Cancer-stricken influencer, 25, faces brutal trolling from critics’ claiming she’s faking her diagnosis after fraudsters like Belle Gibson fooled the world for thousands

A CancerTok influencer has become a victim of vicious internet conspiracy theories claiming she has faked her diagnosis.

New York-based Sydney Towle has scored hundreds of thousands of TikTok followers since she tearfully announced her rare and aggressive cancer diagnosis, cholangiocarcinoma, in 2023 aged 23.

The now-25-year-old invited the internet into her life as she shared content showing her undergoing chemotherapy and other treatments for bile duct cancer, which helped increase her follow count to the 777 thousand figure that it stands at today.

However, among the thousands of supporters spewed a group of malicious naysayers on Reddit, who claimed that Sydney, who has not asked her followers for money, was faking her disease to win over a bigger social media following.

Sceptics pointed to Sydney’s videos where she travelled around the globe, alleging that it contradicted her illness. 

They even went through the effort of crafting a 28-page timeline of medical details Towle had shared online and used it to bolster claims that she was lying about having cancer for public sympathy and monetary gain.

The outcry led Yale-educated oncologist Dr Ghassan Abou-Alta, a specialist in liver and bile duct cancers who treats Sydney, to confirm her diagnosis in conversation with the New York Times. ‘She has cancer,’ he said, categorizing her illness as Stage IV.

While the critics’ detective work was ill-founded, the public has witnessed a disturbing string of individuals falsely claiming to have cancer to make money from well-wishers, fund addictions or sell products, including the high profile case of Belle Gibson.

In 2013, Belle Gibson launched the @healing_belle Instagram account where she gained a large following through sharing so-called ‘healing’ food recipes.

She claimed that her lifestyle and healthy eating plan ‘cured’ her inoperable brain cancer, which she was diagnosed with at the age of 20 and given just months to live.

Belle claimed that she had undergone traditional cancer treatments, including chemotherapy and radiotherapy, before abandoning modern medicine to follow a programme of clean eating instead.

The deals began to roll in and Gibson launched an app full of recipes as well as a book deal, reportedly worth £213,500 ($420,000 AUD).

Describing her plant-based diet in her book, she said, ‘I was empowering myself to save my own life through nutrition, patience, determination, and love.’

However, in 2014, the Melbourne-based personality claimed that, despite her new wellness-focused lifestyle, her cancer had returned, and this time it had spread.

While many fans were devastated by the news, suspicions soon materialised about the money she claimed to have donated to various charities from the proceeds of her book.

Following an investigation by Fairfax Media, it was discovered that none of the charities Belle had named had received a penny from her.

The influencer’s story quickly started to unravel, and in April 2015, she was forced to admit she had lied.

In an interview with Australia Women’s Weekly, she said, ‘No… None of it’s true,’ before adding that she hoped people would forgive her and see that she was only ‘human’.

Two years after her admission, Belle was fined around £215,000 ($410,000 AUD) after being found guilty of misleading and deceptive conduct.

The former wellness blogger has now adopted the ‘Oromo’ ethnic group in Melbourne, even taking to wearing a headscarf and naming herself ‘Sabontu’.

Three years after Belle first started to spin her web of lies, Nicole Elkabbas faked having ovarian cancer.

The former Harrods manager from Broadstairs, Kent, faked cancer to con more than £52,000 from generous well-wishers to fund her lavish lifestyle over several months in 2018.

In February 2021, she was sentenced to two years and nine months in prison after a jury found her guilty of one count of fraud in relation to false representation of having ovarian cancer in order to receive money for treatment.

She had set up a charitable GoFundMe and claimed that she required donations to pay for treatment, despite transferring them to her own bank account.

Elkabbas was never diagnosed with cancer, and instead used huge sums of cash to fund her gambling addiction, pay off mounting debts, and splash out on her ‘expensive lifestyle’ – including £3,592 on a luxury box to watch a single Tottenham Hotspur match.

Nicole denied the offences. Her defence argued that she believed she had cancer.

The fraudsters trial heard that the picture on the GoFundMe website showing Elkabbas ‘apparently stricken and in her hospital bed looking very poorly indeed’ was in fact from a previous operation to remove her gallbladder.

Elsewhere, Iowa-based TikTokker Madison Russo scammed nearly $40,000 (£29,801) after falsely claiming she had leukemia and pancreatic cancer in postings on TikTok, GoFundMe, Facebook and LinkedIn.

Russo also earned the sympathy of millions, after lying about having a ‘football-sized’ tumour wrapped around her spine.

