‘Apple Cider Vinegar’ Is Your New Scammer TV Fix — with a Dark Twist
If you’re Australian, you likely remember when you first saw influencer-slash-scammer Belle Gibson’s 2015 trainwreck “60 Minutes” interview.
“It’s this famous interview; it really went viral,” “Apple Cider Vinegar” creator Samantha Strauss explained to IndieWire during a recent interview. “It was like seared into our nation’s consciousness of Belle in this pink turtleneck and being grilled by [host] Tara Brown. And I remember watching that thinking, ‘Oh, that’s sort of fascinating,’ and, probably just because I’m a writer, feeling a bit sorry for her being grilled like that. But I found it and the lie she told really interesting.”
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Strauss is underselling it. As detailed in Netflix’s new six-part show, “Apple Cider Vinegar,” it was lies on top of lies for influencer Belle Gibson, who rose to fame in the girlboss era as a wellness guru who claimed she had cured her Stage 4 brain cancer by healthy eating.
There was just one wrinkle: She never had cancer, and did untold damage to others by convincing them to eschew medical intervention in favor of homeopathic remedies. (Gibson had an app/cookbook “The Whole Pantry” as part of her growing empire.)
The show — with the tagline “a true-ish story, based on a lie” — is drawn from the non-fiction book “The Woman Who Fooled the World,” by Beau Donelly and Nick Toscano. Strauss, who was a writer on Hulu’s “Nine Perfect Strangers,” among other projects, knew she wanted to be involved.
“They didn’t just do the rise and fall of Belle,” Strauss explained of the appeal of the book. “They sort of widened the aperture out to the whole wellness [world] to look at wellness across the ages. They spoke to people who followed Belle and sort of fell victim to her lies. They looked at some other influences; they talked to doctors. And I just thought, ‘Oh, there’s just so much to think about here.’ And it was a chance to have a really interesting conversation, but through this pretty wild ride that Belle takes you on.”
As anyone who started taping their face because a TikTok told them to or swears by chugging a probiotic drink knows, “wellness” is incredibly seductive — and pretty unregulated.
“I was interested by how much I want to run toward wellness culture so that it can just fix me,” Strauss explained of the appeal of chakras, crystals, and the like. “If I just give it all of my money, maybe I will be better. And that seems like a really good shortcut. We all have people in our lives who have been touched by cancer or serious illness, and and we see how sometimes disenfranchising the medical system is. You can see why people are so drawn to wellness. Where the series lands is [in] balance. Do your yoga and meditation, but also do your chemo as well.”
“Apple Cider Vinegar” stars the always-excellent Kaitlyn Dever (“Unbelievable,” “Booksmart”) as Gibson, complete with Australian accent. The show isn’t a straight drama — while a serious story with real victims, there are also fourth-wall breaking asides and funny needle drops; it’s a program that clearly shares a similar DNA to Netflix’s fun hit “Inventing Anna,” about scammer Anna Delvey, though the life-and-death consequences here raise the stakes considerably.
Perhaps because of that, one quirky twist is in the opening minutes of each episode a character always says, “Belle Gibson has not been paid for the recreation of her story.” It’s humorous each time it happens, but Strauss explains the info was important to include.
“I had a friend whose partner was dying of brain cancer, and they were horrified that I was telling the story,” Strauss said. “The first question was, ‘Is Belle getting money?’ I go on and read the YouTube comments, which I should stop doing on our trailer, [and it’s], ‘Is Belle being paid for this? Is Belle being paid for this?’ And I wanted to just clear that up straight away: No, she’s not and and also that our Belle is — I’ve never met the real Belle Gibson. This isn’t with her sanction or her blessing. Our character is probably quite different to the real person. I’ve used the facts of what I know, and I’ve invented someone much as she invented herself.”
The infamous “60 Minutes” interview still happens on the show, though — pink sweater included.
All six episodes of “Apple Cider Vinegar” are now streaming on Netflix.
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