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Mama Maya acknowledges the traditional owners of land and waters that this podcast is recorded on.
Hello, I'm m Vernon and I'm Laura Brodnick. And you've probably clicked on this episode of the Spill because you have seen Apple Cider Vinegar on Netflix and that's really really good because there are some spoilers in this episode. So the show has completely taken over Australian screens and social media feeds. And it's a six part series that stars Caitlin Diav as Belle Gibson, who's so well known as the notorious wellness scammer in Australia. And the entire
slogan of the show is the best one ever. It's a truest story based on a lie.
So in this episode we get into all the shocking moments from the series, including what's real and what's not, and when we tell you the real story behind some of these scenes, honestly, you'll be shocked because it seems too intense to be real.
And if you like this episode, we've actually done another episode on every thing That's happened and the massive fallout from Apple side of Vinegar since the show has come out from MoMA Mia. Welcome to the Spill your daily pop culture fix. I'm m Burnham and I'm Laura Brodnick, and today we have a very special episode. It's one of our brutally honest review episodes, one of my favorite of all time.
So if you're not aware what a brutally honest review is, it is where we talk about the biggest TV show or movie of the moment, something that we know everyone is watching, but also something that has captured the conversation across the world. And Apple Side of Vinegar has very much done that. Just a little warning that we are
going to be talking through all six episodes. We're going to be talking about things that happened behind the scenes, the true stories that inspired the biggest moments, why the ending should happen. So if you don't want spoilers, go and finish watching it and come back and listen. But I think from what we've been seeing from our audience, every single person has already devoured this series, so we should be good.
I mean, it's our national ride. It's like the story, it's the story of the nation.
Well, it debuted at number five worldwide, in Netflix number one in Australia, so we were primed and ready. So Apple Side of Viningar obviously the story of Belle Gibson, the controverversial wellness in NASA.
Mel Gibson, because every single person I recommended this show too has been like, oh, I didn't know that he had like a show about him?
Wait, who said that?
Every single person I've been recommending this show.
Too before they knew what the show was about.
I was like, have you watch Apple Side of Vinan that I've watched about And I'm like, it's about Bell Gibson And they're like, they think they hear mel Gibson.
Okay, well that's interesting.
So it's not about mel Gibson the actor, it's about Bell Gibson the liar.
Yes. So the Netflix series is inspired by the book The Woman Who Fooled the World, which was written by journalists Bo Donnelly and Nick Toscano. Obviously there are fictionalized versions of them in the show. They are the two journalists that originally broke the whole story around Belle Gibson lying about being diagnosed with cancer, and they did that by exposing the fact that she had lied about where she was distributing the charity funds, which was nowhere, it
turns out, to herself. So the first reporting they did was in twenty fifteen, and then they published a book that had all their research in it two years later. But it was also a bigger look at the wellness industry and how Belle had used people's interest in the wellness industry and how there were no regulations around it to trick people, and the creators of the Netflix show optioned the book, and then Netflix screenlit the series in twenty twenty two, so now it's finally on our screens.
When I first heard of Belle Gibson, like, I didn't realize how big a deal this was until I watched the sixty minutes interview.
Did you watch it live when it happened?
You mean, yeah, yeah, I watched it live because it was, like, I feel like, the most hyped up interview ever and it went so viral, And I just remember so specifically her in her like turtleneck pink sweater and just looking so she looked just like very angry but also confused, and she just never like straight away from her words. She never said that she was lying. She just thought that she honestly had cancer.
Yeah, that's so interesting. I definitely remember that interview going viral, and I think that's why that out of all the stories around Belle Gibson, when you see that sixty minutes interview in the show, that's the one piece they've created word for word, obviously because they have the audio and there's no disputing what happened in the audio, but because that's become her calling card across the world of people
know that story. It's interesting. I kind of knew about Belle Gibson before it broke, not that I've ever been part of wellderness cultureor anything like that, but she was just being so hyped up by so many of the publications I followed at the time, and you've seen the series her going to like the Fun Fearless Awards and all those kind of things, and like, I just remember her being in magazines I opened and being on TV. Really yeah, yeah, she was a big dealer. There's so
many clips circulating now. I was watching one with Sam Armitage the other day. Again, not that she would have known anything, like you just take it at face value, and she's doing the morning show circuit. Bell Gibson and she's just talking about her life in such a natural way.
