Is 'Apple Cider Vinegar' Character Milla Blake Based On A Real Person?
When the reported real-life inspiration behind Netflix's Apple Cider Vinegar character Milla Blake, Jessica Ainscough, embarked on her healing journey, she could've had no idea what awaited her.
For the uninitiated, Apple Cider Vinegar tells the story of Australian wellness influencer Belle Gibson (Kaitlyn Dever), who was at the apex of her fame in 2014. She had amassed thousands of followers on social media — which she leveraged to secure a lucrative book deal with Penguin — her wellness app, The Whole Pantry, had been voted Apple's 'best new food and drink' app the previous year, and chosen for pre-installation on the soon-to-launch Apple Watch, and she'd banked over $500,000 AUD (£252,000) in two years, giving a large part of it to charity.
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Elle Australia called the 26-year-old single mother 'the most inspiring woman you’ve met this year.' Cosmopolitan bestowed its 'Fun Fearless Female' award on her. Against all of the odds, Gibson's triumph telegraphed that she'd turned her life and the terminal brain cancer diagnosis she'd been given around. But simmering under the truth of Gibson's glossy selfies and inspirational quotes was the dark, ugly reality: she never had cancer.
The six-episode series, which was adapted from the 2017 book The Woman Who Fooled The World – penned by the two journalists, Beau Donelly and Nick Toscano, who originally broke the story in 2015 — focuses on Gibson's rise (and fall), and also the parallel story of cancer patient Milla Blake (Alycia Debnam-Carey), whose story was also inspired by true events.
Is Milla Blake From 'Apple Cider Vinegar' Based On A Real Person?
While they're not exact replicas, there are direct parallels between Apple Cider Vinegar character Milla Blake and Jessica Ainscough, an Australian woman who was diagnosed with epithelioid sarcoma in 2008 at the age of 22. She had started blogging about her 'recovery' journey using alternative therapies under the name The Wellness Warrior.
Doctors wanted to amputate; Ainscough refused, instead embarking on a quest to heal herself via an adherence to something called Gerson therapy (swapped, in the show, for the fictitious 'Hirsch therapy'). It involved copious amounts of raw juices and five coffee enemas a day and, for a while, it seemed to be working. Ainscough was touted as an odds-beating wellness guru, amassing thousands of followers and landing a book deal, 2013’s Make Peace With Your Plate, as well as a career as a motivational speaker.
In the series, Blake and Gibson are presented as rivals, with Blake feeling increasingly competitive about Gibson's increasing ubiquity, but the reality was markedly different. While Blake met Gibson at an in-person event and occasionally interacted with her online, Ainscough didn’t have much of an offline relationship with Gibson at all, and there was little rivalry on Ainscough’s part – for a long time, she was the undisputed virtual queen of beating cancer with new-age treatments.
What Happened To Milla Blake From 'Apple Cider Vinegar'?
The clear difference between Gibson and Ainscough though was that the latter really did have cancer – and, in 2015, at the age of 29, she died. Ainscough's mother Sharyn had died from breast cancer the previous year, having copied her daughter by shunning modern medicine in favour of Gerson therapy. Towards the end of her life, Ainscough admitted that her 'beliefs have been completely shaken up' and tried radiotherapy in a last-ditch attempt to survive but it was too late.
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