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Boston Globe
04-05-2025
- Health
- Boston Globe
‘I have cancer,' the TikTok star said. Then came the torrent of hate.
But her content took a sharp turn in August 2023. In a pink bikini top, her face stained with tears, she spoke directly to the camera. 'I have cancer,' she said. 'I am strong, so I'll be good.' She flashed a thumbs-up and an awkward smile. Her diagnosis, she said, was cholangiocarcinoma, a rare and aggressive cancer of the bile ducts. Towle's social media posts grew more frequent and personal as she joined the ranks of influencers in what is known as CancerTok. She made videos of herself exploring New York City, where she said she had moved to be close to Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center; struggling with exhaustion and nausea she attributed to chemotherapy; and crying in grief for the carefree life she no longer led. And her growing online fan base -- before long, she had more than 760,000 followers -- routinely cheered her on. Get Starting Point A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday. Enter Email Sign Up But on Reddit, in a more skeptical and caustic corner of the internet, an army of angry critics was assembling. Towle's antagonists had concluded that she was leveraging her story of illness for public sympathy and financial benefit. They scrutinized her every word and image, building a case that she was misleading the public. Advertisement Many accused her of faking cancer altogether. Advertisement Towle's videos have drawn an enormous audience on TikTok, where her followers praise and support her, but on Reddit, an army of skeptics was determined to paint her as a fraud. MICHELLE V. AGINS/NYT Towle, 25, is now at the center of an intense social media collision that reveals the best intentions and worst instincts of the internet -- where isolated strangers can become support systems in times of crisis and sleuths labor obsessively to root out scammers. But in an online economy that feeds off emotion and internet addiction, it's not always clear who is manipulating whom. 'No Defending Syd' 'Snark pages' on Reddit, also known as 'snark subreddits,' are designated forums where people congregate under the veil of anonymity to critique and mock influencers and celebrities. In some cases, they become skeptical of the influencers they follow and fixated on exposing inconsistencies in their narratives. A snark page devoted to Towle appeared last fall, just as she was moving from Los Angeles to Manhattan. 'Does something feel off to you about Syd Towle's cancer story?' the subreddit asked. The group's rules included 'Be respectful to each other' and 'No defending Syd.' Six months later, SydTowleSnark had more than 1,000 members, a relatively small group but one with an active core. Mostly, the commenters focused on their certainty that she was a cancer scammer, like the frauds who have been the subject of the recent documentaries 'Scamanda' on Hulu and 'Anatomy of Lies' on Peacock, as well as Netflix's 'Apple Cider Vinegar,' which is based on a true story. Towle's critics pointed to her long hair and her penchant for travel and fitness as proof that she could not possibly have the illness she claimed. They created a 28-page timeline of medical details shared by Towle online, using it to bolster their claims of fakery. They zoomed in on photos showing a large scar on her abdomen to search for signs of photo editing. Advertisement And they accused her of manufacturing emotion on camera to manipulate sympathetic followers. One of its most active and impassioned members, a person using the Reddit handle Beginning_Field_2421, put it this way: 'No matter how innocent or saccharine she tries to appear on social media, there's still a predatory edge to what she is doing.' Towle during chemotherapy at the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York. MICHELLE V. AGINS/NYT Sharing her experiences publicly is Towle's way of processing the trials of life, she said in an interview, a habit that began well before she started making cancer videos. In college, she noted, she wrote for the school newspaper about her struggles with an eating disorder. The videos, she said, give her purpose when she does not want to get out of bed. They connect her to others whom she can inspire and be inspired by. They also help her pay the bills. Like many influencers, Towle is sometimes paid by brands when she features their products. She also draws revenue from a TikTok program in which those who have more than 10,000 followers and meet eligibility requirements are paid a commission based on how many views their videos draw. In the past year, TikTok has paid her about $20,000, according to a financial statement reviewed by The New York Times. She also works on the social media team of a large gaming company, a full-time job that allows her to work remotely and provides health insurance. Still, her TikTok fans regularly urge her to let them contribute money toward her care, and sometimes she adds a link to an Amazon wish list to her TikTok bio for Uber Eats, Airbnb and Amtrak gift cards. Advertisement 'I have not begged people for money,' she said this winter. 