And like she's talking about her app, which has been translated into like five different languages, and it's just selling everywhere, and her book is on every newsstand, you can buy it a kmart, and like everyone's just fawning over her, And why wouldn't you because she seems so natural. Like I mean again, the book publishers probably should have checked and the app developers should have checked about it. You
wouldn't expect the morning show hosts to check anyway. Getting past the story of Bell Gibson because that could be a whole other podcast. Actually, we do have a whole other podcast or extraordinary stories all about Bell Gibson and her life and her fall from grace, which will link
in the show notes. But let's get into the casting, because I think the casting of Bell Gibson was always going to be such a make or break and I think people were initially a little skeptical, the people who knew they were watching Bell Gibson's story, not Mel Gibson's story. Those people were a bit skeptical over American actress Kate Lindva being cast as Bell.
Initially, Yeah, I was skeptical as well, because she is American, and I thought because most of the cast are a stre so I thought they would have the main person Bell be Australian. But she did it so well. Oh my god, I was like one hundred percent believable. Even like her mannerisms if you watch the comparison between the real sixty Minutes interview and like the one that was fictionalized on TV, her little like quirks and the way she raised her eyebrows and even the way she like
blinks sometimes is exactly like Belle Gibson. I don't know how she did it, but she absolutely nailed it.
Yeah, she did nail it. I think also having like a big name but not so big enough a name, that the casting of her overshadowed this series because I think some people like we have obviously been long term fans of Caitlin Diver because of book, Smart and unbelievable and just like a lot of other different work that she's done, but I think like a lot of people might have been coming to her for the first time in this so she was kind of believable as Belle.
Interestingly enough that the two other actresses are both Australian actresses, but have found fame pretty much only playing until recently American characters. I guess it's like if they can do it. So Alicia didn't Ha plays Miller Blake. So a lot of people would know Alisha from The hundred and one of the best shows ever and Fear the Walking Dead, but reason one of your favorite shows ever? No, no, no, I'm a Walking Dead fan, not Fear the Walking Dead.
That's a different fandom. But she was on that show for a very long time, and they're two big American franchises. And then recently she was on The Lost Flowers of Alice Hart, so she's doing a bit more Australian work. And then Asha d very famously was an actress who couldn't get a lot of work in Australia, and she's talked about the fact that being a woman of color initially shut her out of a lot of those kind
of soap operas or like kids shows. So she went overseas and found huge fame on a great show I would say the bold type. Yes as Cat and then as returned to Australian has been starring and lots of interesting things.
She's got a very interesting accent. It's like a hybrid version of American Australian and she kind of kept it throughout the movie, like she didn't go a hardcore Australian accent, and I thought that was quite interesting, Like no one addressed that.
The four kind of main females I thought were all incredibly cast. Five, I guess if you're really counting in Susie Porter as Tamara Miller's mother. And I think Susie Porter's always.
Been Oh my god, she was so good.
I've just she's one of those astrain actresses who's just in everything but is not like an international name, but has this huge body of work. And she was incredible. And then Tilda crobham Hervey as Lucy I thought was amazing. She played Helen Ready in the movie about her life. And do you hate her because she's dev Pateel's partner, Yeah, yeah.
But because of her, like dev Ptel has been spending a lot of time in Adelaide and Adelaide together.
That's either here nor there.
I wouldn't mind seeing bumping into him at like a farmer's market or something.
Well, you might do, but he'll have Tilda with him and she's lovely.
Thanks Tilda for bringing him.
I'd lied to welcome on the stage.
Shelle Gibson. It must have affected her that my book was reviewed as better than hers. I'm sorry.
Who's her Miller? She was diagnosed with cancer, so she's consistently maintained. I have no reason to doubt her because in her case it's true. It's funny my doctor said you have brain cancer. He's a bloggie my life. She's just like you. We do look incredibly well.
