29 as. Well, he was from The

1:17:30 Australian. He was from the Australian

1:17:32 Richard Gilead. Yeah.

1:17:33 He, he was able to secure an interview on the record with

1:17:39 Belle and they met at a cafe and Belle was late because she

1:17:45 claimed she was in a car accident on the way to, which

1:17:48 wasn't true on the way to the She just can't, oh, she just

1:17:51 can't help herself. But he asks her directly in that

1:17:54 interview on the record, do you have cancer?

1:18:00 And she basically says she talks around it.

1:18:03 She doesn't give a direct answer.

1:18:04 She talks around it, but she essentially says she doesn't.

1:18:06 Yeah, it's the first time she really she ever admits it.

1:18:09 On the record? Yeah.

1:18:11 Well, probably ever, actually. Not even whether on the record

1:18:13 or not. No, yeah.

1:18:15 So that was March 25th April 2015.

1:18:17 Yeah, yeah, he's 3/4 of the way he reckons through writing the

1:18:22 story up. And that's when The Age released

1:18:25 the the charity fraud article. Yeah.

1:18:28 And so he's like, pressure was on.

1:18:30 I was like, Nick, tomorrow we've got to publish.

1:18:32 He literally like, yeah, head down, palm up.

1:18:33 I've got to finish this. Yeah, and he basically published

1:18:37 that her cancer wasn't real and that really, I mean, this her,

1:18:44 her life must have her whole being must have unraveled in

1:18:48 those moments. I just.

1:18:49 Don't know. I don't think for someone that

1:18:52 level of whatever's going on with her psychologically, I

1:18:57 think that at a point she actually goes, I'll be able to

1:18:59 spin this. Yeah, well, she because then she

1:19:02 did. She tried and tried.

1:19:03 She tried. So her followers, when these

1:19:06 articles came out, were posting things on Twitter, on Instagram,

1:19:10 Facebook, messages of support to her, things like we don't

1:19:14 believe a word they say. Yeah, they were backing her.

1:19:16 Backing her, yeah. 100% Yep they might the way he duped people

1:19:24 like it's just. Crazy.

1:19:27 They had been full blown manipulated.

1:19:29 And yeah, so it wasn't really I guess until until like 60, the

1:19:33 60 minutes interview that comes into it then.

1:19:36 I mean, Tara Brown does an awesome job in that interview.

1:19:38 There is actually a podcast, 60 Minutes Extra Minutes, Yes.

1:19:42 And there's one way they'll talk.

1:19:44 They talk about the person who the woman who booked Belle

1:19:46 Gibson for that and how they got her, which was not easy to do.

1:19:50 Well, they paid her $75,000. That wouldn't.

1:19:52 Have that would have been a bit of a, you know, helper.

1:19:55 But yeah, Tara and her talk about the interview and how it

1:19:59 all went and how it played out. And so it's an interesting

1:20:01 listen for sure. Check that out.

1:20:04 Because how do you interview someone like her, like when

1:20:07 you're not getting any answers? And you can see, I know in that

1:20:10 in that podcast, Tara talks about that she was told not to

1:20:12 put a grumpy face on like a scarer kind of thing.

1:20:16 Because you do have to play gently, gently to try and get.

1:20:18 You have to almost try and manipulate her back to be able

1:20:20 to get some honesty out of it, which is so wrong.

1:20:24 They were never going to get that.

1:20:25 No. And like, you know, we, we spoke

1:20:28 about this at the start of this episode.

1:20:29 Tara Brown just asked her what her birth date is and can't get

1:20:31 a straight answer. Like, it's not hard.

1:20:34 Yeah. Come on.

1:20:36 And you know, I was raised to believe this.

1:20:38 And I I believed this. And I was told this.

1:20:42 None of. That so it's like it's just this

1:20:45 is where we move into that realm of them listening to that.

1:20:48 It's what potentially true narcissism because she's not

1:20:51 willing to take any accountability of like, but

1:20:52 other people have done this to me.

1:20:54 It's not me who's done this. Someone else has created this

1:20:56 for me. I'm poor me.

1:20:57 Poor me, someone else's fault. So I also read some stuff about

1:21:02 a particular Doctor Feldman who is from, I want to say, yeah,

1:21:05 University of Alabama. He's a professor of psychiatry.

1:21:10 And he's come out and commented around the Belle Gibson story

1:21:13 and what he thinks has gone on for her psychologically.

