Whatever happened to Pete Evans.

Note: Mamamia does not endorse or promote any of Pete Evans' health opinions. If you have any health concerns, please visit your doctor.

"Some people would like me to disappear, no doubt. And I'll just make this one statement: If I disappear, or I have a frickin' weird accident, it wasn't an accident, OK?" 

So said chef, cookbook author and TV host Pete Evans in June 2020 when he sat down with 60 Minutes journalist Liz Hayes to discuss his views on COVID-19.

At that time, much of the world was in lockdown or in the beginning stages of lockdown, and a vaccine was still six months away. There were more questions than answers. Evans had a few of his own. He questioned whether people should take the vaccine, even though he denied being anti-vaxx. He questioned if 5G technology had a part to play in creating COVID. He questioned why Bill Gates wanted everyone to be vaccinated against the virus and if there was possibly a more sinister motive behind the billionaire magnate's stance.

It was his questioning of the "mainstream" that led Evans to believe he could be in some sort of physical danger. That he could be made to somehow disappear.

"That's probably the most conspiratorial thing I will say," he said, staring piercingly down the barrel of the camera. "There's been too many coincidences out there in the world for people that have questioned certain things."

While Evans was clearly alluding to a higher power having him removed, the irony is that only a few months after the 60 Minutes interview, he would, in fact, disappear.

Only it wasn't the government, or Bill Gates, or shadowy figures in the night who whisked him away.

It was Evans himself who ultimately brought about his own disappearance.

After sharing an abundance of misinformation about COVID on his social media platforms, his prolific Facebook page was shut down in January last year. He lost 1.5 million followers in an instant. A month after that, his Instagram account - with 300,000 followers - was closed for the same reason, and Evans was permanently banned from the platform. [While he has fan accounts on Twitter, it appears Evans himself does not hold an account there.]

Like Donald Trump, he was out of sight and therefore out of mind.

But... has Evans really disappeared?

Where is Pete Evans now?

Perhaps the more pertinent question is: Where is Pete Evans's mind now? What does he believe? Is he still talking about 5G and Bill Gates and vaccines and paleo?

Well, the answer is yes, yes, yes, and yes.

While Evans is no longer on mainstream social media, he has found another outlet for his controversial thoughts and opinions. He is now on Telegram, a multi-platform messaging service that operates as a hybrid between a messaging app and a social network, and boasts 55K subscribers. That might not sound like many followers if you compare the number to his (lost) 1.5 million followers on Facebook, but his Telegram subscribers are more loyal listeners of his message, due to the very nature of the network and as evidence by the number of "thumbs up" he receives for his posts.

Evans created his Telegram channel in August 2020, and started posting in earnest in early 2021. He appears to have stopped in May of 2021 and started up again in October of this year - although it may be that his posts simply disappeared, which is a feature of Telegram. 

Most of Evans's content on the app are re-posts from other accounts and they range in subject from COVID to US President Joe Biden to the state of the world to, weirdly, an obsession with bitcoin, which he claims is the purest form of cryptocurrency. Although his Telegram is peppered with images of food and promotion of his wellness retreat, Evans has clearly drifted deeper into the rabbit hole of "alternative thinking".

One of his forwarded posts is by a woman named Laura Matsue who states: 'I don't "trust the science." I actually trust the light within my own heart and soul and it's [sic] connection to the Divine way more, and that is why I am now considered to be a dangerous extremist.' 

He also forwarded a post by Dr. Simone Gold, an anti-vax doctor who participated in the Capitol Riots and is apparently being sued by the conservative group she founded, American's Frontline Doctors. Gold's post states: 'Pfizer and Moderna are launching clinical trials to track vaccine-caused myocarditis in teens/young adults. We were censored for exposing the dangers of these experimental biological agents. Now, even the creators of the "vaccines" are forced to recognise the truth.'

Evans also reposted a video by renowned international conspiracy theorist, David 'Avocado' Wolfe, which links President Joe Biden with the war in Ukraine, cryptocurrency, and pedophiles. Another post is about how the "primary source of misinformation is the US federal government". 

You get the drift. Clearly, the disgraced chef just does not care what anyone else thinks. And why should he? He has "disappeared". Except he hasn't. He is still up to his same old tricks, spreading misinformation and conspiracy theories on vaccines, COVID, health in general, the US government, and cryptocurrency - but this time, he is preaching to the converted. He is in an echo chamber of his own making.

