Home AUSTRALIA Belle Gibson spent five weeks working at Maxine’s Gentlemen’s Club

Belle Gibson spent five weeks working at Maxine’s Gentlemen’s Club

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Face of Nation : Cancer fraud Belle Gibson spent five weeks working for a strip club in Melbourne after her lies were exposed, the venue’s owner has confirmed.

The 27-year-old who lied to the world about her terminal brain cancer diagnosis did odd jobs for Maxine’s Erotic Ultra Lounge on Sydney Rd in Brunswick in June and July 2016.

Maxine’s confirmed to news.com.au that Gibson had worked there after she struggled to find work when her Whole Pantry business was revealed to be based on a terrible lie. She did not work as a stripper.

In the Federal Court yesterday, where Gibson is being examined over her refusal to pay a $410,000 fine for breaches of consumer law, barrister Carl Moller fired questions at the mother-of-one about the work she had been doing.

He revealed she had run errands for a woman named Maxine. Speaking from Las Vegas this morning, Maxine Fensom told news.com.au she pleaded with Gibson to apologise to the people she had duped.

“I said, just be humble and apologise. You’ll find people will be kinder to you. I wish her the best, but she really needs to look at the damage she’s done,” Ms Fensom said.

Gibson did odd jobs at the popular venue for cash. Ms Fensom said the pair were introduced by a mutual friend before Gibson started work there.

“She ran errands. She did a lot of stuff on the computer, because I’m computer illiterate. She did social media, she basically co-ordinated the whole (Australian Adult Industry Awards) event,” Ms Fensom told news.com.au.

But the pair parted ways after a strange incident in which Ms Fensom claims Gibson refused to give her the password to manage the website.

“I was going back to the US and it was just a short thing, but at the end of the day she wouldn’t give me the password for the site. It was kind of sh*tty. It was really odd and kind of b**chy.”

Asked in court yesterday who she had worked for after her business fell apart, Gibson mentioned an elderly woman named Claire but did not disclose her work for Maxine’s.

“They’re all of a varying nature, for example I was …” Gibson said, before a long pause.

“I wouldn’t even know how to describe it. I was assisting an elderly woman, her family had hired me to care for her. Another job was personal help — a woman in her business.”

The court yesterday heard Gibson earned $16,000 in 2016 and $20,000 in 2017, but spent $91,000 in the past two years.

Mr Moller told the court Gibson spent $13,000 on clothes, accessories and cosmetics, as well as $45,000 on “discretionary” items between 2017 and 2019.

The court heard she went on trips to Adelaide and the Gold Coast, as well as to Africa and Bali.

It was also revealed she had been sending donations via GoFundMe to the Flint water crisis in the US state of Michigan, but that she was in no position to pay any amount of money towards the fine.

Asked if she could chip away at it, Gibson replied: “No”.

Asked if she had considered bankruptcy, Gibson confirmed she had, but could not say how far those considerations had advanced.

Earlier, Gibson broke down when being examined about work she had done via outsourcing platform Airtasker for an elderly woman between July and September 2017.

She removed her glasses and wiped away tears when asked to give details of the care she was providing to a woman named Claire.

“This is what I’m saying about my empathetic nature,” Gibson said.

The court was adjourned for five minutes to give Gibson a chance to compose herself.

During a previous appearance in the same court last month, Gibson was grilled over her use of a Sportsbet account, trading in cryptocurrencies and using Afterpay.