Between February and October 2022, Russo alleged she received about 15 rounds of chemotherapy and 90 rounds of radiation. She also insisted she had a consultation with Mayo Clinic doctors.

Despite her ‘cancer diagnosis’, she was able to achieve high marks at university, work part-time and participate in outdoor activities.

Her ‘medical journey’ was regularly posted on social media where she often talked about her alleged chemotherapy process and day-to-day symptoms.

Russo also shared her story in newspapers, podcasts, talks at St. Ambrose University – where she studied – and The National Pancreatic Foundation.

And a GoFundMe page set up to solicit donations raised $37,303 (£27,793) before being refunded to donors.

Russo was found to have accepted money from 439 donors, including from cancer foundations and school districts.

But she came under suspicion when internet sleuths noticed mistakes in some of her videos. One TikToker posted a photo of Russo smiling while connected to a gastrostomy tube. They pointed out that the tube was too far up Russo’s nose and her ‘chest port’ was was wrongly applied.

Police subpoenaed her medical records and found she had never been diagnosed with cancer at any medical facility in the area.

Officers also found that Russo was shamelessly stealing photos from cancer patients’ social media accounts in an attempt to make her story more believable. She posted a $10,000 (£7,451) bail the same day she was arrested.

In June 2023, she pleaded guilty to first-degree theft in a deal with prosecutors and was given a 10-year suspended sentence. She was also ordered to pay $39,000 (£29,077) in restitution and a $1,370 (£1,021) fine. If she stays out of trouble for three years of probation, she’ll stay free.

Another cancer faker, Sarah Jane Cavanaugh, lied about having the disease and raked in more than $250,000 (£186,396) worth of donations in the process.

In March 2023, Cavanaugh was sentenced to nearly six years in prison and ordered to repay all of the money after pleading guilty to aggravated identity theft, forged military discharge certificates, fraudulent use of military medals and four counts of wire fraud.

In addition to her lie about having stage three lung cancer, Cavanaugh also made false claims that she was a Marine Corps veteran who had served in Iraq and Afghanistan from 2009 until 2016 during which time, she said, she developed the condition due to her exposure to burn pits.

She was so committed to her act she wore medals she had bought online, attended veterans’ events, and even asked peers at the gym to tie her shoelaces as she claimed war-related injuries to her fingers left her unable to tie them herself.

Her web of lies began when she was working as a social worker at the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Providence and used her position to access the records belonging to a real Marine with cancer, falsifying documents to state she served in the army before being honourably discharged.

The Rhode Island native accepted more than $225,000 (£186,396) from the Wounded Warrior Project alone to pay for yoga classes, gym memberships, groceries and physical therapy.

She later alleged she could not afford the insurance deductibles for her cancer treatment prompting a veteran to pay them for her – costing nearly $600 (£447) a month.

The money came from the same veteran whose medical details she had first stolen. In addition, prosecutors said Cavanaugh managed to get a service dog that was meant to help soothe the ‘trauma’ she had supposedly been exposed to in battle.

She also received $18,500 (£13,796) in financial assistance from Code of Support in Virginia for bills and $4,700 (£3,505) from a fundraising website.

Her story started to unravel in early 2022 after she applied for funds from the HunterSeven Foundation who conducted a background check into her military services.

Veterans expressed their fury at Cavanaugh’s lies during her trial as they accused her of taking donations away from those who truly needed it.

One told the court they had a friend who took their life after being denied funding from a program called CreatiVets. Cavanaugh took thousands from the scheme, court documents stated.

‘By brazenly laying claim to the honour, service, and sacrifice of real veterans, this defendant preyed on the charity and decency of others for her own shameless financial gain,’ US Attorney Zachary A. Cunha said following her sentencing.

In addition to taking funds from others in need, fake cancer sufferers have also led genuine patients like Sydney Towle to undergo intense online scrutiny.

For instance, Redditors noted that Towle had planned a three-week trip to Europe and questioned why someone with cancer would take a break from treatment for a holiday, only to return to make dramatic videos about her illness.

The backlash then intensified when the anonymous posters argued that she was not undergoing much chemotherapy.

They noted that Towle maintained her long hair, and zoomed in on videos Towle posted to look for signs of a port – a medical device that is implanted in patients to facilitate chemo treatments and ease blood draws.

When they didn’t find evidence of one, the Redditors concluded Towle must be lying about her diagnosis.

Then, when she posted a video showing a port implanted not on her upper chest – as is usual – but on the underside of her arm, they remained skeptical.

