Netflix’s Apple Cider Vinegar describes itself as a “true-ish story based on a lie” — that lie being Australian influencer Belle Gibson’s claim that she had cancer and was treating it through nutrition and alternative remedies. While the real Gibson has admitted to her deceit, several characters on the show take inspiration from women in her community who did, indeed, have cancer. One of these characters is named Milla Blake (Alycia Debnam-Carey).
Milla is a young woman who is diagnosed with undifferentiated pleomorphic sarcoma, a rare form of cancer. When she’s advised to amputate her arm as part of her treatment plan, she begins researching alternative remedies. She eventually develops a blog and lifestyle brand dedicated to sharing her experience.
While the character may not be directly based on any one person — Netflix reminds viewers that “Apple Cider Vinegar is not a biopic and many characters are fictionalized” — it seems that much of Milla’s life is inspired by a real person named Jess Ainscough.
Sharing Her Story
Ainscough features prominently in the 2017 book The Woman Who Fooled the World, which inspired Apple Cider Vinegar. Like Milla, Ainscough was diagnosed with a rare type of soft-tissue sarcoma (hers was Epithelioid sarcoma) at 22 years old. Instead of amputating her arm, she pursued nutrition and alternative therapies and chronicled her experience on her blog, The Wellness Warrior. (The site is now defunct, but can still be visited through the Internet Archive. Milla’s blog on Apple Cider Vinegar shares an aesthetic resemblance to the real page.)
Milla’s story on Apple Cider Vinegar also shares other similarities with Ainscough. In 2013, the real-life blogger shared that her mother had died of cancer after turning to the same controversial therapy Ainscough had used.
A Tragic Update
The following year, in her final blog post, Ainscough shared that she’d been feeling “really unwell” and would be opening herself up to other options, including “conventional” medicine.
“My beliefs have been completely shaken up and I’ve had to drop any remnants of fear and ego that were preventing me from exploring these options sooner,” she wrote, adding that the prospect of reckoning with her deteriorating health was “humbling.” Milla has a similar realization in Apple Cider Vinegar.
Ainscough passed away several months later, in February 2015. She was 29 years old and engaged to be married. “We experienced something that I believe very few people ever get to experience in their lifetime… In fact many lifetimes,” her fiancé wrote in a tribute. “To say that we loved each other would simply be scratching the surface.”
Following the young woman’s death, several oncologists raised concerns about the “dangerous” therapies that public platforms like Ainscough’s may promote to the public.
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