British influencer Brittany Miller admits she lied about having cancer – National

A British influencer has apologized for lying to her friends cancer years ago, saying she was in a “dark place” at the time.

Brittany Miller, 29, admitted she lied posted a video on TikTok on Monday, a week later The British tabloid The Sun published an article which claims to ‘reveal’ the ‘dark truth’ behind Miller claiming she had stage 3 stomach cancer in 2017, with a fundraising page for her.

A person close to Miller told the publication that many of her followers “will have family members living with cancer, but they don’t know that every time they watch one of her videos, they are giving money to a fraudster.”

Now, Miller has broken her silence about her past in her apology video, which has been viewed more than 10 million times as of Wednesday.

“In 2017, I was in extremely poor mental health and at the time I didn’t realize how bad, but it was bad,” Miller told her 3.5 million TikTok followers.

“I was depressed, I was suicidal, I was lost, I was confused, I had lost my partner, I had lost my job, and there were a lot of things that happened that year that made me mentally ill.”

“I said something in confidence to someone close to me, one stupid sentence that I deeply regret,” Miller continued. “I said I had a disease, namely cancer.”

The mother of two said she “didn’t do this with malicious intent or to defraud people.”

“I did this out of desperation. I did it to keep the people close to me, to keep the people in my life close to me,” she said. “I don’t condone it. I understand why I did it and I have learned from my mistakes.”

Miller said it was not “a long-term scam or a manipulative story as alleged.”

“The people I told then told a few others and a fundraising page was set up on my behalf, which I was aware of. As soon as I saw those donations – there were two donations – the page was immediately closed and I didn’t take a cent from it,” she explained.

“I forgive myself for being mentally ill and I am so deeply sorry to anyone that I was upset or triggered by saying what I said,” she said.

Miller wanted to make it clear to her followers that the incident happened years before she was on social media, so she wasn’t just doing this “for likes or followers.”

“I know how devastating this disease is, and I know how much it affects people, so I’m so, so sorry,” Miller said.

Miller assured her followers that she is “mentally healthy again” and that she is proud of how far she has come.

“If I could go back and change what I did, I would do it in a heartbeat. It was a stupid sentence I said almost a decade ago, and I learned so much from it,” Miller said.

She credited her fiancé, Ash Griffiths, with helping her get to a better place, calling him the “light at the end of the tunnel.”

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“He helped me get better and forgive myself… I’m here because I want to be an advocate for mental health,” Miller said. “I want to help people because I know what it’s like to be in a dark, dark place.”

Miller closed her video by saying how grateful she is for all the people who support her, adding, “I really, really love you.”

Miller isn’t the first influencer to lie about having cancer.

Belle Gibson, an Australian cookbook author, built a public profile in 2013 around her claim through her book, Instagram and Facebook accounts that she was diagnosed with brain cancer at the age of 20 and given four months to live.

She claimed to have rejected conventional cancer treatments in favor of a quest to heal herself naturally and falsely said she had defeated cancer by eating healthy.

With the media questioning many of her claims, she admitted in 2015 that she had never had cancer.

Gibson was fined by the court in 2017 for misleading consumers by lying about her charitable donations.

The judge had ruled in March 2017 that Gibson’s misleading claims about donating proceeds from the sale of The entire pantry and a related app constituted unconscionable conduct under the Australian Consumer Law. The book and app have been withdrawn.

Judge Debra Mortimer of the Federal Court ordered Gibson to pay a total of AU$410,000 (approximately C$375,600) for five violations of the law involving false claims that proceeds would go to various charities.

— With files from The Associated Press

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