Apple found itself in an awkward situation prior to the launch of the Apple Watch, when one of its star developers was exposed as a fraud who had lied about her health condition to become famous.

An article published in the Australian newspaper The Age reveals just how close Apple was to wellness blogger and developer Belle Gibson — and how the company was ultimately forced to make the call to drop her just before its important Apple Watch went on sale in 2015, after the true story came out.

Australian indie developer Belle Gibson — known for her iOS app The Whole Pantry — has publicly admitted that she made up a story about suffering from terminal brain cancer to boost profits.

“No. None of it’s true,” she told The Australian Women’s Weekly magazine when asked if she had ever had cancer. “I am still jumping between what I think I know and what is reality. I have lived it and I’m not really there yet.”

The 26-year-old entrepreneur based her business around telling others how she had overcome cancer through “healthy living” and without the use of conventional medicine. Apple was seemingly so taken with the story that it flew her to Cupertino to work on delivering one of the first wave of Apple Watch apps — although this has since been pulled.

An Australian indie developer who was flown to Cupertino by Apple to work on an Apple Watch app alongside giants like Twitter and BMW has come under fire for reportedly falsifying a story about suffering from terminal cancer.

Created by healthy-living proponent Belle Gibson, iPhone food app The Whole Pantry has been pulled from the App Store, while an accompanying Apple Watch app has vanished from Apple’s list of “coming soon” apps for its upcoming wearable.