Just like your ex from three years ago texting you out of the blue, the name Belle Gibson has returned to the news cycle. But don’t worry, nobody got scammed this time, thank the lord. Instead, the BBC has commissioned a documentary about her life and controversies, of which there are many. Not gonna lie, I am quite excited for this.
It’s definitely doco season, with the Britney Spears documentary occupying everyone’s mind, and Netflix announcing today that it’ll be making its own, but with a true-crime specialist. Everyone’s just excited to take deep-dives into the lives of people whose voices have been lost to time, and now Belle Gibson is next in line.
The working title for the documentary is ‘Bad Influencer’, which could change as the doco develops. The doco will reportedly be looking at Gibson’s life, from con artist activity to her personal life, while also diving straight into the massive topics of online influencers, the Wellness industry, and the culture of ‘clean’ eating and diet programs purported by social media users.
It will also be chatting with people who adored her and ultimately fell for the scams she was claiming as truths, which is something I am dying to see. The doco doesn’t have any kind of release date just yet, but will be in the hands of director Ziyaad Desai.
In case you have no idea who Belle Gibson is, she’s an Aussie ‘influencer’ who has found guilty of misleading and deceptive conduct back in 2017. She was ordered to pay $410,000 for scamming her followers into buying her apps and books.
The lie? Well, she claimed to have been self-managing her terminal brain cancer (and other cancers in her body) with alternative therapies, careful dieting and exercise. Turns out she not only lied about her cancer diagnosis, but her charity donations and age as well. A big yikes.
In January last year, she appeared once more to tell the world that she had been adopted by an Ethiopian community in Melbourne, and had changed her name to Sabontu. It’s probably very likely that this too will be included in the doco.
Dunno about you but I am so geeked for this to come out.