I've never felt better.
I have to find the right way for me. I just got each other. Loved the session for all body goosebumps. Thanks for coming Bell Bell Gibson the brain cancer right, So we should probably talk about the character of Milla Blake, who's also really set up to be the lead alongside Belle Gibson. The creators of the show have said that this was never meant to be like the rise and fall of Bell Gibson. She was only meant to be one part of it, and that's why it's called Apple
side of Vinegar. It's not named after her because they wanted to show it as like how wellness influencers used Instagram at the time but obviously because she is the big name, we really have like hooked onto that. What did you think about the disclaimers at the beginning of each episode where they break the fourth wall, So like the first time we see Caitlyn Diva do it where she looks to the camera and said, some names have
been changed to protect the innocent. Belle Gibson has not been paid for the recreation of her story.
Is there a reason why, like they do it for every single episode, Like, is there like some contract or legalities behind that? Because I was like, I liked it for the first episode, especially because it was Caitlyn Diva and she's still being bell where she says Belle Gibson was not compensated for that, and she's like, of course she was fucking wasn't that? Yeah, fuckers? But after like the first one, I was like, I don't need to hear this again.
No, there's a reason they Actually there's two reasons why
they did it for every single episode. One is that the creator and writer of Apple Side of Vinegar, Samantha Strauss, thought it was just really important to include from a moral standpoint, So she said she'd optioned the book and she was going into production and she was writing the script and she was talking to a friend whose partner has brain cancer, and she said they were absolutely horrified, Like Samantha, his friends said, horrify that she was doing
this show. And they had said, why would you give this woman more oxygen? Don't you know what she's done, don't you know what she's still doing? And is she being paid from it? And that was the question that Samantha found every time she talked to people about the show, is that they all just assumed that Belle Gibson was in some way involved or assumed that she had to
be paid for it in some way. And for so many people, especially people who had donated to her causes as we see in the show, and then like the money never went to those people, People who had bought her books and apps and you know, lost money and they could have been spending on other things, or people who followed her for years and felt tricked, or.
People who could have just died from like following like.
Her by her saying I kid my cancer and using this happy, beautiful woman and you're like, yeah, I could have that. So people were really upset that they thought she was profiting off the Netflix show, So they thought they had to really hammer home in every single episode that she wasn't just so people knew that wasn't happening. But also the other big thing was the defamation part of it. Obviously it would be kind of hard to defame Bellgi.
It's really confusing to me because, like they name her, they go through a lot of things like in detail of like everything that Belle Gibson has done, and I wonder, like how do they get away with doing that? Like how could they make themselves fit safe?
Well, one thing with defamation is that the person who's claiming to have been defamed has to prove that a publication is lying about them in a way that has taken away their reputation. Obviously, there's a lot more legal lays. This is just a very top white explanation.
Do they get away with it because she doesn't have a reputation?
No? No, she can't prove she has cancer, and she can't prove that she gave the money to charity, and
she can't all those things. She can't prove. The other thing, though, is that they keep saying this is a true ish story based on a lie, and what we've seen recently with a few shows, like namely Baby Reindeer is that they say this is based on a true story, which is why the woman who Baby Reindeer is about has now been given the green light to go ahead with a hundreds seventy million dollar defamation suit against Netflix because they said this is a true story rather than saying
this is based on a true story. So every time the characters in the Netflix show say this is a true ish story based on a lie, names have been changed, they're immediately deflecting a lot of the defamation because they're not claiming it's real. Like and also a lot of people like, we're going to go through the characters now and say who's real and who's not. The creators of the show haven't actually come out except for saying that
Bell Gibson is based on Bell Gibson. They haven't actually come out and said a lot of these people are based on the people who we have just been able to piece that together because of defamation.
Yeah, there was one character, Miller Blake in particular, who I remember we wrote about an influencer years ago named jess Ainsko, and I was like, this is exactly the same person, Like it's exactly Jess, And that confused me because Jess was, like, I guess Belle's competitor in this like wellness space of curing cancer through natural remedies rather
than like the clinical side of things. And she tragically passed away from her cancer and she had the same like Miller in the show had the exact same type of cancer as Jes did. Jess's mother passed away from going through Jess's like alternative medicine root, and then Miller's mom passed away. So I was like, this is spot on, but why would they change the name?