'I didn't start TikTok and then ask people to pay my hospital bills. I've never started a GoFundMe.' But Towle's detractors consider any financial benefit an enormous grift. 'I find her obscene and offensive,' a Reddit user wrote recently. 'To see her manipulate people for money, when there are REAL people out there with REAL cancer juggling REAL problems, disgusts me.' To Ghassan Abou-Alfa, all of this is madness. He is a Yale University-trained oncologist who specializes in liver cancer and bile duct tumors at one of the nation's leading cancer hospitals. He is also Towle's doctor. 'She has cancer,' Abou-Alfa confirmed in an interview at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in Manhattan. Abou-Alfa explained the details of his patient's intrahepatic cholangiocarcinoma. It started in the bile ducts in the liver, and after surgery to remove the original tumor, the cancer has recurred in her liver. The disease has also been detected in lymph nodes next to her liver. She has Stage 4 cancer. Towle, Abou-Alfa said, is helping to shine a light on an emerging face of cancer, one that is young and is neither near death nor cured. Even when receiving chemotherapy and immunotherapy, some patients can maintain a fairly normal schedule, he said: 'Patients really can live with cancer. Not everybody should be looking as if they are dying.' But on Reddit, anonymous commenters ignored Towle's truthful dispatches that spoke to such matters and decided they did not believe her. The anger soon leaked out of the internet and into real life. Beginning_Field_2421 urged people to complain about Towle to the companies whose products she endorsed and suggested that Reddit commenters show up at a cancer research fundraiser in New York that Towle would be attending. Someone else suggested sending her photograph to cancer hospitals, implying that they need to be alerted to a potential fraudster. Advertisement Towle felt stuck in a cycle she had helped to create. If she quit social media, she feared her followers would believe she had something to hide. If she continued to post emotional updates, they would say she was cravenly seeking sympathy to gin up engagement. If she stopped talking about cancer in her videos, her detractors would say she was too upbeat. 'I'm sorry that they are so angry that living with cancer can look different than they think it should,' she said. 'No matter what I do, these people move the goal posts.' Towle works remotely on the social media team for a large gaming company, in her apartment in New York. MICHELLE V. AGINS/NYT Snark vs. SnarkSnark But the internet loves a fight, and eventually an anti-anti-Sydney contingent began to gather steam. In late February, a new Reddit group -- SydTowleSnarkSnark -- was created in part to criticize Towle's critics. Several people reported the original snark page to Reddit administrators, flagging various comments and specific people whose posts seemed alarmingly aggressive, including Beginning_Field_2421. Reddit told them the content of the snark page did not violate any rules. It also warned at least one person that she was 'abusing' the reporting tool. (After Reddit was contacted by the Times, it removed some comments it considered 'harassing,' according to a spokesperson who said that administrators were 'in error' when they originally said there had been no violations.) One woman in the Midwest became so disgusted by the venom directed at Towle and by Reddit's apparent apathy that she took action. She spent hours trying to glean the identities of the most frequent anonymous critics, all of whom communicate on Reddit via cryptic handles, such as No-Veterinarian6552, Spirited_Coach7832 and FarTransportation152. Advertisement The woman, a nurse who has worked with cancer patients, spoke to the Times on the condition of anonymity so that she did not open herself to online bullying. She sleuthed out the real identities of nearly a dozen active Reddit skeptics of Towle by cross-referencing personal details they shared in comments with information on Google, Instagram, LinkedIn and even the interior photographs of a home seen in a Zillow listing. Beginning_Field_2421, among the most persistent critics, was a woman named Connie Wright, the privacy officer for Valley Health System, headquartered in Bergen County, New Jersey, where she shapes and manages the organization's patient privacy practices, according to her LinkedIn profile. In a message sent to the Times on Reddit, Wright, 53, said, 'I've remained anonymous to avoid backlash or reputational harm from a public figure with a large and active online following.' She then deleted her account. The Times also contacted several other participants in the snark page. Those who responded asked not to be included in this article. Some stopped posting or deleted their social media accounts altogether. Towle at a Cycle for Survival cancer research fundraiser in New York, in March. MICHELLE V. AGINS/NYT 'Lessen the Load' In April, Towle was a featured speaker at a conference of the Cholangiocarcinoma Foundation in Salt Lake City. 