For whom the Belle tolls

GIVEN the serious nature of the story they’re telling, could the makers of INSTAGRAM’S WORST CON ARTIST (9pm, ITV) not have chosen a less tacky title? I appreciate it’s designed to grab our attention, but if I didn’t know better I’d assume this was a reality TV competition. It even sounds as though it has a big-name sponsor.

Having said that, I guess reality is precisely what this programme does deal with. Real reality, however, not the fabricated kind. This isn’t the sort of reality TV that gives us a public vote, with a £100,000 prize for the last narcissist standing, but the kind that focuses on a shocking true story, illustrating the depths to which people can sink.

It’s the tale of a young Australian, Belle Gibson, who conned millions into believing she was at death’s door. Her doctor, she claimed, had told her she had a stage-four brain tumour “and that I had approximately four months to live”. But it’s more than that, because Belle went on to claim she’d performed a miracle – that by following a healthy eating and wellness regime, she’d managed to cure herself.

Yes, quite.

And the scary thing is, people fell for this nonsense. Not just Belle’s followers but the likes of tech giant Apple and publishers Penguin. Belle launched an app to which millions subscribed, full of recipes and healthy living tips. Penguin offered her a book deal.

The programme hears from people who were taken in, including cancer survivor Bella Johnston. “I was so sucked into Belle’s life,” she recalls. “I thought she was so courageous and inspiring.” But as it goes on to explain how Belle was finally exposed, and what happened next (it’s a long story, continuing at the same time next week), the programme also hears from those who, despite being appalled by what she’d done, sound quite impressed by her use of social media. Bear in mind this was more than 10 years ago.

“She understood really well how to build a personal brand,” remarks Detch Singh, who’s apparently an “influencer marketing CEO”, whatever one of those is. “She was ahead of the game when it came to being able to productise an audience.” I assume by “productise an audience”, he means “flog stuff to suckers”.

Bringing us back to the show’s iffy title, I actually wonder whether, far from being Instagram’s worst con artist, Belle Gibson was at least briefly its best, assuming we take “best” to mean “most successful”.

“Would you accept you’re a pathological liar?” she was asked in an interview, once the game was up.

“No,” she insisted.

So there you go.What else would a pathological liar say?