Well, that's the interesting thing with Jessica ames Co is that the show has said that she's just one of the influences that the character of Milla Blake is based on. But when you look like you're saying, when you look at the comparison, like, no, it was her, it seems almost pretty much based on her. So in the show we see her working in the girlfriend office, but in
real life she did work at Dolly. When being diagnosed with a very rare cancer that does start in the arm, she said yes to chemotherapy originally as Miller does on the show, and then they have renamed the type of alternative health medicine in the show from what she went through in real life. But it was basically almost exactly the same thing of the idea of like no toxins,
no alcohol, no sugar, coffee enemas. And that was how Jess ains Coe became very famous, Like she was almost became an influencer before influencers were really a thing, because she was there at the birth of Instagram, but also she started before Instagrayah, like she moved her blog is where she gained so much traction, and then she was able to parlay that fame as Belle did, into books,
into speaking to us, into winning awards. Alicia dem Nakara, who plays her, said that she's meant to be an amalgamation of different influencers, which we can obviously see.
That ninety percent of one particular influence.
That it's hard because a lot of Jess's blogs that she wrote at the time have been marked a private and the videos that she made, but a lot of the work that she did is still around so you can go and read it. And the way she talks and her turn of phrase and everything is very similar
to the character. So they've really embedded that and as you're saying the same thing with her like personal life, like she was very much in love and married her husband Talan, you know, before she passed away, and her mother, who she was very close with, after she was diagnosed with breast cancer, followed her daughter's health advice and that's
why she died. And one of Jessica's last blog posts, which is horrific, as talking about how her body had just deteriorated and saying that she didn't know how to live in a world without her mother, which is kind of like a you know, a story that we see mirroat in the show, but they.
Also make her quite unlikable.
Did you think so? Yes?
I hated her character, did you yeah? Interestingly I kind of hated her more than Bell.
It's interesting at different parts of the show, I really dislike these women, and then sometimes I just felt so much empathy for them, even Belle Gibson. Like so many people who were going into the show, because obviously we got to watch it a bit early, so many people going into the show said to me like, oh, I
hate Belle Gibson. I can't wait to watch this, And I had to say to them like it's not this big take down of her that you think it's going to be, Like she's humanized in a really interesting way, is that, especially in the first episode where you see her just this like lonely lost young woman who is pregnant and has no support and has obviously come from
a terrible home excusing what she did. But I think it's also interesting to sort of see that, like a lot of people who do terrible things in life, like they don't just appear out of thin air and act that way, Like there's a lot of lead up that goes there. Yeah, And I thought they did a really good job of humanizing her. So by the time she starts like lying about having cancer, I like totally understood
why she did that. Those graphics on the screen where they have all the light and the red and the gold colors that come out of her phone and like envelop her in love when she reaches out for help online, I thought was like a really accurate representation of the dopamine hit you get when you get love.
From social addictive. Like if you've ever had like a piece of social media be validated by a whole bunch of strangers, it's like you run on that high for so long and you just constantly need the another post to go as viral.
And what part about Miller didn't you like just that she wasn't saying yes to the cancer treatment or was she kind of evolved as an influencer.
I think it was when she brought her mom into it that like absolutely destroyed me, especially the scene with her dad saying to her mom, she's killing you. She's going to kill you and she's like, no, I'm not. It's so like hard and then like her mom And this is why Susie Port I thought was brilliant in this role when she said what kind of mother would I be if I don't do this?
I know?
And like because she let her daughter do it so and I'm like, that's so true, Like it's all so true, Like it felt so real and it was just she's real. The whole scene of her speaking about it just felt so real and it was just so tragic and you just knew what was going to happen and you were just so scared that it wasn't going to happen, and it does happen. It was just really sad, and that just pissed me off about her like when my mom died, I was like, I hate you.
I know the visceral anger I felt through watching this show. It's quite surprised.