'The things that people say behind the protection of their phone are horrifying,' she said in her speech. 'I never thought that I would receive the level of hate that I have in sharing my journey.' She received a standing ovation from a rapt audience. But her return to the drudgery of chemotherapy several days later was a difficult comedown. 'I'm so overwhelmed,' she sobbed in a worrisome TikTok video. 'I'm so tired.' There was no sympathy on Reddit -- where even Towle's speech at a cancer conference had not persuaded many that she had cancer. But on TikTok, fans expressed concern. Supporters left more than 3,000 comments, many of them asking if they could sit with her during chemotherapy, send her food or give her money. 'Syd -- I see you,' wrote actress and activist Alyssa Milano. 'We all love you. Start a GoFundMe so you can take care of yourself and not worry about work. Lessen the load.' The next morning, via video, Towle announced a decision that stirred up her fans and critics alike. 'I'm starting a GoFundMe, a very small one,' she said, stifling tears. She said she intended to raise $2,500 for a birthday vacation for her mother, a federal employee recently laid off by the Department of Government Efficiency. Donations poured in. The Reddit community lost its mind. 'Vile,' wrote one commenter. 'I thought I'd heard it all until now.' 'Her followers are some of the most gullible people out there,' another said. In less than 24 hours, supporters donated $41,000, and Towle stopped accepting contributions. After taking her brother and mother to the Grand Canyon, she said, she would use the remaining money to pay travel and hotel expenses for her mother to be with her in New York when she had chemotherapy. On TikTok, many people urged her to reopen the fund. In an interview, Towle said she felt torn between her followers' enthusiasm and the fact that she did not truly need donations. 'It's hard to say that I wish I hadn't done it, or that I wish I hadn't started this whole life on social media,' she said. 'It's obviously brought so many good things. But there's just so much stress behind the scenes that people don't see.' A day after shutting down the fundraiser, she made another video. 'After talking to my mom for a while,' she said, 'I've decided to reopen the GoFundMe.' After five days, her TikTok fans had donated more than $75,000. The grousing on the snark page was short-lived. Last week, a day after the Times sent Reddit a detailed inquiry about its inaction, the company abruptly shut down the group. In its place was the image of a gavel. SydTowleSnark, the company announced, was officially banned. This article originally appeared in .
The Star
03-05-2025
- Health
- The Star
‘I have cancer,' the TikTok Star said. Then came the torrent of hate
By the time Sydney Towle graduated from Dartmouth College in 2022, she had a growing social media side hustle. On TikTok, where she posted videos, her fans watched her perform dance moves in her kitchen and lip-sync to popular songs. She modeled clothing and posed in bikinis on the beach. Within a year, she was an influencer in full, with more than 450,000 followers. But her content took a sharp turn in August 2023. In a pink bikini top, her face stained with tears, she spoke directly to the camera. 'I have cancer,' she said. 'I am strong, so I'll be good.' She flashed a thumbs-up and an awkward smile. Her diagnosis, she said, was cholangiocarcinoma, a rare and aggressive cancer of the bile ducts. Towle's social media posts grew more frequent and personal as she joined the ranks of influencers in what is known as CancerTok. She made videos of herself exploring New York City, where she said she had moved to be close to Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center; struggling with exhaustion and nausea she attributed to chemotherapy; and crying in grief for the carefree life she no longer led. And her growing online fan base – before long, she had more than 760,000 followers – routinely cheered her on. But on Reddit, in a more skeptical and caustic corner of the Internet, an army of angry critics was assembling. Towle's antagonists had concluded that she was leveraging her story of illness for public sympathy and financial benefit. They scrutinised her every word and image, building a case that she was misleading the public. Many accused her of faking cancer altogether. Towle, 25, is now at the centre of an intense social media collision that reveals the best intentions and worst instincts of the Internet – where isolated strangers can become support systems in times of crisis and sleuths labour obsessively to root out scammers. But in an online economy that feeds off emotion and Internet addiction, it's not always clear who is manipulating whom. 