Apple Cider Vinegar’s Kaitlyn Dever: ‘I Went Down a Belle Gibson Rabbit Hole’

Netflix’s latest scammer mini-series, Apple Cider Vinegar has gripped the world. It’s the number one most-watched show in Ireland and the third most-watched globally on the streamer.

The show tells the true story of Australian scammer Belle Gibson who pretended she cured brain cancer with healthy living and “eating clean”. She earned a book deal filled with these purported life-saving recipes, and her app, The Whole Pantry, was loaded immediately onto Apple Devices in the early 2010s.

However, her empire came falling down in 2015 when it was revealed she lied about having cancer. Yes, it was all a lie.

Now almost a decade later Kaitlyn Dever takes on the role of Belle in the Netflix series. STELLAR got to chat with the American star as well as her co-stars Alycia Debnam-Carey, who plays fictional wellness influencer who tries to cure her real cancer diagnosis with juice cleanses, and Aisha Dee, who stars as Chanelle, who is based on Chanelle McAuliffe.

Here’s what the trio had to say about taking on the story that gripped wellness Instagram…

Hi guys, I hope you’re well. Congratulations on Apple Cider Vinegar! Did you know anything about Belle Gibson before starting to film the show?

Alycia: Especially growing up in Australia it was a big cultural touch point and it was such a big story. But it wasn’t until later on that I kind of understood the real consequences of her actions. Especially doing this job and how wide-reaching it was, the scale and the scope of what she actually was able to do. We were all quite young in that time.

Kaitlyn: I was finding out about Belle Gibson through these scripts and then after I finished them I went down a little bit of a Belle Gibson rabbit hole on Google. I was discovering all that she did and all that she lied about, it was crazy. I had a lot of friends in the States that did know about her story at the time. But I didn’t know about the story at all when I got the script sent to me.

Aisha: Like Alycia, I think we were both living in America when it was happening. So we were just hearing about it through friends and stuff. Similarly, I don’t think I had a full understanding of the ramifications of her lies on the real world and real people until I was doing the show.

Alycia: The thing I do remember was the 60 Minute pink sweater, that is seared into my brain. I remember it then and when [Kaitlyn] recreated it, I was, ‘Like wow!’

This show obviously deals with very heavy topics. It must have been difficult to film, so tell me how you decompressed after the show.

Kaitlyn: It’s kind of a really tough thing to step out of. I feel like I was so consumed by the show itself and the story, as well as the Australian accent. It was playing in my dreams at night! It was my own fault, I needed it in my veins. I needed to be surrounded by it at all times, I had the news going 24/7 in my apartment. Belle was a very chaotic character to play. Chaotic in the sense, that she was all over the place emotionally and how much of a chameleon and real actor she is. But also a very sad and broken person. There are so many nuances to playing this character it was like a whirlwind every day. I think I was able to shed it at times, but we were going and going, we had so much to do every day. It was like a marathon! But I could decompress after we were all done.

Alycia, your character, Milla, isn’t a real woman but she is based on an amalgamation of different wellness influencers. So what research did you do to get into your role?

Alycia: I definitely had a lot of real-world personal experience because we all grew up in that social media, early Instagram generation. I do remember at the time, Instagram was proliferated with people like this. I remember for the longest time following those kind of wellness influencers because it just found itself. They were people who had that aspirational sort of lifestyle and it was so early on. It was kind of earnest and naive. I just went back to people I followed from that era and did a real deep dive on. I followed their blogs and YouTubes and their lifestyles at the time. I did a lot of research of different wellness approaches and the different treatment centres and what they’re promoting. There is so much online of that era in time and so many women who were either a product or the representative of that sort of lifestyle. So I did that deep dive of those types of women that I had strangely seen growing up.

Kaitlyn, you’ve gotten so much praise for your Australian accent. But Alycia and Aisha you shocked so many people when they realised you’re actually Australian!

Aisha: I should start telling people that I’m American so they’ll be impressed with my Australian accent.

Alycia: I read somewhere that people were saying, ‘This is the first time I’ve seen Alycia and Aisha with their real accents.’ They just thought of the three of us being completely different nationalities. They really thought [Kaitlyn] was Australian and then they were like, ‘Oh never mind!’

Before I let you go, it seems like everyone is watching Apple Cider Vinegar! So what do you hope people take away from the show?

Aisha: I would have said previously that our show is like our little baby and now it’s out in the world it’s like our little toddler and I hope everybody likes it. But I would like to add to be serious, personally, I love that the show shows women advocating for themselves and for their health. And that’s not an easy thing to do when there’s not a lot of research around women’s health. I think the show speaks to a specific type of frustration that a lot of women have when it comes to treating their endometriosis or their PCOS or cancer. I hope that people feel a little bit more seen after watching the show.

Apple Cider Vinegar is now streaming on Netflix

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• Interview
• Netflix