What Drives Someone to Lie About Having a Serious Illness?

Australian wellness expert Belle Gibson built a business around her claim that she healed her terminal brain cancer by eating whole foods and using alternative therapies. Her book, The Whole Pantry, and her app of the same name were bestsellers—but now we’ve learned that it was all based on a total lie. 

“None of it’s true,” she said in the latest issue of Australian Women’s Weekly. “I don’t want forgiveness. I just think [speaking out] was the responsible thing to do. Above anything, I would like people to say, ‘Okay, she’s human.’” Gibson, 23, also admitted in the interview that she’s passionate about avoiding gluten, coffee, and dairy but doesn’t really understand how cancer works. 

Gibson’s story was first called into question in March when Australia’s The Age investigated claims that she was donating 25 percent of her company’s profits to several charities. According to The Age, those donations were never made. A former friend of Gibson also publicly raised doubts about her cancer claims. Now, people have started responding on social media:

Lying about cancer is despicable. Lying about cancer for money while giving sick people false hope is morally repugnant #BelleGibson #auspol

— The One True™ Jake (@JakeFarrWharton) April 23, 2015

 

#BelleGibson not the first won’t be the last. Saddest part is how many actually sick people may have compromised themselves believing it.

— Ellie Aragon (@EllieAragon) April 22, 2015

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But that raises the bigger question: Why would someone lie about having a serious illness in the first place?

“People lie because it works a lot of the time,” says Alan Keck, Psy.D., an Orlando-area licensed psychologist. Overconfidence, naiveté, and just not caring that much may have been factors in Gibson’s original claim.

Jane Greer, Ph.D., a marriage and family therapist, says people will typically lie about having a serious illness in particular because it gives them sympathy, attention, and pity. “They have a need to be taken care of and are looking for more support from those around them,” she says. Lying about overcoming the illness could also establish a sense of control in their lives and help [them] gain the respect of other people since they were allegedly successful in winning a serious health battle.

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People who fake illnesses might also always be perceived as “strong” by those around them and only feel comfortable asking for help if they’re sick, says Greer.

Greer says she isn’t shocked that Gibson was able to pull off her lie for a while since it’s easy for people to get wrapped up in their own fantasy and have it become their reality.

Gibson didn’t reveal why, exactly, she chose to lie in the first place, but she did have this to say: “If I don’t have an answer, then I will sort of theorize it myself and come up with one. I think that’s an easy thing to often revert to if you don’t know what the answer is.”

That’s a sign of a pathological liar, says Greer, adding that “the average person would say they don’t know the answer, rather than choosing to make up a lie about it.”

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Of course, a lot of people believed Gibson, even though her claims contradicted scientific research. So how did she get away with it? Keck says her lies worked because we wanted them to be true. “A lot of us just like to believe in magic,” he says.

Gibson’s publisher has stopped supplying her book, and Apple has dropped her app. The moral of the story? Honesty is always the best policy.