'No Defending Syd' 'Snark pages' on Reddit, also known as 'snark subreddits,' are designated forums where people congregate under the veil of anonymity to critique and mock influencers and celebrities. In some cases, they become sceptical of the influencers they follow and fixated on exposing inconsistencies in their narratives. A snark page devoted to Towle appeared last fall, just as she was moving from Los Angeles to Manhattan. 'Does something feel off to you about Syd Towle's cancer story?' the subreddit asked. The group's rules included 'Be respectful to each other' and 'No defending Syd.' Six months later, SydTowleSnark had more than 1,000 members, a relatively small group but one with an active core. Mostly, the commenters focused on their certainty that she was a cancer scammer, like the frauds who have been the subject of the recent documentaries Scamanda on Hulu and Anatomy of Lies on Peacock, as well as Netflix's Apple Cider Vinegar , which is based on a true story. Towle's critics pointed to her long hair and her penchant for travel and fitness as proof that she could not possibly have the illness she claimed. They created a 28-page timeline of medical details shared by Towle online, using it to bolster their claims of fakery. They zoomed in on photos showing a large scar on her abdomen to search for signs of photo editing. And they accused her of manufacturing emotion on camera to manipulate sympathetic followers. One of its most active and impassioned members, a person using the Reddit handle Beginning_Field_2421, put it this way: 'No matter how innocent or saccharine she tries to appear on social media, there's still a predatory edge to what she is doing.' Sharing her experiences publicly is Towle's way of processing the trials of life, she said in an interview, a habit that began well before she started making cancer videos. In college, she noted, she wrote for the school newspaper about her struggles with an eating disorder. The videos, she said, give her purpose when she does not want to get out of bed. They connect her to others whom she can inspire and be inspired by. They also help her pay the bills. Like many influencers, Towle is sometimes paid by brands when she features their products. She also draws revenue from a TikTok program in which those who have more than 10,000 followers and meet eligibility requirements are paid a commission based on how many views their videos draw. In the past year, TikTok has paid her about US$20,000 (RM 85,480) , according to a financial statement reviewed by The New York Times . She also works on the social media team of a large gaming company, a full-time job that allows her to work remotely and provides health insurance. Still, her TikTok fans regularly urge her to let them contribute money toward her care, and sometimes she adds a link to an Amazon wish list to her TikTok bio for Uber Eats, Airbnb and Amtrak gift cards. 'I have not begged people for money,' she said this winter. 'I didn't start TikTok and then ask people to pay my hospital bills. I've never started a GoFundMe.' But Towle's detractors consider any financial benefit an enormous grift. 'I find her obscene and offensive,' a Reddit user wrote recently. 'To see her manipulate people for money, when there are REAL people out there with REAL cancer juggling REAL problems, disgusts me.' To Ghassan Abou-Alfa, all of this is madness. He is a Yale University-trained oncologist who specialises in liver cancer and bile duct tumours at one of the nation's leading cancer hospitals. He is also Towle's doctor. 'She has cancer,' Abou-Alfa confirmed in an interview at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in Manhattan. Abou-Alfa explained the details of his patient's intrahepatic cholangiocarcinoma. It started in the bile ducts in the liver, and after surgery to remove the original tumor, the cancer has recurred in her liver. The disease has also been detected in lymph nodes next to her liver. She has Stage 4 cancer. Towle, Abou-Alfa said, is helping to shine a light on an emerging face of cancer, one that is young and is neither near death nor cured. Even when receiving chemotherapy and immunotherapy, some patients can maintain a fairly normal schedule, he said: 'Patients really can live with cancer. Not everybody should be looking as if they are dying.' But on Reddit, anonymous commenters ignored Towle's truthful dispatches that spoke to such matters and decided they did not believe her. The anger soon leaked out of the Internet and into real life. Beginning_Field_2421 urged people to complain about Towle to the companies whose products she endorsed and suggested that Reddit commenters show up at a cancer research fundraiser in New York that Towle would be attending. Someone else suggested sending her photograph to cancer hospitals, implying that they need to be alerted to a potential fraudster. Towle felt stuck in a cycle she had helped to create. If she quit social media, she feared her followers would believe she had something to hide. If she continued to post emotional updates, they would say she was cravenly seeking sympathy to gin up engagement. If she stopped talking about cancer in her videos, her detractors would say she was too upbeat. 