In an era of rigid morning routines, juice cleanses, and unpasteurized milk trends, Apple Cider Vinegar delivers a sharp, satirical takedown of wellness influencers at just the right moment. Despite repeated debunkings by actual medical professionals, these so-called wellness “experts” continue to attract devoted followers—a phenomenon as old as time and unlikely to disappear. The best we can do is expose them, and Netflix has set its sights on one of the most infamous: Belle Gibson.
Belle Gibson grew in prominence in the early 2010s as one of the first social media wellness influencers. Through her innovative mobile app, The Whole Pantry, she claims that if you eat a well-balanced diet and focus on your body, you can beat any disease, like how she claimed she defeated Glioblastoma, an aggressive brain cancer that gives most patients less than two years to live. However, there is one big problem, Belle doesn’t have cancer and she never had cancer. Apple Cider Vinegar is “A true-ish story based on a lie” provides an angry, satirical take-down of Gibson that is both as fascinating and it is frustrating.
We first meet Belle (a brilliant Kaitlyn Dever) in the midst of an HR crisis meeting, where the truth about her lies—not just about having cancer but also her charity fraud—has finally come to light. It doesn’t take long for the audience to witness her manipulative tactics in full force. She swings between dramatic, tearful breakdowns—collapsing to the floor in hysterics—and calculated gaslighting, cornering her new manager with fabricated claims about her health.
From here, the series flashes back to Belle’s teenage years, tracing her journey from a pregnant teen to a rising wellness influencer. Alongside her is her rival, Milla Blake (Alicia Debnam-Carey), a character inspired by the late Jessica Ainscough. As the story unfolds, Apple Cider Vinegar meticulously charts Belle’s meteoric rise—and inevitable fall—from influencer stardom.
Belle’s early life is marked by isolation and hardship. Her boyfriend offers no support, her mother is an abusive narcissist, and there are unsettling hints that she was groomed by an older man as a young teenager. It’s clear she didn’t have a happy childhood—one that shaped her into the needy, attention-seeking person she would become. The series doesn’t ask the audience to sympathize with her, but rather to understand how someone like Belle is created.
Determined to escape poverty, Belle stumbles upon Milla Blake’s website, The Wellness Warrior. Milla, recently diagnosed with epithelioid sarcoma—a rare skin cancer that would have required amputation and chemotherapy—opted for experimental treatments to save her arm. Convinced she was cured through alternative therapies like coffee enemas and juice cleanses, her blog quickly gained traction. Inspired by Milla’s viral success, Belle sees an opportunity. And after a humiliating baby shower, she sets the lie in motion—the lie that will ultimately lead to her downfall.
With this context in mind, it’s impossible to watch Apple Cider Vinegar without feeling a deep, simmering frustration. But make no mistake—the series is just as furious as its audience, channeling its outrage into a sharp, unrelenting satire. From the very firs
t episode, you can feel the show’s palpable resentment toward its subject matter, refusing to let Belle Gibson or the wellness industry off the hook for even a second.
The anger isn’t just implied—it’s woven into the very fabric of the series. Through pointed fourth-wall breaks, biting narration, and a relentless dissection of the grift at play, Apple Cider Vinegar ensures that viewers never forget exactly who Belle Gibson is and what she represents. The show goes out of its way to emphasize that Gibson receives no benefit from this exposure, repeatedly reminding us that her deception is not only unforgivable but emblematic of a much larger problem within influencer culture.
Yet, this fury is what makes the series so compelling. It doesn’t simply critique wellness fraud; it eviscerates it with wit and precision, offering a cathartic, rage-fueled takedown of an industry that continues to thrive despite endless debunking. This is righteous anger at its most effective—scathing, unapologetic, and absolutely necessary.
However, the series’ fury is frustratingly one-sided, targeting Belle Gibson with laser-focused precision while largely absolving her enablers—and, more perplexingly, Milla Blake and those who supported her. This selective outrage weakens Apple Cider Vinegar otherwise sharp critique, exposing a glaring hypocrisy in its storytelling.
Milla, like Belle, was a master manipulator, using emotional coercion to push her alternative health beliefs. Yet, because she genuinely had cancer, the series treats her with an inexplicable level of sympathy. It glosses over the devastating consequences of her actions—how she convinced her mother to forgo conventional treatment, leading not only to her mother’s death but, ultimately, her own, both of which might have been preventable.
Even more frustrating is the show’s failure to scrutinize the broader ecosystem that enabled both Belle and Milla. The enablers—whether well-meaning supporters or profit-driven opportunists—played a crucial role in amplifying and legitimizing their misinformation, yet Apple Cider Vinegar largely lets them off the hook. In refusing to take a more holistic approach to accountability, the series undermines its own argument, reducing what could have been a searing industry-wide indictment into a more limited, albeit still effective, character study.
Overall, Apple Cider Vinegar is a ferocious and unflinching takedown of wellness culture’s most notorious grifter, delivering a scathing critique with biting satire and well-earned fury. Kaitlyn Dever’s performance is nothing short of mesmerizing, capturing Belle Gibson’s shameless manipulations with unsettling precision. However, for all its sharp wit and justified outrage, the series falters by limiting its condemnation to a single figure rather than the entire system that enabled her. By failing to hold wellness influencers, enablers, and the broader industry accountable, Apple Cider Vinegar misses an opportunity to deliver a truly definitive critique of the dangers of misinformation. Still, its anger is infectious, its storytelling compelling, and its message—though incomplete—remains an essential warning about the seductive power of deception in the age of social media.
My Rating: B
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