Disgraced wellness blogger Belle Gibson knew that she didn’t have a brain tumour two years before beginning her empire which gave hope to thousands of cancer sufferers.

Despite the revelation in an uncomfortable interview with a hard-hitting Tara Brown, Ms Gibson maintains she was never “intentionally untruthful” to her followers and that she’d been “really transparent” through the journey.

“I lived for years with the fear that I was dying,” Ms Gibson told 60 Minutes on Sunday night. “Nobody wants to live with the fear of a terminal illness or dying.”

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Ms Gibson’s empire crumbled after she was exposed as a fraud. Photo: Instagram

Ms Gibson argued in the interview that she was deceived in 2010 by immunologist and neurologist “Mark Johns”.

60 Minutes could not find record of a ‘Mark Johns’ existing.

“He (Mr Johns) went to my home and did a series of tests,” Ms Gibson said.

“There was a machine with lights on the front. There’s two metal pads, one below the chair and one behind your back – measuring frequencies – he said to me that I had a stage four brain tumour and that I had four months to live.

“At the time, I believed I was having radio therapy. When he gave me medication, I was told it was oral chemotherapy and I believed it.”

When she survived past the initial four-month diagnosis, Ms Gibson said she went to the Alfred Hospital for a brain scan.

Ms Gibson told 60 Minutes she saw scan results that confirmed the tumours in 2011.

However, 60 Minutes obtained documents that proved she had a 40-minute face-to-face consultation at the Alfred Hospital in 2011 with a neurologist who told her the scans were clear.

“Belle Gibson is a master manipulator of the truth.” @TaraBrown60 reflects on her confounding interview with Belle. https://t.co/u6MlHUYLQG

— 60 Minutes Australia (@60Mins) June 28, 2015

Despite that meeting, Ms Gibson said she believed she had cancer until early 2014 and that she was going to tell the media about the sham herself 10 days before the story broke. 

She says she too is a victim because of the false diagnosis and that she didn’t mean to deceive anyone.

“I’m not trying to get away with anything. I’m not trying to smooth over anything. It’s not easy for me to be here,” she said.

“Once I figured out where I stood and I’d received the definitive ‘you don’t have cancer’ … it was traumatising.”

Belle Gibson could not even give a simple answer about her age.

Ms Brown fired back: “Traumatising that you don’t have cancer?”

Ms Gibson responded: “I was feeling a huge amount of grief. That I had been lied to and that I had been taken for a ride.”

Chat room conversations from when Ms Gibson was 17 were also revealed by 60 Minutes.

They show she lied about being in hospital due to a variety of ailments. 

“Haha I just had heart surgery,” Ms Gibson typed. “I have a heart condition.”

“I don’t get a gnarly scar this time, that’s for another operation.”

During these chat room conversations Ms Gibson posted that she had died twice on the operating table and had various heart complications.

She never had any of the procedures she chatted about nor was she in hospital.

In another startling revelation, Ms Gibson finally confessed she has lied about her age.

“I would be 26,” she said.

Even this was confusing after she said she had changed her name four times and had two birth certificates.

She said her most recent deed poll certificate said she was 23, although she’d been raised to believe she would now be 26.

She said the name changes and different birth certificates were the result of a difficult upbringing.

Ms Gibson built an empire claiming she cured herself of multiple cancers through self-treatment and alternative dieting.

She also said she had donated $300,000 income from her wellness app and book, The Whole Pantry, to charity. 

In March this year, a newspaper investigation blew the lid on those claims and outed her as a fraud.

Belle Gibson attempts to explain her life of lies, blaming much of it on her own naivety. | Now on #60Mins https://t.co/4A7i1D8CeF

— 60 Minutes Australia (@60Mins) June 28, 2015