Cancer fraud Belle Gibson told the world she was curing her cancer with whole foods.
The 26-year-old spoke about her terminal illness at length, and released a book and an app off the idea that her condition could, and would be, cured with whole foods.
So invested in her own lie, she even managed to bring it up at the funeral of a woman who actually was diagnosed with cancer, and had been trying to cure herself with healthy eating.
Belle Gibson’s (left) bizarre obsession with Jess Ainscough (right), a woman who was fighting her actual cancer through wellness, has been documented in a soon-to-be released book
Gibson crashed Ainscough’s funeral in 2015, where she cried louder than everyone else, to the point it disturbed other guests
A book on the complex life and lies of Gibson, ‘The Woman Who Fooled The World’, reveals Belle cried by far the loudest at Jess Ainscough’s funeral in 2015, before ‘crashing’ her wake.
‘It was like she was making a point of being seen and heard. Like she was trying to prove that she was more devastated than everybody else who was there,’ an attendee told the Fairfax journalists behind the book.
While Gibson and Jess were friendly on social media, they were not ‘close friends’ as she had told others, and their initial meeting left Jess less than impressed.
The ‘Wellness Warrior’, as she was known, reportedly told a friend soon after meeting the cancer-fraud: ‘something was off about her’.
The wellness blogger told followers she was curing her terminal cancer by eating whole foods
Gibson crashed the private wake of Jess Ainscough, who she claimed to be ‘close friends’ with. At the wake, she cried on Jess’ fiance’s shoulder about her own ‘illness’
After Jess’ funeral, Gibson turned up to the private and intimate wake for the woman, and continued to cry hysterically, for Jess, but also for herself.
During the wake, she reportedly asked Jess’ fiance Tallon Pamenter for a private chat, where she sobbed on his shoulder.
The book claims she told him ‘her heart was breaking, that she was petrified of dying the way his partner had’.
The pair had never met before, though Mr Pamenter said he had seen Gibson’s social media profiles.
Far from best friends, Jess (pictured) was reportedly left less than impressed from their first meeting, telling a friend: ‘something was off about her’
In early 2015, Gibson’s of a cancer diagnosis, and tales of charitable contributions were outed as fraudulent
‘At the time, there was so much going on that, I guess, I was just feeling sorry for her, thinking, maybe she’s kind of thinking the same could happen to her,’ he told the book’s authors.
In early 2015, Gibson’s story was outed as fraudulent, despite her having received hundreds of thousands of dollars from a healthy eating book she wrote.
Penguin released Gibson’s book in October 2014 but it was withdrawn from sale five months later.
Earlier this year, Gibson was found guilty of misleading consumers. She was handed a $410,000 fine by the Federal Court of Melbourne.
Judge Debbie Mortimer said Gibson may have actually been under a ‘delusion’ that she did have cancer.
The Woman Who Fooled the World will be released on Monday for $32.99
Penguin were forced to pull Gibson’s healthy eating book from shelves just months after it was published when she was found to be a fraud