I felt like we all toed on her on Collogist.
Yeah, like he was just so ancrying when he was like, just to be clear, you will die and died. Oh no, don't do it. But doctors have to sometimes use that language so that there's no gray area. It's like when a doctor comes out to tell you that a loved one has died, they have to say they have died. They can't say passed away, they can't say anything like that because they've been taught to like use this language that it sounds harsh, but it's no gray area. There's
no brain from misinterpretation of what that means. The idea of her mother, Like, it was hard for me to hate her as a character for that, even though I was really angry watching it, because it's like she was so close to her mother and loved her so much, and the only reason that she wanted her to go through that same healthcare situation that she had gone through, that take that same wellness journey was that because at that point in her life, she one hundred percent believed
that he had cured her. Yeah, and that's why she was so hesitant, Like when they're in the hospital, that scene where she's saying to the doctor, just so you know, our family has a really bad history, and the family doesn't have a bad history with doctors. It's just that at that point in time, because she hasn't had any scans to show that her cancer is growing until later on, she thinks she's saving her mother's life, and she's willing to like make enemies. She's willing to have her father
be angry at her. She's willing to use up all their money because she thinks she's saving her mother's life, which makes it so much more tragic.
And I was thinking like, and it's so easy for me to say, as someone who's like perfectly healthy Touchwood, is that imagine what it could have been if she had just done the surgery.
Yeah.
But then I'm also like, you can't ask a twenty two year old woman to get rid of her arm.
Essentially, It's interesting because after Jessica aans Co died and there was a big public memorial for her that a lot of people went to her father and husband put out a release, and you know, a lot of it was like thanking people for their support and talking about what Jessica had meant for people. But they also included a statement where they said, it has been reported that a Jessica had received a certain type of medical care and paraphrasing here that she would have lived and that
is incorrect. So whether or not that's incorrect or not, I don't know. I wasn't involved in her medical treatment, but I just thought it was quite interesting that even like at the end of her life, after all that had happened, they were still wanting to put out this thing saying like, don't judge her for what she did, because she didn't do the wrong thing, like that kind of protectiveness on her. I want to build something meaningful, the love.
I've recently been diagnosed with a third of cancer.
It has ninety thousand blikes.
She does not have this blame cancer.
Always know what you're putting a body.
Bell, It's a simple question, do you have cancer? I want to destroy her.
Something I thought was interesting is how they fictionalize this kind of rivalry between Miller and Bell, which I guess you did need to push the show along because in real life, Bell and Jessica did cross paths, but it was different to the show.
I read that Belle like also like attended her funeral.
Oh yeah, no, no, that funeral seems so that out of everything in the show.
I was like, surely this part.
Of the that part is so real. So I know, I like, we have to how did she do? I know? I put that story up on side because I was like, the people need to know about this. So Belle and Jessica first met at a conference they didn't know each other, and Jessica's manager later on, this is all coming from the book.
It's Jessica's manager, the one who Chanelle is.
Oh no, no, this is a different job. Oh, Shanell is a real person.
Yes, we'll get to okay.
All these stories of what was true and what's not are coming from the original book this series is based on because they interviewed a lot of people involved in the situation and they said that Jessica and Bell met for the first time at a conference where Belle came up and introduced herself to Jessica, and Jessica later told her manager and her manager as the one being interviewed that she was very wary of her and felt a
little uneasy. But they did continue to have this Instagram relationship after this, where they would leave comments on each other's posts, you know, celebrating each other, love hearts, all that sort of stuff. And then when she died, she did attend her funeral, and it's written in the book that her family and friends were like, one, how did you know what was happening here? How did you know
where the house was? They don't know how she showed up and how she's sobbing in the church when I was watching that, because I went and looked up a lot of these things later, I thought, surely this is the fictional life. Pot Surely the real Bell Gibson did not walk into that young woman's funeral and sob and
make it about her. But she did, and her friends and family later said when they were interviewed that it looked like she was trying to show that her grief was more than everyone else, and that she was trying to steal the spotlight. And it's also alleged that the wake afterwards, again, how did she go? She went, and she went into the bedroom like she does in the show and tried to sob and like comfort her fiance or her husband, her husband in real life and.
