Diksha Sundriyal
The world comes crashing down on Belle Gibson in Netflix’s ‘Apple Cider Vinegar’ when the Pandora’s box of her lies explodes. She tells the world that she has cancer and was told by the doctors that she would die in a matter of weeks, but she proved them wrong by turning to alternative forms of treatment. Not only does she seem to have survived the deadline given by the doctors, but she also uses her journey to make an app and form a huge following on social media. Soon enough, the lies about her health come to light when it is revealed that she never had cancer and perpetrated other scams in the name of her alternative treatments. To save herself, or at least her name, she resorts to the services of a PR agency, which is where she meets Hek, a crisis manager who tries to steer her the right way.
Hek is a Heavily Fictionalised Version of Belle Gibson’s Real PR Manager
In telling the shocking and complicated story of Belle Gibson, the creators of ‘Apple Cider Vinegar’ have resorted to fictional renderings of certain parts of the story to give more depth to the plot and drama. While most of what we see in the show is pretty close to real life, there are things that have been made up for dramatic purposes. Hek’s character and his journey in the show happen to be one of those things.
According to Beau Donelly and Nick Toscano’s book, ‘The Woman Who Fooled the World,’ when the articles about Belle Gibson’s charity fraud and fake cancer story were published, she tried to salvage her reputation. Through a friend of a friend, she was referred to Alex Twomey of a PR company called Bespoke Approach. Having primarily worked in corporate public affairs, Alex didn’t have much knowledge of Belle’s case. Still, his firm took her on pro bono, and soon, he came face to face with the extent of Belle’s lies.
The book doesn’t dedicate much time to Belle’s interactions with Alex, which had already been quite short-lived as Belle soon moved on to other avenues, completely overlooking his advice. The TV show gives an entirely different spin to it by expanding Hek’s character, giving him his own problems to deal with, and through that, presenting an unlikely connection he forms with Belle, who woos him into taking on her case. There is a real-life person named Alex Twomey, who also worked as a crisis manager, but he has since made some radical changes to his career and is now a writer, performer, broadcaster, and TV presenter.
Belle’s PR Manager Immediately Saw Through Her Scam
Like Hek in the Netflix series, Alex advised Belle to accept her lies, apologize to the public, and disappear from the face of the earth, at least for a little while. He even told her to change her identity and start afresh somewhere people wouldn’t recognize her. However, he found that she was entirely opposed to the idea of leaving her business behind and wanted to salvage whatever she could. Eventually, Alex got her two interviews with The Australian Women’s Weekly, where she was supposed to come clean. And she did, but it did not have the effect she had desired. He was present in the background, supervising the interview, but even he could see that there was no way Belle could go back to the reputation she enjoyed before the scandal broke.
Donelly and Toscano’s book reveals that Alex believed Belle was troubled and he tried to help her. He thought that she may have become so engrossed in her own lies that, at one point, she started believing them herself. The article with The Weekly mentioned that Alex had made arrangements for Belle to see a psychologist and get the attention she actually needed. He also revealed that the money Belle claimed to give to charities was invested in her own business to create the app, the website, and other things. At the same time, he told The Age journalists that Belle’s business had never really been that profitable. He described The Whole Pantry as an “average earner” and not something to “retire off.” He called it “a shit scam” that fell apart as soon as it was poked at.
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