After we exposed Rachael Wright as a cancer faker, the family of Chelsea Goldberg, a 28 year old leukemia patient, was extremely angry with people who dared to fake cancer on the internet.
NOTE: Chelsea’s blog has been deleted. Luckily, we saved it and you can read it here. Her personal blog was also deleted and it will be linked as well.
Harsh, but understandable. After all, Chad is Chelsea’s twin brother and he’s stood by her side as she fought leukemia, had a kidney and a pancreas removed and several scary bouts with sepsis in the hospital. Chad and Chelsea’s other siblings Matt, Lindsay, Annabelle, Ryan, and Tanner document Chelsea’s illness with humor and the support they give her is touching to read about. Chelsea also maintains her own Tumblr and she’s funny and foul mouthed and inspirational as she deals with the curve ball that life threw at her.
Except it’s fake.
This picture of Chelsea’s scar from her tumor removal in 2012 was actually taken in 2003.
This picture of her platelet infusion was stolen from the cancer blog of a woman fighting Multiple Myeloma.
Take a close look at this picture from Chelsea’s blog.
Now compare it to this picture, posted by a real life cancer patient.
Yes, Chelsea photoshopped her face over the patient’s face, took away the color and cropped the picture so it would be more difficult to prove it fake.
Here’s another one.
Now, from the same cancer patient as above.
Since this faker went to the trouble of trying to manipulate her images, I figured it wasn’t her first rodeo with faking cancer online. I was right.
Meet Chelsea.
A few years ago, Chelsea was a contributor to Joseph Gordon Levitt’s website for artists, hitRECord. She made a lot of friends on the site and they were all devastated when she announced she had cancer. A friend from the site recorded this video of Chelsea talking about her illness. Then, they gave her support as she shaved her head and posed for pictures afterwards.
Chelsea was caught plagiarizing art on hitRECord and she deleted her account, her Twitter and her Tumblr. Then, her ex husband contacted her friends from hitRECord and let them know she didn’t have cancer at all. A few calls to hospitals where she was supposedly a patient confirmed his story. Chelsea didn’t have cancer at all.
Here’s another blog Chelsea started to document imaginary cancer. She didn’t keep up with it.
How are we sure that Chelsea is behind Cheecha Kicks Cancer? Well, for one thing, Chelsea and Chad have the exact same birthday.
This is from the Goldberg’s Tumblr from January 16th.
And from Chelsea’s mother’s Facebook, also from January 16th.
Need more proof? Look at this picture, from Chelsea’s personal blog.
It was taken with an iPhone 4 and the location information pinpoints the place where it was taken. The home of Chelsea’s new fiancee.
Need even more proof? On October 13th, Chelsea wrote about finally teaching her parents how to use Skype. She included this picture.
Here’s Chelsea’s mother’s Facebook post from October 12th.
It looks like some people were on to Chelsea during her blogging life. The family posted about their cousin who had impersonated Chelsea online and raised a ton of money pretending to be someone with cancer.
As you can see from her old blog, Chelsea has used the handle “Cancer Girl” online. She also has two children and lives in another state, just like the “cousin” who was impersonating Chelsea. Did Chelsea raise $7500 with PayPal by pretending to be “Cancer Girl Problems” on Tumblr, Blogger and WordPress? If you have any information on this, I’d love to hear about it at warriorelihoax@gmail.com.
And another one bites the dust!
This one feels like it could turn into a bit of a rabbit hole. She’s done before, so there’s probably gonna be recycled material, photos, all sort of things. Makes it hard to track when things started and where the edges are.
I saw that tumblr when she commented on the Rachael Wright posts. I thought it was totally fishy but didn’t dig in further. Why, oh why, do all the fakers have twin siblings? It’s like the immediate red flag. Either that or the ridiculously close sister they have this creepy psychic connection to.
What is the fascination with twins with the fakers? I guess it just makes them feel more special.
As a twin myself, I think it’s because twins are unusual. There’s sort of a special fascination with them.
Because people are lonely. I think that’s why they create these personas in the first place. And what would make someone feel less alone than having a twin or extremely close sibling who is there for them through thick and thin. It’s something nearly everyone would want, you know?
Someone doth protest too much. If I scream and froth with rage enough, nobody will suspect me!
I had the same exact thought!
Seriously! Go back in time to page 30 of her archived tumblr and there is this gem:
“WTF is wrong with people?
Hmm. Tanner just found something very interesting while carousing the “chemotherapy” tag.
A photo of an IV stand of chemo bags that was cropped, edited, and tweaked a little to look like it was a personal photograph, but absolutely isn’t. The dilemma here, is that the person who did this, is claiming to be sick with a form of cancer. Being that my baby sister is legitimately fighting to stay alive and struggling with leukemia on a fucking daily basis (which has already taken a kidney, a portion of her liver, her ovaries, and has a giant fucking tumor formed on her spinal cord, might I add), seeing this shit really pissed me off.Â
Now, since I’m not a total motherfucker, I’m not going to call this person out by their tumblr link/blog name. Yet. However, as this individual is a follower of our blog, you know, the blog meant to support a real and truly brave cancer fighter…I can only hope this post makes you take a second fucking look in the mirror.Â
Cancer isn’t a fucking glory title. It isn’t something to say you have and be inwardly smiling because you get attention and people want to rally around you. It’s a life threatening disease and it’s one that we’re stuck watching our baby sister fight with every single day. We’ve watched it whittle her down 89.9 pounds, take every strand off hair from her body, destroy her skin with lack of pigmentation and bed sores so painful, her hospital bed had to be special ordered…and then someone who isn’t really sick is going to “support her” on here?Â
What the fuck is wrong with you?”