1:21:16 Because, you know, we can sort of look at this as like a

1:21:18 Munchausen kind of situation. And again, we've spoken again

1:21:22 with the Gypsy case where we spoke about malingering by proxy

1:21:26 as well. But malingering is, is it's a

1:21:30 distinct diagnosis from the from factitious disorder.

1:21:34 And it's the one where it sort of focuses more on the things

1:21:39 they can gain from it, like, you know, money, drugs, you know,

1:21:42 all those sorts of things, rather than it being the actual

1:21:44 tangible things you can get out of it, The incentives rather

1:21:47 than the attention, attention. Yep.

1:21:49 Right. So he talked about that, but

1:21:51 he's also coined a new term called Munchausen by Internet.

1:21:55 Oh, OK. Yeah.

1:21:57 So it was in 2000, in the year 2000, he coined that term with

1:22:00 the obviously this growth of social media and people

1:22:03 accessing those sort of sites like Instagram, etcetera, and

1:22:07 using those as their plat space back then, Yeah, Myspace back

1:22:09 then, yeah. But using those spaces where you

1:22:12 know you can lie and people can't know the truth because

1:22:15 you're not in front of everyone, you're in behind a screen and

1:22:17 how people were using that. And and so there's this term was

1:22:21 coined and he spoke about Bell in this sense of potentially a

1:22:25 diagnosis for her of Munchausen by Internet.

1:22:28 And he's quoted as saying, my sense is that she was

1:22:30 particularly predatory in her behaviours, engaging more people

1:22:34 and enlarging the deceptions over time.

1:22:36 She's more sociopathic than most Munchausen by Internet patients

1:22:42 that I have seen. So it's a sociopath.

1:22:45 Yeah. And I think you're, I think you

1:22:47 hit the nail on the head when you said like she's a narcissist

1:22:50 too. Well, there's different levels

1:22:52 of like those sorts of things. There's a couple of so usually

1:22:54 people with Munchausen also have other personality disorders and

1:22:59 they could be things like narcissism, sociopaths, those

1:23:03 sorts of terms come out. So this and and what's the other

1:23:07 one? Personality disorder, like God,

1:23:11 antisocial personality disorders, things like that.

1:23:14 So, yeah, they generally have these underlying things as well

1:23:17 going on for them. And then because much housing is

1:23:19 something, as we've talked about, it's not always there.

1:23:21 It's something that it's a what? How do we explain that?

1:23:23 It's a it just appears in moments.

1:23:26 It's not always there, whereas a personality disorder is always

1:23:28 there, always have. Yeah.

1:23:30 Yeah. But he really felt that from

1:23:31 what he had seen of how far she was able to take this, there's a

1:23:35 lot more going on for her in terms of a sociopathic kind of

1:23:38 state. There's no evidence that she has

1:23:41 sought any psychological counselling or treatment or

1:23:45 anything throughout all this. No.

1:23:48 Should we talk about like the trial and and how that all came

1:23:53 about? Yeah, yeah, we can.

1:23:55 So she, in 2016, Consumer Affairs started taking legal

1:24:01 action on her in regards to the, the, the fraud in the, with the

1:24:06 charities. So there were false claims by

1:24:11 her that she was, that she had the diagnosis, which is also

1:24:14 part of that of that court hearing.

1:24:17 Yeah. Because that's basically what

1:24:18 the she was claiming that she was having this diagnosis and

1:24:21 that was false. And the fact that she was also.

1:24:22 So it was both parts playing in this of like the diagnosis being

1:24:25 false, but also the charity stuff being false.

1:24:29 Then obviously. And in 2017, the Federal Court

1:24:32 of Australia supported the claims of consumer affairs

1:24:36 around her, her fraud with the charities.

1:24:40 They couldn't find that all claims around her misdiagnosis

1:24:47 and all these sorts of things and false claims around her

1:24:49 diagnosis. They couldn't put together that

1:24:51 all of those could be proven as being false, but majority of it

1:24:56 was able to be proven that it was false.

1:24:58 So they still upheld all the the claims from the from consumer

1:25:02 affairs as well as some extra the council call it convictions,

1:25:08 can we? She wasn't really convicted

1:25:09 because in the end she was fined.

1:25:12 On September 2017, Officially she was fined 410,000 dollars.