'I'm sorry that they are so angry that living with cancer can look different than they think it should,' she said. 'No matter what I do, these people move the goal posts.' Snark vs. SnarkSnark But the Internet loves a fight, and eventually an anti-anti-Sydney contingent began to gather steam. In late February, a new Reddit group – SydTowleSnarkSnark –was created in part to criticise Towle's critics. Several people reported the original snark page to Reddit administrators, flagging various comments and specific people whose posts seemed alarmingly aggressive, including Beginning_Field_2421. Reddit told them the content of the snark page did not violate any rules. It also warned at least one person that she was 'abusing' the reporting tool. (After Reddit was contacted by the Times , it removed some comments it considered 'harassing,' according to a spokesperson who said that administrators were 'in error' when they originally said there had been no violations.) One woman in the Midwest became so disgusted by the venom directed at Towle and by Reddit's apparent apathy that she took action. She spent hours trying to glean the identities of the most frequent anonymous critics, all of whom communicate on Reddit via cryptic handles, such as No-Veterinarian6552, Spirited_Coach7832 and FarTransportation152. The woman, a nurse who has worked with cancer patients, spoke to the Times on the condition of anonymity so that she did not open herself to online bullying. She sleuthed out the real identities of nearly a dozen active Reddit skeptics of Towle by cross-referencing personal details they shared in comments with information on Google, Instagram, LinkedIn and even the interior photographs of a home seen in a Zillow listing. Beginning_Field_2421, among the most persistent critics, was a woman named Connie Wright, the privacy officer for Valley Health System, headquartered in Bergen County, New Jersey, where she shapes and manages the organisation's patient privacy practices, according to her LinkedIn profile. In a message sent to the Times on Reddit, Wright, 53, said, 'I've remained anonymous to avoid backlash or reputational harm from a public figure with a large and active online following.' She then deleted her account. The Times also contacted several other participants in the snark page. Those who responded asked not to be included in this article. Some stopped posting or deleted their social media accounts altogether. 'Lessen the load' In April, Towle was a featured speaker at a conference of the Cholangiocarcinoma Foundation in Salt Lake City. 'The things that people say behind the protection of their phone are horrifying,' she said in her speech. 'I never thought that I would receive the level of hate that I have in sharing my journey.' She received a standing ovation from a rapt audience. But her return to the drudgery of chemotherapy several days later was a difficult comedown. 'I'm so overwhelmed,' she sobbed in a worrisome TikTok video. 'I'm so tired.' There was no sympathy on Reddit – where even Towle's speech at a cancer conference had not persuaded many that she had cancer. But on TikTok, fans expressed concern. Supporters left more than 3,000 comments, many of them asking if they could sit with her during chemotherapy, send her food or give her money. 'Syd – I see you,' wrote actress and activist Alyssa Milano. 'We all love you. Start a GoFundMe so you can take care of yourself and not worry about work. Lessen the load.' The next morning, via video, Towle announced a decision that stirred up her fans and critics alike. 'I'm starting a GoFundMe, a very small one,' she said, stifling tears. She said she intended to raise US$2,500 (RM10,688) for a birthday vacation for her mother, a federal employee recently laid off by the Department of Government Efficiency. Donations poured in. The Reddit community lost its mind. 'Vile,' wrote one commenter. 'I thought I'd heard it all until now.' 'Her followers are some of the most gullible people out there,' another said. In less than 24 hours, supporters donated US$41,000 (RM175,295), and Towle stopped accepting contributions. After taking her brother and mother to the Grand Canyon, she said, she would use the remaining money to pay travel and hotel expenses for her mother to be with her in New York when she had chemotherapy. On TikTok, many people urged her to reopen the fund. In an interview, Towle said she felt torn between her followers' enthusiasm and the fact that she did not truly need donations. 