Grow up, man up, and stop lying.
Thanks, Matt.
I realize it’s a bit behind on the times, but I’ve noticed that A LOT of these people go batshit crazy over outed fakes and will make posts about them.
Another dimented and sick soul. What the frack is wrong with people?
I am surprised none of the fakers has a younger sibling who was conceived to be their donor.
Hey , don’t give people any ideas! Lol
I came about three years too late, but internet conversations are like eternally open. They would never include a younger sibling conceived just to help them, because they try to portray themselves as goody-goody people. If they introduce a character like that said sibling, it would be a source of conflict, at some point, a reader could ask about that sibling’s feelings, question the parents’ choice, etc., and the hoaxer is trying to get as much sympathy as she/he can get. Besides, SHE is the main character in here: and you never see yourself as a bad person, despite she is impersonating someone else, she identifies with her creation,so there can’t be evil in the character.
Wow…she was also on Blog For A Cure, a blogging platform for cancer patients and caregivers that I use. I was one of her supporters for a while, but came to believe she was fake and reported her to the woman who runs the blog. Chelsea sent the blog owner an email saying she was being falsely accused by another member and then shut down her account. She used that b & w, shaved head close-up shot as her profile pic. I’m going to send a link to this article to Jill, who runs BFAC.
Ann, please feel free to pass on my contact info to her as well, if she has questions.
And she was using pictures that you don’t have here, which had been stolen from a cancer blog run by a woman who died a couple of years ago. She referred to the man in the picture as “Colin”, so is that the name of her real fiance?
Colin is the name of her real fiance, yes.
WOW! It sounds like these people have full time jobs as bull shitters. Most people would give anything to NOT deal with cancer on a daily basis and these people keep it in their lives as if they were getting paid to do so. I guess in some of the cases they are getting paid though. Is this a form of Münchausen syndrome? I know they aren’t literally making themselves or anyone else sick (except for when we read their fake BS and it makes our stomachs hurt) but it seems like a psychological issue. I just can’t figure out why or how there are so many people out there doing this. Once again thank you guys for taking down another one.
Apparently it’s a thing called Munchausen by Internet. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M%C3%BCnchausen_by_Internet
This…left me more than shocked. I’ve been checking up on her blog daily to keep up with how she was doing and have been praying for her regularly. I feel absolutely betrayed and incredibly angry that none of it was real. I guess that goes to show how naive I am. When I went to her blog today and saw that it had been shut down, my heart skipped a beat because I thought something terrible might have happened to her. But then I come here and find this! Thank you so much for exposing all of the lies.
Don’t feel bad. It isn’t that you’re naive, it’s just that these people are really good at what they do. Many people have been fooled.
What AmySue said, but also, it’s probably because you’re a good person. We don’t expect people to do this, we try to see the best in them and give them the benefit of the doubt.
I know this girl (Chelsea) and have for years. She is a compulsive liar and always has been. Her reputation in our hometown has proven that. I’ve always known she was a liar, but this is a new low…even for her, but unfortunantly, not surprising in the least. I’m so glad her lies have finally been exposed so everyone can recognize her for the fraud that she is.
I had the misfortune of meeting this demented girl a few years ago. She tried her best to destroy her ex-husband who is a good man. I have never met someone so sick and twisted in my whole life. I will never ever forgive her for all the lies she told people who just wanted to be her friend.
Taryn,
I have a question, and please don’t take it as bitchy because I just can’t word it any different, and I believe in being blunt and frank.
I noticed the faces and real names of Chelsea’s real-life contacts are blurred out. Did you do this after you talked to her? Was this a way you got her to talk to you (as in you stated, “I’m going to leave your mother’s real name and your brother in law’s real name and photo(s) on my site for all to see unless you talk to me and tell me the truth?” or some variant of that?)? Because that would be kind of shitty if you did…
Why I ask, is because if you were concerned with their privacy, why not blur the info before posting it? You’re intelligent enough to do that, I know.
All those names and pictures were already public before Taryns blog post. That’s how she got them in the first place. If she was using that identifying info to get her to talk, she would have un-blurred the pics and reposted the names after Cs recant, doncha think?
Looks to me like she blurred and removed after the request to leave the family alone. I think she would abide even if that was the only contact (the request to protect innocent family members) that the hoaxers make. Of course, I don’t personally know Taryn, so maybe it is a shitty and under handed technique. My opinion is formed by her handling of all the other hoaxers she’s blogged, and she “appears” to take her credibility pretty serious.
Hey, I just saw this comment. We don’t use that as a threat at all. If we expose someone and they ask us to remove certain things, usually we do. This can include blurring pictures, removing names, home towns, things like that. I don’t ever use the promise of that as a way to get someone to talk.
For what it’s worth, Chelsea has 1 sister and no brothers. She is the youngest of 2 and I have known her since 10th grade and her Mother, Brenda. since she was 13 years old. Sadly, the apple does not fall far from the tree.