1:25:20 $90,000 of that was for failing to donate proceeds from the sale

1:25:24 of the Whole Whole Pantry app as she publicly advertised. $50,000

1:25:29 of that was for failing to donate proceeds from the launch

1:25:32 of the Whole Pantry. App 30,000 was for failing to

1:25:36 donate proceeds from a 2014 Mother's Day event that she

1:25:39 held. Which was literally a

1:25:42 fundraiser. Yeah, Yep.

1:25:43 That she kept the money from. She just kept the money from it.

1:25:46 She'll also find a further $90,000 for failing to donate to

1:25:49 another company, profits from her app and book, etcetera.

1:25:56 And also as part of that 2017 judgement, she was fined

1:26:00 $150,000 directly for the failure to donate money to the

1:26:05 Schwartz family, who we talked about with with the brain

1:26:08 change. Yeah.

1:26:09 So I mean, All in all, she was fined, yeah, $410,000.

1:26:14 But that was in 2017. By the time we get further on,

1:26:17 that's now because she hasn't paid it.

1:26:19 It's now accruing interest. So she's up over the half

1:26:22 million dollar mark now of what she owes.

1:26:25 I thought it was like somewhere around the 700.

1:26:27 Yeah, it's, it's climbing and climbing because she hasn't.

1:26:29 Well, there was a raid on her house in 2020.

1:26:33 Yeah. To try and seize assets to

1:26:36 reclaim some of the money that she was fined for because she

1:26:40 had not paid a cent. That, I don't know that they

1:26:43 seized a hell of a lot. They weren't able to get much

1:26:45 from that. But they hasn't been disclosed

1:26:48 how much it was or anything like that in 2021.

1:26:54 She it was in February she that the the case was labeled as

1:26:59 abandoned, which that seems ridiculously.

1:27:02 We're not just. Going to claim we're going to

1:27:04 look for that anymore There there was was a second search on

1:27:08 the House in May of that year again where they may have seized

1:27:11 some more assets but we don't know what was seized and so but

1:27:15 she's still as far as we're aware the fine is still

1:27:18 outstanding and she's never had to pay a cent of it yeah.

1:27:22 So she's really got away with it.

1:27:23 I mean, what she's, she's known to have taken international

1:27:25 trips in that time, which. She claims Clive funded they

1:27:28 weren't funded by her. Yeah, but Clive?

1:27:32 If he was her partner, her de facto.

1:27:34 But that's where she claims they're just friends.

1:27:36 Yeah, well, fuck off. No, you're not bullshit.

1:27:38 And. They're at least a de facto

1:27:39 relationship with the way they're living.

1:27:40 For sure so what's his is hers and why aren't they paying this

1:27:45 fine like it's disgusting. Absolutely.

1:27:49 She also later on. Yeah, I know you know what I'm

1:27:51 about to say just by your face. The Ethiopian community.

1:27:55 Yeah. So she went to ground for a long

1:27:57 time after all this came out and no one saw her.

1:28:00 She didn't post she. Was in Northcote and Melbourne

1:28:02 still just but. Then her little head popped up.

1:28:06 In the Ethiopian community of all places, Yeah, where she's

1:28:12 actually doing fundraising and looking into charitable events.

1:28:17 Well, she's not though. She claimed that on in a in a

1:28:21 media interview she claimed all that and she was wearing the

1:28:24 headscarf and claiming she was part of their community.

1:28:27 She if it had like an accent in that interview, did you notice

1:28:30 that? Oh my, what the fuck.

1:28:31 Using. Language and she was, you know,

1:28:33 sort of telegraphically speaking within some the open language.

1:28:37 Well, the president of the Australian Oromo or Oromo

1:28:40 Community Association in Victoria, and I'm not going to

1:28:43 say his name because I'll butcher it.

1:28:44 And I feel like that's really disrespectful.

1:28:46 He stated that Gibson was not a registered volunteer within the

1:28:50 community. She's not in the community and

1:28:54 she's not working with the community.

1:28:57 She, she, he had seen her all of two to three times within those

1:29:03 community things. And he said that nobody knew who

1:29:06 she was and he wished that she would stop claiming that she's

1:29:10 part of the community. He came out publicly and said

1:29:14 that's big call. Yeah.

1:29:15 He had no idea who she was and. What?

1:29:19 So what was she hoping to gain from this?

1:29:22 You know, she's just, she needs some serious psychological.

1:29:26 Help. This is it.

1:29:27 I 100% believe that like I think that, you know, we can only do a

1:29:32 diagnosis from a distance because she's not going to sit

1:29:34 down with anyone, but she needs to.

