The real Chanelle on how the moment she confronted Belle EXACTLY went down.

Chanelle McAuliffe arrived at Belle Gibson's doorstep unannounced, with a mutual friend by her side.

"We sat her down and I just straight out asked her if she had cancer," the con-woman's former friend told Mamamia's True Crime Conversations.

McAuliffe's confrontation of Gibson in early 2015, a few weeks before the launch of her book The Whole Pantry, has been turned into a gripping six minutes of television in the new Netflix series Apple Cider Vinegar.

Watch: The trailer for Apple Cider Vinegar. Post continues.

The show claims to be a fictionalised drama series inspired by the book The Woman Who Fooled the World, which was written by the two The Age journalists McAuliffe shared Gibson's lies with, Beau Donelly and Nick Toscano, who went on to break the story in the media.

Gibson was exposed to be a con-woman, who'd duped the world into thinking she had brain cancer — launching an entire wellness brand on the pretence that she was using healthy food and 'alternative' remedies to cure herself.

McAuliffe was the first to cotton onto her lies, and the show portrays her intervention (played by Aisha Dee) with Gibson pretty accurately. It's just in reality, it was much more painful and drawn out.

"[We were there] quite a few hours. It seemed like forever at the time," she told True Crime Conversations.

At first, Gibson accused her of interrogating her.

"She was acting very defensive. She started to slump down in her chair and say that she felt sick and was acting kind of faint which, at that point, I kind of knew that maybe this was another tactic of hers."

Listen: To the full chat with Chanelle McAuliffe on True Crime Conversations. Post continues below.

The whole reason McAuliffe had the confidence to hold the intervention, was Gibson's 'performance' at her own son's fourth birthday party. It was that moment in mid-2014 that changed everything.

"She all of a sudden collapsed to the floor and was having what appeared to be a violent seizure. She was convulsing on the ground, saliva was coming out of her mouth, and it went on for a really long time… about 40 minutes.

"Halfway through, I said 'I'm calling an ambulance' and all of a sudden she kind of comes out of the seizure and says 'no, I don't want Western medicine involved.' So I said 'okay' and she kind of went back to the seizure."

It all seemed very preformative to McAuliffe, and "it was that day I left that party and I knew in my gut something was really wrong."

Fast-forward seven months and McAuliffe had no doubt standing in Gibson's home that she was looking at a liar.

"I basically demanded her to go and get any medical evidence to prove that she had cancer… any scans, a hospital, doctor reports. She said that she didn't like to keep those documents because it's negative energy in her house."

Chanelle McAuliffe was the original whistleblower in the Belle Gibson story. Image: Supplied.

At the time of the confrontation, Gibson had claimed her cancer had spread to her "blood, spleen, brain, uterus and liver" and she was living with a stage four diagnosis.

When McAuliffe quizzed her on it, Gibson told her she hadn't received the diagnosis from a major hospital, she'd gotten it from "Dr Phil" — a doctor she claimed to see at his private practice in Melbourne's suburbs.

Apple Cider Vinegar used the same name (Dr Phil) and almost the same dialogue as McAuliffe recalls, and as she explained to True Crime Conversations, "At that point, I actually thought it was so comical… her story was that ridiculous."

She asked Gibson, "So if you've not had a proper diagnosis at a hospital, does that mean your diagnosis is questionable?"

"Possibly," she replied. "Because Dr Phil's gone missing… he's gone to ground and none of his colleagues know where he is."

At this point, Gibson whipped out her phone and called her publisher at Penguin Books, Julie Gibbs, and McAuliffe said she "accused her of speaking to her friends, and [that] her friend was jealous and accusing her of not being sick."

That call was shown in the Netflix series, but that's not where it ended in real-life.

Kaitlyn Dever (left) as Belle Gibson (right) during her now infamous 2015 60 Minutes interview. Image: Netflix/Nine.

"She phoned her acupuncturist and asked him to come over," said McAuliffe.

"When he arrived, she said to him, 'Tell them that I have cancer.' That was her way of proving to us that she had cancer. He said, 'Tell of course you have cancer.' I said, 'Well how do you know she has cancer?' and he replied, 'Because she told me.'"

Fed up with Gibson's act, McAuliffe went upstairs and confronted her partner, Clive Rothwell, which her character also did in Apple Cider Vinegar.

"I found Clive and said, 'You need to tell me the truth' and he said, 'She will destroy anyone that tries to expose her', and that he needed to protect her little boy.

"It was a very cryptic, confronting answer I got from him," she told True Crime Conversations.

Rothwell joined in the conversation downstairs with Gibson, and for McAuliffe there was a comment he made that was a "penny drop" moment.

"Clive said to Belle, 'You need to get the books in order,' and I think that was [I realised later], in regards to the charity fraud that Belle was conducting."

It was that fraud — Gibson's claims she'd been donating to charities, but in fact wasn't — that ended up being the first story The Age was able to reveal in their exposé. From there, her 'fake cancer' narrative quickly unravelled. =

McAuliffe left Gibson's house that night feeling "very, very angry" and "absolutely gobsmacked".

"It confirmed everything for me," she told True Crime Conversations. "That it was all a lie."

She left the house urging Gibson to come forward and tell the truth, assuring her that "this is your inner circle knocking at your door. This is where it starts and this is where it can end".

But of course, Gibson continued her lie, fronting up to the launch of her book with a smile on her face.

McAuliffe was in the audience.

"She knew that I knew, but I still rocked up to her book launch… and as you'll see on the show, I stood there in the crowd and just really stared at her and just made a point of 'You know there's someone here that knows and is going to hold you accountable.'"

McAuliffe was "pleasantly surprised" by how her character was portrayed in Apple Cider Vinegar.

Aisha Dee as Chanelle in Apple Cider Vinegar. Image: Netflix.

She had no involvement with the show, and was quick to point out that there was plenty that was fabricated — she wasn't Gibson's manager, or the manager of any other wellness influencer.

She did know Jess Ainscough, whose experience was in part brought to life by the character of Milla Blake, but "we weren't close friends".

But McAuliffe did find the confrontation scene "compelling" and "really accurate".

Speaking to True Crime Conversations, McAuliffe admitted she "is not entirely comfortable with the dramatisation and sensationalisation" of the story via the Netflix series, and is particularly "uncomfortable with the capitalisation of the harm caused to people with cancer."

But she's hopeful that the show will shine a line on how we can easily be misled online, and the harm Gibson caused to so many.

Gibson has never apologised, and hasn't paid a cent of the $410,000 fine the Federal Court demanded of her in 2017.

McAuliffe will never forgive Gibson for what she did, but a small part of her remains hopeful she can redeem herself.

"I hope so," she told True Crime Conversations.

"Because then there might be [closure] for her victims and the charities involved. But, I'm being very optimistic."

Feature image: Supplied.

Read more:

• A brutally honest review of Apple Cider Vinegar, Netflix's new Belle Gibson series.

• Belle Gibson and Jess Ainscough's story played out in Apple Cider Vinegar, but their real relationship was more complicated.

• The most confusing part of Apple Cider Vinegar isn't Belle's cancer lies. It's her relationship with Clive.