Wellness blogger who made hundreds of thousands of dollars admits she lied about having cancer

SYDNEY, Australia -- A popular wellness blogger who made hundreds of thousands of dollars after documenting her fight with terminal brain cancer and her cure with a vegetable-based diet admits it was all a lie, media reported Wednesday.

"No, none of it's true," Belle Gibson, 26, told Britain's Independent newspaper.

Yahoo News said that according to her original tale, Gibson turned down a conventional cancer treatment plan and decided to fight the cancer with a nutritional, vegetable-heavy diet aimed at healing the body. She claimed it worked.

Now, she admits she never had cancer in the first place.

According to media reports, Gibson first rose to fame on Instagram (@healing_belle) and developed a successful app called The Whole Pantry. 

Gibson also claimed to donate about $300,000 to different charities. But there turned out to be no trace of the donations.

After news broke that doubts had arisen in March over her story, her Instagram account was set to private. And the Whole Pantry app, which had been chosen to feature on the new Apple Watch, was dropped by Apple.

Distribution of the cookbook version, which was already a best-seller, was halted by Penguin Australia.