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Australian healthy living Instagrammer Belle Gibson was primed to become an internet success story. She was set to publish her cookbook The Whole Pantry in the US and her app The Whole Pantry had been selected by Apple as a featured Apple watch app. But that was before the media began to question certain claims she had made about donating money to charity and having cancer, Well + Good reports.
Gibson said she would donate 25% of her app's proceeds to charity, but the Sydney Morning Herald could only confirm that she'd donated 2%. She also said that she turned to a holistic lifestyle after a brain cancer diagnosis that she battled without chemotherapy, but according to Cosmopolitan Australia, those claims are being questioned.
Now Gibson's Instagram and Facebook accounts have been wiped, Apple has quietly removed The Whole Pantry from the app store, and her US book publisher Simon & Schuster confirmed to Well + Good that they are pulling Gibson's cookbook. Gibson told the Daily Mail Australia she would "have a statement live this week" addressing medical questions and that she feared for her family's safety.