"I think [conspiracy theory] is incredibly powerful, once people are going down the rabbit hole," Jolanda Jetten, a psychology professor at University of Queensland, tells Mamamia. "It's maybe not so much about what Pete lost but why he is actually doing this or what motivates him to embrace these conspiracy theories. We know this is often when people feel like they no longer understand the world and they need a narrative to help them understand that. For some of them, conspiracy theories are quite logical, coherent, and complete explanations of why the things that happen to us happen.

"We see it especially when there are things like COVID, where the whole nation is caught up in it. He was probably not the only one - there were many, many Australians who fell for these conspiracy theories at a time when they really needed to have some sort of certainty... As I said before, by being rejected, by being ridiculed, it may make people even more likely to believe they are seeing something that others don't.

"There's an idea that others will come to their senses too. So there is a bit of a hero complex. The more you start to embrace this, the more you start to become alienated from the mainstream. Unfortunately, that's a path where there's no return from."

Together with his wife Nicola Robinson, Evans lives on a 72-hectare property in Byrrill Creek, located a few hours from popular Byron Bay in New South Wales. The couple run a wellness retreat called Evolve Sanctuary from their home.

According to its website, the sanctuary is a "contemporary oasis that provides a nurturing, holistic setting for the mind, body and spirit to elevate and unwind. Our relaxing and rejuvenating weekend retreats aim to empower you with knowledge for long-term sustainable health, with wonderful practitioners from many wellness fields as well as nourishing meals."

The cost for a two-night stay in one of the homesteads on their property is between $1500 to $2000, and you can experience a range of activities: float tanks, red light treatments, ice baths, a clearlight infrared sauna, equine facilitated learning, breathwork, yoga and "nourishing food". Expect lots of activated almonds.

Despite the hefty price tag for a two-night stay, the sanctuary is seemingly doing very well. The dates for the wellness retreats have sold out for this year, and some dates have already sold out for 2023.

In addition to Evolve Sanctuary, Evans has created subscription-based Evolve Network TV. For $10 a month, you get access to meal plans and recipes, documentaries, guided meditation, podcasts, vodcasts (with sometimes controversial guests like conspiracy theorists and "pseudo-science peddlers" Dr Ryan Core and Dr Russell Blaylock), and videos featuring Evans doing breathwork or undergoing Ketamine-assisted psychotherapy.

In a recent vodcast with Amy Kelly, the COO of DailyClout, an organisation that puts bills and policies in layman's terms and whose founder, Dr Naomi Wolf, was banned from Twitter from vaccine misinformation, Evans spoke about his interaction with a man who had been vaccinated.

"I picked up a hitch-hiker last year or the start of this year I think it was, and usually people around this area... I live in the bush, in the forest, and most people out here are pretty well unvaccinated - and I picked up this hitch-hiker and he looked a bit distressed and I was with him in the car for around 20 minutes and by about the 15 minutes mark, he goes, thanks for standing up and using your voice to tell people about the vaccines, and I said, yeah sweet, not a problem, mate, and he goes, I just had my second one. And I went, really?" Evans told Kelly.

"And that night, I got sick. I had the sweats, I had the fever, and I hadn't been sick in over a decade or more.I was like, is this just a coincidence? Did I make myself sick because he told me he just had the vaccine, or did something *motions between himself and where the hitch-hiker would be*... because we were in a close vicinity in my car for 20 minutes, talking... Did I become a hypochondriac and think, oh f**k... I don't know. I don't know."

Evolve Network TV is also Evans' gateway back to mainstream social media - it has an Instagram and Facebook page and Evans is very active on both.

One of the most interactive features of Evolve Network TV is the live chats that Evans has with his subscribers. In these frequent chats, which mostly run for an hour, he is raw and unfiltered - it's just him, a mic, and his captivated audience. He is at ease, smiling that wide, open smile of his that so enchanted viewers when he co-hosted My Kitchen Rules (MKR). The live chats cover several topics; he talks about what he's thinking, what his day has been like, any projects he's working on, and provides any updates on the sanctuary. He spends the bulk of the chat answering questions from his viewers. These questions are often, but not always, health-related.

In one of his most recent live chats (dated November 13, 2022), he was asked whether the paleo diet combats parasites in the body. "From my understanding, and this is just my perception, a paleo, ketogenic, non-inflammatory diet, generally seems to be one of the best ways to deal with having parasites," he advised.