1:29:36 I think that she seriously needs help.

1:29:39 And I I do worry about, I mean, I think from what I can gather,

1:29:43 Clive has custody of Oliver and I so I don't know what kind of

1:29:47 relationship she has with Oliver, but I'm sure she's

1:29:49 definitely part of his life. Whatever.

1:29:52 But I worry then for him, you know, with just not, not because

1:29:56 she's being a bad mother in, you know, in mistreating him on the

1:29:59 day-to-day or anything, but that's psychologically damaging

1:30:02 over time if your mother's completely like lying about

1:30:05 everything like that's. For sure.

1:30:07 And I mean, there's so much out there.

1:30:09 I mean, even just the release of apple cider vinegar means that

1:30:12 everyone's talking about this now.

1:30:14 And he would know, obviously, that that's his mum that

1:30:16 everyone's talking about. So, you know, for a boy born in

1:30:20 2010, he's 15 years old now. Yeah, He wouldn't 100% know all

1:30:26 of this or be hearing all of this.

1:30:27 That's right. And but that's I do have a real

1:30:30 issue with apple cider vinegar. The show like because it is

1:30:33 claiming that it's based on facts and it's really not.

1:30:36 It is. It is a false story.

1:30:37 No, they do say. They do say that.

1:30:39 It's not not completely factual. They do.

1:30:42 They they do, but it's it's but it does.

1:30:44 It's to me. We're getting into baby reindeer

1:30:46 territory with it. Yeah, yeah.

1:30:48 And I think that there's it can be a lot of people just assume.

1:30:51 Oh, that's the story of Belle Gibson I.

1:30:52 Think that's the issue, right? Like that people watch it and

1:30:55 go, oh that's true to true to real life events.

1:30:58 I mean, no, it's not. It's a dramatization.

1:31:00 It's based on true events. And there are certainly things

1:31:04 like in the in apple cider vinegar, the Tara Brown

1:31:07 depiction of the it's. Usually word for verbatim.

1:31:09 Yeah, it is word for word 100% what happened.

1:31:12 But then, as you were saying, like some characters have been

1:31:15 like an amalgamation of three or four different people.

1:31:17 Situations have been changed for entertainment purposes.

1:31:20 And this is the thing. We need to look at these things

1:31:23 critically and be like, OK, this is for entertainment.

1:31:25 This is not a documentary. I mean, I would say if anyone

1:31:28 who's listening to this is like, like, I want to know more about

1:31:30 this, I wouldn't be directing them to that, you know, for.

1:31:32 Entertainment. I thought it was very well made.

1:31:34 I didn't like it I. Liked it?

1:31:36 No. I.

1:31:37 Actually didn't like the girl who played Belle.

1:31:39 I thought she, you know, she's American.

1:31:41 I know. Best Australian accent of an

1:31:43 American I've ever was. Pissed me off through the whole

1:31:45 thing. Yeah, yeah.

1:31:46 Is it because it was like a bit whiny?

1:31:48 It wasn't the white, it was the quietness.

1:31:50 The bell talks like. That no, she doesn't.

1:31:52 She's got a higher pitch than that and it really but.

1:31:54 She for Bells. Whiny.

1:31:56 Oh whiny, definitely, but I didn't find her whiny.

1:31:58 I found her irritating. Okay, shit, I don't know, I

1:32:00 just, I didn't like it and I felt like it jumped around at

1:32:03 points. What was really hard got hard to

1:32:05 follow in terms of what? What timeline we're on?

1:32:08 Yeah. I, I, I wasn't a massive fan.

1:32:10 Yeah, in many ways for it I didn't, I did not really like

1:32:14 the pitting 2 females against each other.

1:32:16 I when that was not factual at all, I really despised.

1:32:19 That I didn't like that either. Well, because it's actually

1:32:22 served no purpose. To the story did not need that

1:32:24 at. All I agree.

1:32:25 I, I that was a that was a really interesting and weird

1:32:28 decision by Netflix to do that. Yes, yeah.

1:32:31 I think that was a really wrong choice.

1:32:33 Yeah, yeah. So yeah, no, I wouldn't direct

1:32:35 people to it personally. Where I would direct to people

1:32:37 though, is Bo Donnelly and Nick Toscano, who are the age

1:32:40 journalists. They wrote a book called The

1:32:43 Woman Who Fooled the World, Please.