It away so good where he was like, you gave her the creep.
Yeah, she've had a full freak out and he was like, get away from me. It's like obviously. But I also think that that was kind of interesting that they took this little nugget of what had happened in real life. Is that Belle really seemed to idolize Jessica, or maybe she didn't nihlize her, Maybe she just wanted she saw this outpouring of like genuine love and affection that her family and friends and followers had for her because she
was sick and she wanted to bask in that. And they were both two beautiful, blonde, attractive women who had made a career of these wellness platforms. But I thought in the show was interesting how they kind of dial that up so intensely, And I think you kind of needed that to kind of push the story along and show like just because everything is all light and fluffy and we're best friends online, it's so much more brutal behind the scenes.
My favorite character in the whole show was I should yeah now, oh my god. I thought she was like perfect. I loved how she was acting as like the audience, I guess the answer for the audience. Whenever we had questions, she was like that person would answer it because they used her in the different time slots right like right from the beginning to present day where she's talking to the journalist to like where she got swept away with all of Belle's lies, but also being best friends with Miller.
And I think that she was a character that was just kind of so angry that she also fell for it. Yeah, and then she I felt like she had so much weight on a chest for feeling guilty of Like I felt like she felt guilty for her friend's death because she just like left her to kind of fend for herself with her juices and went on to support Belle,
who was at that time the more successful influencer. And I think her portrayal of herself was so well and how she navigated those friendships, because that would suck, Like imagine being like one of the women who was like perfectly healthy, who didn't actually have to like rely on your life to believe these kind of things, and yet you still fall for it.
Yeah, I know, that's a really crazy kind of event. So she now Bill Gibson's best friend. Like, that's true. The fictionalized part is her relationship with the Miller character.
Oh okay.
So it's interesting that Belle and Chanell are the two that have kept the names from the real life characters. But I think why they've done that is that Bell Gibson, everything she's done is on the record. And then Chanelle was the main whistleblower who worked with the journalists and who let everyone know what was happening. So you can use her name in the show because she's on recorders
as doing this. So she first met Bell Gibson after being signed her as an interviewee during our writing internship, and they became really close and she worked a lot with her. And then when she found out that Bell Gibson was lying about her cancer and misleading people, that scene where she gives her the opportunity like tell the truth, like and tell me right now, and she doesn't happened in real life. And when Belle continued to lie to her, she made it the crying yeahhh. She made it her
mission to expose her lies. And it was really her testimonial that really made it possible for those initial investigative reports to go forward. The other thing that was true is that Bell Gibson really did fake that seizure at her son's birthday party. Was that true? That's true as well, in front of her son, in front of her son and everyone for like an extended period of time. And that's another reason why a few people were just like
seeing it in real life. That's when it started to kind of put off some warning.
Bells, Oh my god.
The stuff with her son I found absolutely brutal to watch. I've got to say, I can't stand when kids are involved. And that scene where he's looked in his room, which is not a proven thing, is like key fictionalized. It was just trying to show what happens when a parent is and he was sick and stuff, and she takes him too an alternative therapist who does the light and sound machine, which is what Bell Gibson said, diagnose to cancer. When she was found out.
Oh my, the light and sound machines absolutely sent me the ten thousand dollar light in sound machine. What was so sad for me and absolutely heartbreaking. Was one of the final scenes of the series when she was with her son and you just see how much kids pick up and how much kids learn, and the generational trauma in her family because I'm her mom wasn't a saint either,
like she had like a very troubled childhood. And her mom has publicly spoken about Bell Gibson, like the real Bell Gibson, some one has publicly spoken about her and how she doesn't agree with anything she did. And that scene with her son, how he had like his bandaged arm and then he said he broke his hand like while he was sleeping. Yeah, and then straight away she was like, no, we can't like let this continue, like we can't let this craziness that I've been going through
continue with like your generation and the generation after. But that was so sad because I feel like in those moments, because he was so young, she probably would have passed on, like the seizure at his birthday party. She'd been like, oh, he's too young to remember that. He won't remember that, and my kids remember everything.