'It's hard to say that I wish I hadn't done it, or that I wish I hadn't started this whole life on social media,' she said. 'It's obviously brought so many good things. But there's just so much stress behind the scenes that people don't see.' A day after shutting down the fundraiser, she made another video. 'After talking to my mom for a while,' she said, 'I've decided to reopen the GoFundMe.' After five days, her TikTok fans had donated more than US$75,000 (RM320,662). The grousing on the snark page was short-lived. Last week, a day after the Times sent Reddit a detailed inquiry about its inaction, the company abruptly shut down the group. In its place was the image of a gavel. SydTowleSnark, the company announced, was officially banned. – © 2025 The New York Times Company This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
Miami Herald
21-02-2025
- Entertainment
- Miami Herald
Us Weekly's 5 Hot Stories: Blake Lively Seeks Protective Order, ‘Scamanda' Producer Speaks Out
Blake Lively requested a new protective order amid her ongoing legal battle with her It Ends With Us costar and director Justin Baldoni. Us Weekly confirmed on Friday, Feb. 21, that Lively and her husband, Ryan Reynolds, submitted a letter to a judge one day prior in order to ask for a protective order that is stronger than the standard one they were granted when the saga began. Per the letter, Lively is seeking 'additional protections' after she and 'her family, other members of the cast, various fact witnesses, and individuals that have spoken out publicly in support of Ms. Lively have received violent, profane, sexist, and threatening communications.' The actress filed a lawsuit against Baldoni in December 2024 accusing him of sexual harassment and creating a 'hostile work environment' on the set of their film, which was released that summer. Baldoni denied the allegations before filing his own lawsuit accusing Lively and Reynolds of defamation. The couple, who have been married since 2012, have denounced Baldoni's claims. A trial date has been set for March 2026. Keep reading for more of Us' top stories: In an exclusive interview, the producer of ABC's Scamanda docuseries detailed her conversations with cancer fraudster Amanda Riley as she serves time in prison. Us exclusively confirms that fans of The Challenge's Zach Nichols and Jenna Compono can rest easy amid online speculation that the couple called it quits. George Clooney made a rare comment about his children — 7-year-old twins Alexander and Ella, whom he shares with wife Amal — while discussing his upcoming Broadway debut. 1923 star Julia Schlaepfer exclusively opened up to Us about her 'natural chemistry' with onscreen love interest Brandon Sklenar, revealing the pair formed an 'instant bond.' Visit sign up to get daily news via email and follow Us on Instagram or Facebook for more news, exclusive interviews and intel, red carpet dispatches and beyond.
Express Tribune
21-02-2025
- Entertainment
- Express Tribune
‘Scamanda' Producer reveals off-the-record conversation with prisoner Amanda Riley
In an exclusive interview with Us Weekly, Charlie Webster, creator and host of the Scamanda podcast and docuseries, revealed she has been in contact with convicted cancer fraudster Amanda Riley since her sentencing in May 2022. Webster, who initially began engaging with Riley during the production of the podcast and documentary, shared that Riley has expressed deep regret for her actions. "She regrets everything she's done. Every single day," Webster said, adding that Riley now faces the consequences of losing everything. Riley, a former Bay Area wife and mother, was convicted in 2021 for wire fraud after using a personal blog and staged photos to deceive donors into believing she had multiple life-threatening cancer battles. She raised over $100,000, along with additional perks such as gifts and celebrity meet-and-greets. Despite her conviction, Riley declined to participate in the podcast or the documentary and is unable to speak publicly due to ongoing legal restrictions. Webster emphasized her journalistic approach to understanding Riley, stating that she aimed to discern if Riley was a "vindictive, horrible monster" or if there were underlying mental health issues at play. While Riley's motivations remain complex, Webster noted that Riley has expressed a desire to apologize to the people she hurt after serving her sentence. Riley's fraudulent scheme began to unravel after an anonymous tip, later traced to her former friend Lisa Berry, led to an investigation. Webster speculated that Riley's fear of losing everything kept her from stopping the lies, ultimately leading her deeper into deceit. Riley is scheduled to be released from prison earlier than expected, with a current release date set for December 9, 2025. Webster expressed hope that Riley, now in a transitional facility, will not attempt to scam again, acknowledging the challenge of rebuilding a life after such notoriety.
