Netflix’s "Apple Cider Vinegar" Explores the Rise and Fall of Disgraced Wellness Guru Belle Gibson, Starring Kaitlyn Dever and Alycia Debnam-Carey

Kaitlyn Dever Stars as Infamous Wellness Fraudster Belle Gibson in Netflix’s New Limited Series — A Tale of Misinformation and Deception

Snake oil. It's an old term from the early 19th century that essentially means a scam in which unsuspecting buyers are sold a fraudulent cure or remedy in a bottle. In the Old West, traveling snake oil salesmen would pitch these cure-all elixirs, claiming that with a mere sip, all your illnesses could go away. Fast forward to the present. It's the social media era, and it's now easier than ever to scam followers into believing that all their problems can be solved by buying into a new health revolution. Alternative medicines are promoted as the way to go, but in reality, it's just a modern-day version of snake oil.

Apple Cider Vinegar, a new Netflix limited series starring Emmy-nominee Kaitlyn Dever (Dopesick, Unbelievable), dramatizes the stranger-than-true story of Belle Gibson, an Australian pseudoscience health advocate who used her personal trauma of being diagnosed with brain cancer to build trust with her followers, ultimately launching her own wellness empire. This empire included motivational speaking events, books, social media posts, apps, and personal appearances, only to be exposed for lying about having cancer at all.

Dever, donning an Aussie accent, portrays the infamous fraudster in this new miniseries, showing her as a young, ambitious woman who exploited people's genuine concerns about an imperfect health system for her own financial gain. She promoted holistic methods of curing cancer and other major diseases, using her own success story as proof, which turned out to be a lie.

The Netflix series, created by award-winning Australian television writer Samantha Strauss (Nine Perfect Strangers, Dance Academy), follows the rise and fall of Belle Gibson and her The Whole Pantry wellness campaign. Gibson falsely claimed to have brain cancer, using that story to sell herself as a young health advocate who promoted natural therapies for cancer treatment, fertility, depression, and other serious ailments. During the early days of Instagram, Gibson reinvented herself as a social media influencer, gaining enough followers to build a profitable empire based on lies and misinformation.

Joining Dever in the cast is Australian actress Alycia Debnam-Carey (It's What's Inside, Fear The Walking Dead) as Milla Blake, a young woman who, after being diagnosed with a rare form of cancer, started a blog to promote a natural diet to fight the disease. When the blog takes off, Milla becomes, in a way, the catalyst for Belle to start her own wellness campaign, setting off a rivalry between the two women.

Other cast members include Tilda Cobham-Hervey, Aisha Dee, Mark Coles Smith, Ashley Zukerman, Susie Porter, Matt Nable, Phoenix Raei, Chai Hansen, Richard Davies, Essie Davis, Kieran Darcy-Smith, and Catherine McClements.

Australian director Jeffrey Walker (The Portable Door, The Artful Dodger) helms the miniseries.

Apple Cider Vinegar debuts on February 6th on Netflix. Watch the trailer above.