Manipulated by a wellness scammer

Apple Cider Vinegar

Netflix, 2025
Directed by Jeffrey Walker

Our culture seems increasingly fascinated with scammers. We see it in the popularity of true crime podcasts, in documentaries we can binge about catfishing, fallen televangelists and lavish music festivals that turn into hellish camping trips. But reporting doesn’t seem to quench our thirst for the stories of charming people ripping off the masses. We want to be drawn into the behind-the-scenes material – the fallen hero’s journey – the kind of character exploration that can only be speculated about in fiction. Hence, we have the rise of biopics about criminals who somehow manage to seduce groups of people, weaving a story so good and big that people can’t help but believe it, despite all the red flags.

The Netflix’s mini-series Apple Cider Vinegar is inspired by the true events of Belle Gibson, an Australian disgraced wellness influencer. This combination of real people and fictional characters reminds us of how easily lives can be invented on social media, and how wellness gurus, often presented as the ethical alternative to big pharma, have their own financial agendas. This is a story about charismatic people pulling viewers into stories of hope and restoration, only to find the stories of hope, like the Instagram photos, are too shiny and too easy. You can watch Netflix’s documentary The Search for Instagram’s Worst Con Artist afterwards to find out what is fiction, what is fact – and what is fact about Belle Gibson’s elaborate fiction.

Apple Cider Vinegar has been compared to the successful 2022 drama Inventing Anna, also a fictionalized account of scammer Anna Delvey who infiltrated the upper-class New York art scene by presenting as a rich, German heiress. But unlike Inventing Anna, Apple Cider Vinegar feels unrelenting in its depictions of cancer victims and family members being pulled into Belle’s web of manipulation. It’s one thing to watch a scammer take advantage of rich investors; it’s another to see someone using a kid with brain cancer to defraud online followers hooked on a story of hope against all odds. Like many popular shows released on streaming platforms, Apple Cider Vinegar drags out awkward moments and would be stronger if edited down to 3/4 of its showing time.

Despite my discomfort, I felt compelled to keep watching. With captivating performances by Kaitlyn Dever (Belle Gibson) and Ashley Zukerman (Belle’s partner, Clive Rothwell), the story keeps viewers as spellbound as Belle’s once-devoted followers. Through interweaving storylines, that are at times a little confusing, we follow Belle’s rise to fame.

Apple Cider Vinegar depicts what happens when we perceive the accounts of strangers’ lived experiences as more authoritative than the advice of experts. The characters occasionally break the fourth wall to remind us how easily we can become a passive audience hooked on the story of pretty people on a screen.

We feel the seductive appeal of social media, how easily filtered pictures of beautiful influencers can convince viewers – and even convince the influencers themselves – of the validity of their promises. Characters in the show, as well as the faceless followers sending a barrage of hearts to every post, begin to believe they have a personal relationship with content creators. When cancer patient Lucy is confronted with the improbability of Belle’s story, she jumps to Belle’s defense despite meeting her only briefly and following her online for months. “I know her,” says Lucy, the way one might speak of a childhood friend. As followers fall into these parasocial relationships, they become convinced of the influencers’ messaging and buy both the theories and the costly products they are selling.

The show also leaves some questions unanswered: who is the shoeless “doctor” Belle sees? What is the obligation of fact-checkers to interrogate individuals’ private medical history? Should content consumers question every story we read online, or just the ones that seem too good to be true? These, and many other issues, make for no easy answers to the problem of celebrities like Belle Gibson.

Hopefully, this show will serve as a kind of warning to viewers, including those seeking to follow Christ, about how easily power and influence can be misused. It reveals the importance of scientific research and peer-reviewed studies and the risks posed by following the anecdotal evidence of celebrities over expert advice. It also shows how easily charismatic narcissists can contrive an online story to make money – contrivances that, sadly, only give people false hope.