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[Belle Gibson] would later tell her publisher that she believed her legions of online followers were attracted to her because what she was doing ‘was so raw and authentic’. There was not enough honesty out there, she claimed, and here she was, sharing her deeply personal story. ‘I think too many people on social media overly “edit” themselves,’ Gibson said. ‘Right from the start I was very open, and treated Instagram as my personal space — I really think it was that authenticity that people were attracted to.’
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Maybe [Belle Gibson] was trying a bit too hard to elicit sympathy. But fake cancer? No. No one thought she would do that. ‘There was a lot of things,’ said one former friend. ‘She would divert her gaze or she would stare right through you. Everyone just thought it was brain cancer. When you look back it’s like, Oh, that’s not cancer, that’s lying. But even if you thought she wasn’t telling the truth, who is going to be the person who turns around and says, “Hey, that 25-year-old single mother with brain cancer is lying.”?’
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-- Beau Donelly and Nick Toscano,
The Woman Who Fooled the World (2017)