Netflix is usually pretty good about including trigger warnings on its content. However, it failed miserably with two of its February releases: Apple Cider Vinegar and The Search for Instagram’s Worst Con Artist. The first is a limited series inspired by con artist Belle Gibson, and the second is a documentary about the fake wellness blogger.
Both should have cautioned viewers that the content they were about to witness could be very upsetting. Especially for cancer survivors or those who’ve lost anyone to the disease or helped them battle it. Or really anyone with a heart.
Which was a shame. I knew very little about either Apple Cider Vinegar or The Search for Instagram’s Worst Con Artist, except that both were about one of my favorite true crime genres: con artists. I also knew that they involved someone who faked having cancer.
Apple Cider Vinegar Left a Particularly Bad Taste
In the case of Apple Cider Vinegar, I was also psyched to see Kaitlyn Dever (Booksmart, The Last of Us) and Alycia Debnam-Carey (Fear the Walking Dead, Saint X, The Lost Flowers of Alice Hart). While we were enjoying Dever and Debnam-Carey’s performances, my husband and I were ultimately so disgusted by the storyline that we couldn’t finish the series.
Not that it was any fault of the writers. It was as well written as it was performed. We just couldn’t stomach our rage.
My husband also couldn’t take my tears anymore. Debnam-Carey’s character particularly touched my heart. The scene with her and Mark Coles Smith (who played Justin Guthrie) in the pool at the wellness center annihilated me into a blubbering mess. That’s when my husband requested, “Let’s pass on this series, babe. My heart can’t stand to see you like this.”
Would a trigger warning have helped? I don’t know. I just know that I failed to appreciate how viscerally this story would affect me.
What did Belle Gibson do so wrong?
The Search for Instagram’s Worst Con Artist documents Gibson’s meteoric rise and spectacular fall. She started as a wellness blogger, claiming to have been diagnosed with terminal brain cancer. Doctors allegedly gave her four months to live. Yet, through healthy lifestyle choices, four years later, she was not only still alive but thriving.
She capitalized on her success by creating a popular app, The Whole Pantry, which also manifested into a cookbook of the same name.
However, while she dazzled some to the point of blind allegiance, her story smelled fishy to others. Thank goodness for the critical thinkers of the world. In this case, journalists Richard Guilliatt and Clair Weaver. Guillat outed Gibson with his reporting in The Australian. Weaver did the same in The Australian Women’s Weekly.
Both rooted out the truth from similar, yet slightly different, angles. Before she knew it, they’d revealed Gibson’s deception to the world. Which, quite simply, was that she’d never had cancer. But that didn’t stop her from trying to profit off of her story.
Cancer Scammers
As a cancer survivor myself, who also lost both parents to the disease, I was beyond offended by Gibson’s heinousness.
Yet, we ended up devouring The Search for Instagram’s Worst Con Artist as soon as it was released. Although, the whole time, I was absolutely spitting at the screen in fury.
To some extent, I can understand people being intoxicated by the sympathy spotlight. Personally, I shy away from it. I appreciated every single call, card, or visit while I battled my hitchhiker. Seeing the outpouring of love and concern helped power me through some of the darkest, hardest days.
However, the majority of the time, I found it exhausting. Physically, emotionally, and mentally. People meant well, but it got to the point where if I heard, “Hang in there,” one more time, I was ready to punch someone.
In The Search for Instagram’s Worst Con Artist, there was a clip of her giggling after being complimented for how healthy she looked despite what she was going through. That should’ve been everyone’s biggest clue.
If she or Amanda Riley, another cancer scammer who’s the subject of ABC’s Scamanda docuseries (which started airing January 30), ever really had to endure cancer and its treatments, they’d know just how infuriating their lies are to those of us who have really been through it. And why they better hope they never truly get it.
Which, speaking of, always boggles me. People who fake cancer are a special breed of arrogant. Do they think it could never happen to them? Don’t they worry they’ll jinx themselves with their lies?
That’s what I don’t get at all. They’ve clearly never watched someone battling the disease. Normally it’s something I’d never want to wish on my worst enemy, but in these cases, I can think of no more fitting punishment.