The Independent
17-02-2025
- The Independent
I've spent 15 years speaking to people who fake cancer online – this is what they tell me
Bill Petrich's life's work lives on his computer, in a database titled 'The Fakers'. The file is vast: in it, more than 1,000 people's lives are documented, analysed and sorted into sub-categories like 'Age', 'Gender', 'Motivation', 'Legal outcome' and 'Did this faker go to Disney World?'. This is not his job – by day, he works in biotech, managing marketing for agencies that make cancer treatments in Oregon, USA. By night he sets about finding people doing the unthinkable: lying about dying from cancer. For 15 years, Bill has dedicated thousands of hours to unpacking this extraordinary social phenomenon. He isn't a 'hoax hunter'; his aim isn't to find active 'fakers' and expose them to the public, and he isn't 'into pushing desperate people into more desperate positions'. He's also not an apologist for their crimes, though he admits there's a morbid curiosity to it all. 'It's like true crime without the murders,' says Bill. Over the years he's documented heinous offences – financial and emotional – and depicted the bizarre reality of a world few of us understand. At least 10 cases on his spreadsheet used cancer fraud to cover up breast implant surgery ('as if that's somehow more shameful than faking cancer,' he says), scores that 'had help' from partners in on it too. But, beyond the boundless betrayal, Bill's work tells a story that cuts deeper than the narrative we're familiar with. In private conversations, those who have cast elaborate lies confess their darkest secrets to him. His aim is to uncover answers to the one big question that confounds us all: why would someone do this? The subject has long been a point of public fascination, particularly right now. Hit podcast and soon-to-be-released documentary, Scamanda, which tells the shocking story of Amanda Riley, a devout Christian who stole more than $100,000 in donations after revealing her stage 3 Hodgkin lymphoma diagnosis, has left listeners slack-jawed. The unfathomable tale of Elisabeth Finch, a longtime writer on Grey's Anatomy, who for years duped producers into believing she had a malignant tumour in her spine, has captured the attention of millions in Peacock docuseries Anatomy of Lies. And now, the new Netflix series Apple Cider Vinegar looks at perhaps one of the most infamous cancer frauds ever exposed: the curious case of Belle Gibson. 'I know pretty much all there is to know about Belle Gibson's story,' Bill says. In 2013, Gibson falsely claimed she had healed her inoperable brain cancer by eschewing traditional medicine and adopting alternative treatments, predominantly healthy eating. She documented her recipes and lies on Instagram before launching a highly successful 'wellness' app, The Whole Pantry, and subsequently landed a book deal with Penguin, making her an estimated AU$1m in the process. She was lying – spectacularly so – having already tragically influenced thousands of cancer patients they too could 'beat' the disease holistically. 'The thing is,' Bill continues, 'if you rise as high as Belle Gibson, you're going to fall all the harder.' Ironically, Gibson's downfall became her most viral moment. When the lies inevitably started to close in, she added more – blood cancer, spleen, liver, uterine and kidney metastasis; a local newspaper investigation found that thousands of dollars she promised to charities in need were never donated. She later admitted in a magazine interview that 'none of it was true', and was dramatically grilled on Australia's 60 Minutes TV show. In 2017, a federal court handed her a fine of AU$410,000. It remains unpaid. Her story is morbidly captivating, and many others are equally so. In fact, says Bill, faking cancer online or otherwise is astoundingly common. He estimates that in the one week that's passed since he began a TikTok page to talk about his vast research, more than 1,500 additional people have contacted him about someone in their circle who lied about their health, a small number of them confessing in the privacy of his DMs that they did it themselves – including one who was already on his spreadsheet. For years his research process has gone a little like this: he searches the internet for a case and finds as much information as possible. Then he tracks down a phone number or email address using software usually operated by private investigators. Then he prepares and cold-calls the faker. 'Most of these calls go unanswered, as you can imagine, but in a handful of them the person is willing to talk,' explains Bill. 'Some are so surprised that someone found them, and so shocked that someone actually wanted to hear their story from an empathetic place, that they just start spilling. More often than not, there's an awful lot of trauma underlying it all. 'They haven't really ever been able to talk about this to anyone … For some fakers, revealing their darkest secrets, who isn't trying to attack or judge them, is therapeutic … It seems like confession to me is absolving in some sense.' Bill has a unique insight into this world. Around the same time as Amanda Riley's and Gibson's stories began to unfold, post by post, he was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin lymphoma at the age of 21. He'd been studying at university when he began to feel generally unwell, 'And then one night, a bulge started appearing in my neck, almost beating like a heart – a golf ball-sized bulge. It was terrifying.' The prognosis was good, and Bill took that at face value. 'I just sort of rolled with it,' he explains, quite unbothered. 'But because I wasn't worried about my own mortality that much, I really just started becoming fascinated with the process and what I was seeing. I was struck by how fearful friends were who came to see me in the hospital. I handled cancer pretty differently to how people expected; I threw a cancer party when I got out of the hospital and had all these dark jokes and cancer puns… and I looked relatively healthy. I played dodgeball. 