1:32:46 So Apple Cider Vinegar was loosely based on this.

1:32:48 Like they, I think their book informed the basis of the show,

1:32:53 but everything they write in that book is factual.

1:32:55 Yes. And a lot of the information

1:32:57 that I got for this, for the research was through them.

1:33:00 So yeah, yeah, definitely give that a read for sure.

1:33:04 Yeah. Absolutely.

1:33:05 Really interesting. Very.

1:33:06 Very interesting, so much more detail than we've been able to

1:33:09 go into today. For sure, yeah, She's a very

1:33:12 interesting person. I just feel like we haven't seen

1:33:14 the last of her two. Like I feel like she'll pop up

1:33:15 again, not that I think she'll get her hooks in like she had.

1:33:18 Previously, because everyone's going to be questioning anything

1:33:21 she does from Gorgeous. I mean, so they bloody well

1:33:22 should. Yeah, but I do think that

1:33:24 unfortunately, she's got one of those personalities, that she'll

1:33:26 think that she's better knows better than everyone else and

1:33:28 that she'll be out of fools again.

1:33:29 Yeah, but no, no, no, no, no. Well, yeah, but I'll stand by it

1:33:34 if she had just freaking done this without the lies.

1:33:37 I know. Use your skills and be who you

1:33:39 are. Use them for good and not evil.

1:33:42 Ah, please, please. Come on.

1:33:45 You could be a good. Person I know what I was going

1:33:47 to say now about the Bryce Corbett thing.

1:33:50 Yeah, so sorry, just before we had to pause for a second

1:33:53 because I've forgot what I was about.

1:33:55 Yeah, I just did. I just completely lost my train

1:33:57 of thought. What Bryce Corbett was saying in

1:34:00 one of his interviews was that when he interviewed Belle for

1:34:04 the Australian Women's Weekly first he was like, Oh my God, I

1:34:07 cannot believe this woman exists.

1:34:09 You know, she's admitted to lying.

1:34:11 We, we can see all of the deceit and everything that she's

1:34:14 peddled along the way. Then when he did the interview

1:34:17 with her mum, he, he was like, it made me think a little bit

1:34:22 differently. So obviously there's some issues

1:34:26 there as well, and there were then issues with her upbringing

1:34:29 potentially, but no one's actually telling the truth in

1:34:31 this situation. So we don't actually know

1:34:34 anything for for sure. And that makes it really hard to

1:34:39 form an opinion on anything because we don't know.

1:34:41 No, yeah. I mean, I think obviously

1:34:45 someone who goes up like it turns out to be a bell.

1:34:49 Yeah. They've started somewhere that's

1:34:51 I mean, you know, obviously her childhood is definitely, there's

1:34:55 something there definitely that has caused this to sort of be

1:34:59 her, her adulthood. Totally agree.

1:35:03 But but when it's the borders are so muddied with her lies,

1:35:08 it's really hard to show any empathy for that because you

1:35:11 don't know what's happened. You don't.

1:35:14 We don't. Know.

1:35:14 No, we don't. And I don't think she knows.

1:35:16 I honestly think she's convinced herself of her own lies.

1:35:18 So it's. Yeah, yeah, it's hard.

1:35:21 She needs help. Seek serious mental help.

1:35:25 Please start. Yeah.

1:35:28 All right. I think that kind of brings us

1:35:30 to the end. As we said, there's so much out

1:35:31 there if you want to know more information.

1:35:33 Yeah, Google. Yep.

1:35:35 And there's so many things out there.

1:35:37 So next week, what are we covering Kamala Hamolka, Kala

1:35:42 Hamolka and Paul Bernardo? Yeah, thank you.

1:35:45 This is a Canadian case, Meg. So this was a case that really

1:35:50 intrigued me. And I feel like this may have

1:35:52 been one of the first true crime podcasts I ever listened to was

1:35:56 about these guys. Oh, wow.

1:35:58 Years and years and years and years ago.

1:35:59 Yeah, But you don't know anything about the case.

1:36:02 I'm so so interested for you to to get it get your teeth stuck

1:36:07 into. It yeah, I'm looking forward to

1:36:08 this will be my my absolute week of yeah deep dive.

1:36:12 I'm intrigued, yeah. See what I find out.

1:36:16 All right, well, thank you everybody for joining us for

1:36:18 another episode of Two Crime Besties.

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1:36:50 Stay curious. Crime besties.

1:36:51 Bye.