Even when Towle posted a video in which she appeared to be at a chemotherapy appointment in March, she was hit with backlash just days later for posting another video showing her with her brother, Austin, in the Caribbean.

‘This is us before going scuba diving in the ocean – for the first time,’ she wrote in the TikTok video.

In the next scene, Towle and her brother were seen wearing wetsuits, which Towle said ‘is us after our first dive.’

On Reddit, critics saw the juxtaposition as evidence that she was not sick. ‘Syd must WANT to be ousted,’ one commentator wrote.

Eventually, the Reddit page had more than 1,000 members who accused Towle of manufacturing emotion on camera to manipulate sympathetic followers.

One of the biggest detractors was a Redditor with the username Beginning_Field_2421, who was found to be Connie Wright – a privacy officer for Valley Health System in Bergen County, New Jersey, who shapes and manages the organization’s patient privacy practices, according to her LinkedIn.

‘We have receipts, medical analysis, fact-checking discussions,’ she wrote on the page, urging others to ‘join the conversation and tell us how you found out and why you may have doubts.’

She also shared posts with headings like, ‘Sydney Towle- Were you lying then or now?’ and ‘How to spot when Sydney Towle is lying: Her biggest tells, which catalogued her ‘slow blinks, pauses and squinting.’

Wright also used some strong language in her posts, once reportedly writing: ‘I’ve never disbelieved or hated this phony b more than today.’

Others were also alarmed when Google said cholangiocarcinoma ‘often affects adults in their seventies and carries a ‘usually poor’ prognosis in cases where the cancer advanced, as had Towle’s.

Many of the detractors did not seem concerned about their hostility, the Times reported.

‘If she fabricated any part of her story, it’s deeply unethical and she deserves backlash,’ Beginning_Fields_2421 wrote as others hit out at Towle for accepting donations from some of her followers.

‘Being a public figure comes with scrutiny – it’s part of the job.’

Eventually, the hostility spread beyond the internet, as Wright urged people to complain about Towle to the companies whose products she endorsed and suggested that Reddit commentators show up at a cancer research fundraiser that Towle would be attending.

Someone else also suggested sending Towle’s photo to cancer hospitals, implying they need to be alerted of a potential fraudster, according to the Times.

A third Redditor even contacted the Jamaican scuba company where she and her brother had gone diving, asking about the protocol for allowing cancer patients to participate.

Meanwhile, Towle also noticed a surge in criticism on TikTok.

‘My comments have been so inundated with people being like, “You will burn in hell. You are lying,”‘ she told the Times, adding that she also received death threats.

The comments left her feeling stuck, because if she quit social media, she feared her followers would believe she had something to hide.

‘I’m sorry that they are so angry that living with cancer can look different than they think it should,’ she said.

In a video after the article was published, Towle finally addressed the hatred she received to her TikTok followers.

‘I haven’t really addressed this because I was quite frankly shocked when I found out this was a thing – and I wasn’t sure how else to prove I have cancer because I was posting at chemo every week,’ she said.

‘I also know that I know what I’m going through, my friends and family know what I’m going through and that is ultimately what matters the most.

‘But it has taken a significant toll on my mental health… It has been a lot,’ she admitted.

Towle concluded by saying she hopes the article ‘reinforces that you do not know what someone is going through.

‘Just because I am traveling, hanging out with my friends and doing normal things doesn’t mean that I don’t have Stage IV cancer,’ she said, before thanking ‘everyone who has supported me, because none of the negativity negates how much I appreciate the support of everyone on here.’

Sydney’s doctor Dr. Ghassan Abou-Alta described to the New York Times how Towle’s cancer started in the bile ducts in the liver, and after an initial surgery to remove the original tumour, the cancer recurred in her liver.

Tumours were also detected in lymph nodes next to her liver, Abou-Alta said from his office at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York City.

The doctor then went on to commend Towle for shining a light on young people who are fighting cancer, more and more of whom are diagnosed every day.

Many of them can maintain a fairly normal schedule, even when undergoing chemotherapy, Abou-Alta explained.

‘Patients really can live with cancer. Not everybody should be looking as if they were dying.’

Of course not everyone will tolerate chemotherapy as well as Towle, but a number are, he said.

‘A young patient like Sydney, or at any age really, can keep going and look very good,’ the doctor said. ‘But it does not undermine that she’s still living with a very serious matter.’

When the oncologist was told about the skeptics on Reddit who believed Towle to be lying about her diagnosis, Abou-Alta reportedly hung his head and shook it in disbelief.