We may never hit peak true crime, but when we struggle to tell one TV series’ fraudster apart from another, we may have reached white girl scammer saturation. To wit: three entirely unrelated people I know mistook Kaitlyn Dever, the star of “Apple Cider Vinegar,” for the actor who played Anna Delvey.
“Inventing Anna” star Julia Garner and Dever look nothing alike; also, anecdotes are sloppy, unreliable data. Still, you can see it, right? That’s no fault of Devers but rather, a matter of the mind’s eye making twins of Delvey and Australian wellness fraudster Belle Gibson, whose story inspired “Apple Cider Vinegar.” Or triplets, maybe, once you throw in Elizabeth Holmes.
They are of a kind — charismatic golden girls who talk their way into expert status in areas that require extensive training, education and research experience. Once their lies are exposed, we see their real proficiency is in deflecting accountability, wilting tragically under pressure, or squeezing out rivers of tears to buy sympathy.
A show like “Apple Cider Vinegar,” based on “The Woman Who Fooled the World,” by the journalists who eventually punctured Gibson’s illusion, gives us a close-up of how this particular flavor of con artist kombucha was brewed.
The show is a work of fiction, a different character reminds us as each episode begins. If its creator Samantha Strauss took a few liberties with Gibson’s story, so what? Gibson fooled people into believing she had cancer when she didn’t.
Kaitlyn Dever in