Check-In
Courtney Mroch is a globe-trotting restless spirit who’s both possessed by wanderlust and the spirit of adventure, and obsessed with true crime, horror, the paranormal, and weird days. Perhaps it has something to do with her genes? She is related to occult royalty, after all. Marie Laveau, the famous Voodoo practitioner of New Orleans, is one of her ancestors. (Yes, really! As explained here.) That could also explain her infatuation with skeletons.
Speaking of mystical, to learn how Courtney channeled her battle with cancer to conjure up this site, check out HJ’s Origin Story.
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Those sort of people deserve karma to steamroll over them.
I had a run in with cancer back in 2010. I was lucky they caught it early, but the radiation therapy kicked my ass.
I refused to wear pink though. Instead I bought this really badass t-shirt from November Fire: a copy of a Durer woodprint depicting the Archangel Michael (and other angels) beating the snot out of some demons. I felt it suited the struggle and my attitude toward it.
Cancer is a monster. I am sorry you lost your parents to it.
Cancer scamming is just downright evil. What a TERRIBLE thing to do to others. It’s so much more than a little white lie. Huge fines and prison.
Oh Maria, I had NO idea you’d had a scare yourself! Which sounds like more than a scare since you had to do radiation. But that was enough to conquer it? And you’ve been good ever since?
I love your T-shirt! I’m not surprised with your artist soul that you gravitated towards such a depiction. It’s always cool to see what kind of things people find to manifest their feelings/power towards their cancer. I’m so glad you shared that!
I also really love how you phrased what cancer scammers deserve: that karma steamrolls them. YES!!!! Perfect imagery!!!!
You know, as usual Priscilla, you hit on something. I wonder if in their minds they see it as a little white lie. Innocent in the scheme of things. Not realizing that, yes. It’s terrible and way more than that. It’s absolutely heinous. Thanks for once again providing a window into a psyche I just could not wrap my mind around.
(Knock wood.) I’ve been fine since then, but cancer lurks in the back of your mind, like Freddy Kruger or Michael Myers. It’s just waiting for a chance to come back after you. Even if you beat it, it hovers in the back of your head every time you have a check up or screening.
When I told my friend at work I had breast cancer, she said, “You aren’t going to come to work all dressed in pink, are you?” I was like ‘Nope, I’m a tomboy and my inner Amazon won’t stand for it. So, Durer’s Archangel Michael doing battle instead was my emblem.
Oh, and I had to have a lumpectomy first…and while I was under, a storm knocked the power out at the hospital/clinic I was at. I came to and they were trying to get everyone out before the generator gave out. Fun. (Frankly, I blamed Zeus, because he knew I didn’t like him. I’ve never depicted him in a good light in my fantasy novels. But Apollo was looking out for me.)
You’re not kidding it always lurks in your mind. I love the Freddy and Michael analogy you used. Yep. Like that. Always waiting for the sequel! Some people loved going for their check-ups for whatever reason. Not me. When my docs gave me the choice to come every year, rather than 6 months, I jumped at it. And after 10 years they gave me the choice to not come back at all, I was like, “Love you all, really appreciate you saving my life, but I hope I never see you again.” lol
Your co-worked must’ve really known you well to question whether you’d hop on the pink bandwagon or not. And it’s funny she asked you because when people find out I’ve had cancer, they automatically assume it was breast because I wear so much pink. No. I didn’t. I wear it in honor of my grandma, who never had cancer (thankfully). It was just her favorite color, one I used to hate, but now it brings me comfort because it reminds me of her. And I want to be age like she did…
But I digress. Most of all, I’m SO relieved to hear you have stayed in the clear. And here’s hoping that doesn’t change!
OMG!!!!!!!! This could be a story all of its own. A modern day Greek tragi-comedy!
It reminds me of a short story I wrote inspired by a sort of similar experience. During one of my radiations, they left me alone in the room under the machine on the table locked behind the big doors and I freaked out a little. No power was lost. I think the tech got distracted or something. But I was all, “What if it’s a zombie attack happening out there?” lol
I totally dig your Zeus/Apollo storyline better though. That is brilliant!!!!