But it was all a lie. Gibson had never been diagnosed with brain cancer, nor “cancer in my blood, spleen, brain, uterus and liver” which she subsequently claimed that she had also been diagnosed with an Instagram post in 2014, when rushes first began to emerge in Australian media to She may have been a fraud. Finally, in April 2015, she admitted the truth in an interview with Women’s section. “No, none of that is true,” she said, but refused to take further responsibility, she added, opaquely: “I still jump between what I think I know and what is reality. I’ve lived it and I’m not really there yet. ”

How her story is dramatized

This cushioning reality – and mental gymnastics in Gibson’s “explanations” for her actions – is the backbone of apple cider vinegar, a glossy and poppy Netflix mini -series dramatization of the entire scandal, released this week. Showrunner Samantha Strauss leans into Gibson’s shaky relationship with the truth in the way she tells the story. From the chaotic timeline, which jumps between characters and events from before 2009 to 2015, to how it mixes reported facts with fictional sequences-a camp mounting where the main characters are lip synchronized to Britney Spears’ toxic; The appearance of a doctor’s character that Gibson claims treated her, but has never proven to exist – the miniseries make it deliberately difficult to ever understand what really happened. That being said, how could a show based on a pathological liar ever play completely straight?

Particularly follow Fallout from Baby Reindeer last year – Netflix is ​​correct By a woman who claims that she was identified from the series, who pronounced “This is a true story” at the beginning of each section – Apple Cider Vinegar also dampened drama with a slightly different discharge every section, for example: “This is a true -ish -The story based on a lie, “and” The following is inspired by a true story.

Playful with the truth that this fiction can be, it really makes it convincing – and shocking – yarn. After the well-believed footprints of other fraudsters-TV drama, apple cider vinegar is self-booth in style and subject-together with other Netflix miniseries Invent Annawhich focused on “fake heir” Anna Delvey/Sorokin, convicted of attempted grand Larceny and Larceny in the second degree in 2019, and the drop -out (Hulu/Disney+), where Amanda Seyfried played Elizabeth Holmes, Silicon Valey Frauder who failed blood test dates -The technology company, Theranos, and 2022 was convicted of four accounts for fraud; She still serves 11 years and three months of punishment.

Like Sorokin and Holmes before her, Gibson – with a charming, chilly duplicity of Dopesicks Kaitlyn Dever – played as an embodied playoffs for life culture, where “false it” you do it “stops becoming a dangerous ideology, rather than a positive self -help.