It’s official: the global wellness industry is now worth an eye-watering $5.6 trillion (£4.5tn), as people all over the world continue “the active pursuit of activities, choices and lifestyles that lead to a state of holistic health”.

From reiki to yoga, journaling to meditation, there are plenty of ways to tap into this trend – and just as many wellness bloggers to turn to for inspiration, too.

Not all of these bloggers, however, have their followers’ best interests at heart. Take Belle Gibson, for example.

One of the ‘original’ wellness bloggers, Gibson commanded an audience of well over 300,000 Instagram followers back in 2013. When she informed them all that she had ‘cured’ her inoperable brain cancer through healthy eating, her notoriety only grew, and led to the launch of a popular wellbeing app called The Whole Pantry and a cookbook of the same name, all backed by Penguin and Apple.

Too bad, then, that nothing about her story was true – she never had cancer. And so, in September 2017, the Australian government fined her £240,000 for misleading followers about donating money to charity. Gibson was then found guilty of five breaches of consumer law.

Now, a new ITV docuseries plans to explore the consequences of Gibson’s lies, using a mixture of interviews, social media posts and Gibson’s own voice from recordings she made.

“With access to family and friends who speak on the record for the first time, this series discovers the truth about Belle Gibson,” reads the official synopsis for Instagram’s Worst Con Artist, a true crime docuseries set to hit ITV this month.

“Was she a manipulative, compulsive liar or a damaged young woman?”

It’s a wild story – one which is likely to appeal to those who found themselves by the story of con artist and fraudster Anna Sorokin. Due to the nature of Gibson’s lies, however, the consequences of this particular scam proved devastating for many.

Indeed, Bella Johnston, who found Belle after being diagnosed with cancer, says: “I was so sucked into Belle’s life. I just thought she was so courageous and inspiring. I was like, wow, I don’t know if I want to be this woman or be this woman’s best friend.

“I started really comparing my life with hers. I was so devastated about my face and my body, in the middle of radiotherapy I started fake-tanning. I got hair extensions to try to cover all my baldness. There was this ideology that it’s the medicine that makes you look sick…she looks so good because she fuels her body with this amazing food.”

Prepare yourselves for a gripping and heartbreaking ride.

The first episode of Instagram’s Worst Con Artist will air at 9pm on Thursday 25 April via ITV1.

The full series is available to stream via ITVX.

Instagram’s Worst Con Artist is a different kind of true crime documentary