
Belle Gibson winner social media star of the year at the Cosmopolitan Fun Fearless Female Awards in Sydney, Australia, 2014.
Belle Gibson, the disgraced Australian wellness blogger who faked terminal cancer and claimed she was cured using natural remedies, faces legal action and penalties of more than £500,000 for profiting from her elaborate global scam.
The state of Victorias consumer watchdog launched action in Australias federal court against the 24-year-old over her claim that she overcame brain cancer without resorting to conventional medicine a claim she used to promote The Whole Pantry, her internationally successful phone app and cookbook.
Gibson, who built up a huge social media following, had promised to give some of her profits from her wellness empire to charity but it emerged that no charities had ever received any donations.
Facing pressure, she admitted in an interview with the Australian Women's Weekly magazine last year that she did not have cancer and that she fabricated the medical diagnosis which, she had claimed, gave her only months to live.
None of its true, she said.
I am still jumping between what I think I know and what is reality. I have lived it and Im not really there yet.
The scam caused international outrage, particularly among her devotees, some of whom were genuine cancer sufferers.
Jane Garrett, the Victorian state minister for consumer affairs, said the legal action had been launched to prevent a repeat of the scam by Gibson or others.
Health Blogger Belle Gibson at home in Melbourne, Australia.
Selling people snake oil is as old as the hills, but its devastating damage is as fresh today," she said.
"You will never put people back into the position they were in if they believed this material and this book ... but this is an important step forward."
Penguin Australia, which published Gibsons wholefoods cookbook, has admitted it failed to verify her claims and has agreed to pay a £15,000 donation to the Victorian Consumer Law Fund.
The publisher stopped printing the book after Gibsons admission and has now undertaken not to publish any claims about a person's medical condition without verification by a medical practitioner.
Gibson has largely avoided the spotlight since admitting to her scam but has remained unrepentant.