They pick up everything, which is yeah, just another really sobering part of the story. Also, her husband so hot Clive, Yeah, yeah, that he was again interesting character again based on a real person. Again, his name really was Clive. It's hard to sort of tell if they're still together, because it's very hard to find any information on Bell Gibson. Now, we do know that she never went to prison at the time of recording, she hasn't paid back.
That's the while that she's never gone to prison, I.
Know, there's so many different like legalities there that make that hard. She did join an Ethiopian community, I do believe at one stage, and was seen wearing their traditional dress and everything, but when the community was asked for a statement, they said she wasn't officially part of them. I think she's been photographed a few times allegedly she has another child. Now it's so hard to say because
she's not. And also every single news outlet in the world right now is trying to find her and contact her, and no one's managed to speak to her. But she did stay with Clive for a long time after this all blew up, and I think seeing his story is interesting too, because again I think the show humanizes people in such a way that by the time he decides to stay with her, like you almost do understand it, yeah, which is really annoying, But obviously he's doing it for
the sun and for the family unit. He has and he just feels that he'll go back into the world alone and even if the life he has with Bell isn't real, it's better than the reality he faces without her.
Yeah, that's so sad. But like they're still living in like the mans, Like right at the end, you just you still see them living in that match house and the mansion, and you hear that sixty minutes is like paying her seventy five grand, but that even though that poor boy who actually had brain cancer needed sixty.
It's a real story as well.
You better give him that money, birl, But.
She never did. That's another story that's pulled from Obviously, there's a lot of families that were in that situation, but it's not a real story. Yeah, there's one family in particular who were working closely with her at the time.
Because I remember them from part of the interview.
Yeah, exactly. So they were part of the interview and that's chronicled in the book that the show is based on as well. And basically after it happened, mums like, I'm absolutely blindsided. I thought this woman was helping me, she was raising this money for my son who was cancer and then none of the money showed up, and I think like maybe nowadays, like people would get up a gofund me and get that money back to that person.
But I think at the time and maybe that did happen to an extent, But I also think at the time people were just so shocked and angry and didn't know what to believe, that it was hard to sort of recoup that money from people who had already done donated. Yeah, getting onto another really sad point in the show, which I know there's so many, there's so many to choose from. I mean, you hated hers, maybe you didn't care, But I thought Miller's death was done in a really interesting way.
I also thought her character was built in an interesting way that she's such a product of her time, of that early two thousands when the show takes place where she like loves Cleo, like she's a mad girl. Like the clothes she's wearing are all of very of that hair. Yeah, she's very obsessed with Sweet Valley High and one of the main characters. I was like, that is a perfect like amalgamation.
They're like sitting on the laptop on the rock at the beach was so tumble coded, but.
He was so obsessed exactly. But when you see her in that moment, I mean, when she tells her dad and unwraps her arm, I mean, that's the most one of the most brutal TV scenes I've ever seen, because you think that he's going to be angry at her, but then he's just obviously devastated. And I thought her last blog post, which I was trying to find Jessaine Coe's last blog post, and that it's all been taken down. So but I do believe that she never wrote the words.
You know, if I could return to traditional medicine now, I would. But again, I think that's part of the fictionalized journey of Miller, of her coming out and saying like, my final act is just to say I should have done this, but this is where I am now. And I think it's also like a really powerful moment where she closes the laptop because you see all those messages flashing up and people are being like, no, I've got
a cure, I know a healer, I know these. A few years ago in her life, she would have jumped on all those messages, but she just closes the laptop and sits in peace, and we don't actually see her pass away, but that idea of watching her close the laptop is her death scene in a way.
Yeah, And I think how like people perceived both Bell and Jess at the time is evident through Lucy, her character who actually has breast cancer and you see her go on this journey of believing Belle and believing like ultimate medicine to like kind of doing her own thing and having like these big fights with the people who love her who want her to just get better and go the traditional medicine route, and then she just had to go on that journey by herself where she did
like try it for a little bit and then she was like, actually no, I want to go back into chemo and like do it properly. And I think that kind of was like a bit gave me a tiny bit of hope that like not everyone's life was destroyed by Belle Gibson. Yeah, like in who she Influenced.
