Is Milla Blake from apple cider vinegar a real person? Everything about inspiration

Netflix puts a focus on Belle Gibson’s lies with her new series Apple cider vinegar.

To touting herself as a “real-ish story based on a lie”, the series detailed how wellness influencer Gibson rapidly rose to fame on social media by claiming she healed herself from Terminal Brain Cancer using a Healthy Lifestyle .

While several elements of the true story are dramatized for the series, many of the characters are based on real people. As the show notes, however, several names have been changed.

A certain character that many people think is based on a real person is Milla Blake (played by Alycia Debnam-Carey). In the series, she acts as influencer -rival to Gibson as she describes her real journey trying to treat her cancer through holistic means.

Although Gibson did not have a frenemy named Milla Blake in real life, the character is loosely based on a real person with whom the influencer came into contact.

Here is everything to know about the right inspiration behind Milla Blake.

Who is Milla Blake based on in real life?

Jessica Ainscough.

Jessica Ainscough/Instagram


The character Milla is loosely inspired by Jessica Ainscough, an Australian Teen Magazine editor who became a wellness entrepreneur after being diagnosed with a rare cancer at the age of 22.

Like Milla’s story on the show, Ainscough was diagnosed with epithelioid sarcoma in 2008 after a biopsy of clumps from her left arm. She eventually explored other treatment options, including Gerson therapy, which involves a diet based on the theory “that disease can be cured by removing toxins from the body, increasing the immune system and replacing excess salt in the body’s cells with potassium,” per. National Cancer Institute. Gerson therapy is not scientifically proven, but Ainscough claimed it worked for her.

She quickly got a short time when she documented her cancer journey, giving herself the nickname The Wellness Warrior, also the title of her blog. Through Wellness Warrior events, she would invite other celebrity’s wellness entrepreneurs to share their similar stories.

What happened to Jessica Ainscough?

Alycia Debnam-Carey as Milla in ‘Apple Cider Vinegar’.

Netflix


There are many other elements of Ainscough’s history that are in line with Milla’s on the series. In particular, her mother Sharyn Ainscough was also diagnosed with cancer in 2011 and participated in Gerson therapy as her daughter. Her mother eventually died in October 2013, two and a half years after her diagnosis.

Like Milla in the series, Ainscough found love in the midst of his cancer journey. Although his name is Arlo in the series, Ainscough had a fiancé named Tallon Paments at the time she died. After being engaged in 2014 the two were in the middle of planning their wedding As her cancer deteriorated.

In February 2015, Ainscough died, seven years after her first diagnosis, as reported by The Guardian At that time. The following month, Paments paid tribute to To his deceased fiancé on Instagram and calls her his “best friend, my greatest cheer leader, my greatest inspiration, my rock and the constant love of my life.”

“What I am most grateful for Jess is to teach me to love another of all my heart and soul,” he wrote. “We experienced something that I think very few people will ever experience in their lifetime … actually many lifetimes. To say that we loved each other would simply scrape the surface … ”

In the years since Ainscough’s death, paments have found love again and got married. He and his wife are expects at the moment their first child together. He has continued to remember Ainscough Through sincere positions on social media.

Were Belle Gibson and Jessica Ainscough Friends?

Kaitlyn Dever as Belle in ‘Apple Cider Vinegar’.

With the permission of Netflix


Although the Netflix series sets them up as frenemics, Gibson and Ainscough in real life were not friends. The book The woman who fooled the worldThere inspired the Netflix series, says they met briefly at a conference outside Melbourne, where Gibson approached her about her entire pantry app.

Despite limited contact with each other, Gibson attended Ainscough’s funeral in 2015, as reported by an Australian publication, Sydney Morning Herald.

Did Jessica Ainscough’s manager try to sabotage Belle Gibson?

Alycia Debnam-Carey as Milla, Aisha Dee as Chanelle in ‘Apple Cider Vinegar’.

With the permission of Netflix


The character of Chanelle is apparently based on two different characters, Ainscough’s manager, who contested their friendship and Gibson’s actual friend Chanelle McAuliffe, who played a key role in revealing Gibson’s lies.

As shown in the series, McAuliff became suspicious of Gibson and her diagnosis after the influencer had a seizure on her son’s birthday party.

She revealed in the ITV1 documentary, Instagram’s worst con artistThat she eventually approached Gibson about her cancer diagnosis after the incident. However, when the influencer did not come clean, McAuliffe went to journalists to reveal the story.

“Finally a journalist from Age called me. I started telling him everything I knew the little details that didn’t add, ”she explained. “The journalist began to believe that her charity requirements were also fraudulent. They then confirmed with charities that they had not received any donations, so we knew we had the story, we knew that once it broke the rest would loosen. ”