'Looking back, it was the kind of tone and presentation that might have prompted someone to think, 'OK, this guy might be faking cancer. This doesn't seem like what someone would be behaving like if they had cancer'.' After a couple of months, Bill went back to college, now bald from chemotherapy. People paid attention. 'When I had cancer, I was the same guy but the tone of people I'd known for long before, the way they approached, their willingness to help me, changed,' he explains. 'People wanted to give me rides. My teachers made it clear that deadlines didn't apply. Anything I did, I had the benefit of the doubt. I had no idea I would have this elevated social status because I had cancer, and I kind of milked it. I played up to it – it was fascinating.' Bill started becoming intrigued by the social dynamics of being a young cancer patient, and those who seemingly wanted to be. He found around 20 cases right away. His reaction wasn't one of disgust, but curiosity. 'And I thought, I get it,' he says. 'If you could have that status I had, but not have to go through the medical part, that might be awesome. Especially – and crucially – if you're a lonely, troubled person who wants more meaning in your life.' It's this idea that has been a hot topic of discussion following the recent release of Apple Cider Vinegar. There's no hiding the bare-faced manipulation or the abhorrent acts committed by Gibson and their impact in the six-part series – but the wider context we're shown of a lonely young mother, clearly troubled and desperate to be liked, also paints a curious picture of the type of person who might go to any lengths to be seen. 'That scene where no one turns up to her baby shower,' says Bill, 'that really happened. Belle faked cancer not to become a famous influencer and get a deal with Apple and make a bunch of money [but] because she was really struggling to make friends. Probably because in real life, Belle is too much. She's very try-hard.' This is the sort of story that Bill comes across frequently – people like Gibson and Riley, who kept up the act for seven years by falsifying medical bills and records and targeting generous church communities, are generally 'the mould', he says. 'Where some young person fakes cancer to be a celebrity or to get a bunch of social status, takes money and is really crass about it.' There are majorly predominant traits: being white, being female, being young, for example. Bill categorises 'motivations' into two columns – social and financial. More often than not, the two naturally begin to overlap. There are others that cast a more harrowing light on the subject. Bill retells one tale: 'If you read the news reports of one woman's story, it is that she had scammed her whole community out of money, and got sent to jail for fraud. What that same woman told me was a radically different story. 'She was married to a man who was abusive when she had a real cancer scare. She was in the hospital for a couple of days and really worried – and her husband stopped being nasty to her. So when she got the results back that it was benign, she couldn't take that for an answer and lied. It worked but, as it does, word got round in the community and she couldn't contain the lie.' The woman was eventually jailed for four years which, Bill says, she now lauds as 'the best thing that happened to her because she got to focus on herself and therapy, and really figure out the kind of person she wanted to be. Twenty years on, she's achieved that – she's 'survived fake cancer'.' Many of the secrets and lies have similar points of shame – ceremoniously shaving off hair, or seeing devastated loved ones exhausted by care-giving. Victims of cancer fraud have told him their heartbreaking stories, too – their ability to trust shattered, and money depleted from their bank accounts. But Bill's biggest fear is that his work would lead not to more curiosity and exploration about how we view death and disease in psychological and sociological contexts – especially in the digital age, where being ill online has become a social currency of sorts – but as a catalyst for people to be wrongly accused. 'I didn't look that sick when I had cancer – it's so dangerous to assume something about a patient based on what they look like and how they act. I'm already seeing that in some of my comments on TikTok,' explains Bill. 'I've also spoken to people who had cancer and were wrongly accused [of faking] and it ruined their lives.' The truth will always come out, he says. And it's unlikely that this global phenomenon will end any time soon. 'The thing is, you don't have to lie well about cancer for people to believe you. Cancer makes people extremely uncomfortable. But no one has ever improved their lives by faking cancer,' he says. 'One of the things that has always stuck with me is that some of these people, who obviously feel that they need something meaningful in their life, or that they're missing something, go to extreme lengths. The amount of time, energy and effort they put into faking cancer is extraordinary. 'And they're going to all these extreme lengths just to shoot themselves in the foot, which is a fascinating, self-destructive human situation. Beyond that, it's like – God, if you would have just spent even a quarter of that time and effort cultivating a new hobby or career, you probably could have done anything.' It's only now, after all these years that Bill feels 'qualified' to talk about the subject – he's hoping to write a book and release a podcast discussing his findings. Considering he's gained more than 7,000 followers in just a few days on TikTok, it appears there's definitely an appetite for it. But there's one more unanswered question: why has Bill dedicated so many years of his life to this subject, and these people? 'I think originally getting into this was my odd way of processing my own cancer survival, and my own relationship with death and disease as a young person 14 years ago.' And now? 'I never get sick of hearing about these dramas.' A sentiment any viewer of Apple Cider Vinegar will surely agree with.