Yeah, that's so interesting because that closing montage of how the last episode ends has been like a little bit polarizing in a way because obviously you could just keep going, like obviously where she's found out is an endpoint, but the story continued to roll on. So I think from a creative perspective, it's interesting to know where to end it and not do like, you know, flash forward to where she is in twenty twenty five or something like that.
But in the closing montage, you see like Belle like so happy in the sun. She's ex to this swimming pool and you see she's with Clive and her son.
That really annoyed me.
I know, well, it's meant to annoy you. It's meant to.
Show like she just ruined everyone's life and now she here, she is in her mansion with her seventy five k in pocket, just like not even bothered that that interview is about to ruin like a reputation.
That's so interesting because it's meant to annoy you. It's meant to make you angry. That's what the creators have said. It's meant to make you angry because, as they keep saying, the show is not really about Bell Gibson. It's about the wellness influence industry and how this is kind of this big red flag for how you know, a lot of times there's no regulations, you can't trust these people, but people looking for hope so much they'll honestly believe everything.
And then you see Bell Gibson. We know obviously she went on to like you know, lose money and all this sort of stuff, but in that moment, you see her wealthy with her family, haffy, and also completely healthy. So she's in this wonderful safe space despite what she's done. And then you see how her actions have affected all the people around her and how they're worse off because
they were trapped up in her lives. So you see Chanelle who has got justice in a way because she wanted to out Bell, but at the end of the day, she's still feeling very guilty about not being there for her best friend and the choices.
Her best friend died, plus like the woman who like she spent in the house where it's like twenty.
Four seven exactly, So she's mourning the death of these people and feeling like she'll never get that back. You see Lucy going back into more traditional cancer treat Remember, at the end of the day, she still has cancer, and they really leave you hanging on what happens to her. And then Miller flashes to her empty house and back to her funeral scene, and so you're just left with this this moment that her dad by himself. So every other story, I mean, the series is meant to be
this big takedown of Bell Gibson. Also we thought going in, but what it really is is showing how at the end of the day she can come out a little bit on top and every single person around her has been touched by death or ill health or being let down. So ah, I guess it goes to show like I don't know, it's while that.
It's like we talked about such sad themes throughout the show, but it wasn't a sad show. Yeah, Like it was quite fast paced and like upbeats because every time I recommended it to someone, after I told them, no, it's not mel Gibson Gibson, they were all like, oh, and I'm like, no, it's not like that, Like we're not a it's like a really sad story of like people who like, I mean, some parts are sad, but it's actually such a really good explainer. It reminded me of
the ANNADELVI. Yeah, it reminded me of that kind of format, like very fast paced, like you don't really sit in your feelings for too long.
Yeah, I mean my only critique at the start that there was sometimes too many storylines and too much happening, but I felt the end it probably needed that many characters and storylines to justify the overall message that they were trying to send. Also banging soundtrack with Toxic and Vampire, all shows that were like alluding to her behavior, playing
as like remixes or like songs throughout the show. So yeah, overall, very incredible, And I think also the big conversation starter has come out of this is that so many people keep saying things like, well, thank god, that wouldn't happen now, And I just think, have you not been on TikTok
oh girl? It was absolutely happened now. Like I think maybe a lot of traditional book publishers and places like that, just because they're so aware of the Bell Gibson story and other stories that have happened, might sac check a book more so now. But I think it's still very possible for someone to build a platform like this because people are still looking for hope in that same PJ.
It's got to work over time for this one.
Well, Apple Side of Vinegar. It's on Netflix if you haven't watched it, but if you come this far and you haven't watched it. That's come on, binge the whole thing. You can do it.
Thank you so much for listening to the Spill today. If you want more from us, you can always find us on our Instagram at the Spill Podcast. We post a lot on there, give us a follow, and also jump into our dms if there's something that you want us to talk about. The Spill is produced by Kimberly British with sound production by Scott Stronik and we'll be back here in your podcast feed at three pm on Monday.
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