Later in the same live chat, he spoke about the accountability people have for their own health, especially in regards to sunscreen. "With anything, anything that we drink, eat, put onto our bodies, rub into our hair, our scalp, whatever it may be, it is up to us to understand what that is. And the best way you can do that is to look at the ingredients; if you don't know what they are, chances are they're not that good for you," he said.

"Our skin is our largest organ. We absorb through it. It goes into us. We're not impervious. It goes in! So all these toxic sunscreens that people put on... especially when f**king people put it on their kids... like, you're rubbing f**king cancer-causing ingredients into your children's skin. It's that simple."

The rise and fall of Pete Evans.

To understand the monumental fall of Pete Evans, you have to first understand the stratospheric rise. 

Starting out as a chef, Evans and his brother Dave, together with friend David Corsi, opened restaurant Hugos Bondi in 1996 after moving to Sydney from Melbourne. The restaurant was a tremendous success, with Hugos Lounge, Hugos Bar Pizza and Hugos Manly all coming hot on its heels. Cookbooks and small TV spots naturally followed.

Then came My Kitchen Rules (MKR). In 2010, the Seven Network created the tentpole reality TV cooking show, co-hosted by Evans and fellow chef Manu Feildel. The popularity of the series, coupled with Evans' easygoing manner and handsome face, made him a household name.

For a time, all was good in Pete Evans' world. Great even.

Listen to today's The Quicky's episode on Pete Evans. Story continues below.

1. Activated Almonds.

The first hint of trouble came in 2012, with an innocuous article in The Sunday Age's and The Sunday Life's weekly column My Day on a Plate, which, as the title suggests, is a list of everything a particular person eats in a day. Evans' day on a plate started with "two glasses of alkalized water with apple cider vinegar then a smoothie of blended alkalized water organic spirulina, activated almonds, maca, blueberries, stevia, coconut, kefir, and two organic free-range eggs" and ended with "a homemade coconut carob blueberry goji and stevia muffin".

The clipping of Pete Evans' My Day On A Plate (from Sunday Life in the Sun-Herald) #activatedalmonds pic.twitter.com/qLvwRnOP

— The Sydney Morning Herald (@smh) November 5, 2012

The chef was roasted on both traditional and social media for his exceptionally healthy day on a plate, and "activated almonds" quickly became part of the vernacular. Everyone had a good laugh.

The next year, Evans started spruiking the paleo diet and the laughter faded a little.

2. The Paleo Way.

Known as the "caveman" or "hunter-gatherer" diet, paleo is an eating plan based on the Paleolithic Era (2.5 million to 10,000 years ago) and the foods eaten in that time. According to the Mayo Clinic, a modern paleo diet includes fruits, vegetables, lean meats, fish, eggs, nuts, and seeds. It does not include grains, legumes, dairy, refined and added sugar, starchy vegetables, and processed foods.

Like many diets, the paleo diet has its detractors. For one thing, not everyone in the Paleolithic Era ate the same thing - different environments likely constituted different diets. Also, many early humans actually died young. And for those who didn't, many of their bodies show a build-up of fatty deposits in their arteries. The diet is also high in saturated fat, is very restrictive, and can lead to nutrient deficiencies.

Controversially, the origins of the paleo diet can be traced back to 1975, with the publication of Dr Walter Voegtlin’s book The Stone Age Diet. Voegtlin is a divisive figure, who often sprouted white supremacist and eugenicist politics.

In 2014, Evans launched (now-defunct) The Paleo Way, a 10-week, $99 health and wellness program that provided tips on how to maintain the Paleo diet as well as recipes. In October that year, he posted a 2000 word comment on Facebook about why the modern Australian diet was to blame for the rise in autism in children, and claimed that the paleo diet could help "reduce" autism.

"Why is Australia fast becoming the most obese and unhealthy nations on Earth? Is this because we're a nation of self-obsessed, weak-minded people with no self-control? No. Is it because we are a nation that for far too long has been told to steer clear of foods naturally high in fat, which naturally trigger our fullness hormone and instead told to eat six to eight servings of processed carbohydrate a day and wonder why we are still hungry after eating three cups of rice or six slices of bread?" he wrote.

"Why has our rate of autism jumped from 1 in 10000 children in 1974, to 1 in 50 in 2014, where do you think it will be in another 40 years if it is escalating at this rate? This has grown rapidly since the guidelines have been in place!"

Numerous autism experts and health organisations, including the Australian Medical Association (AMA), denounced these claims.

By now, no one was laughing anymore. The crown on "Paleo Pete's" head had begun to wobble in earnest.

Watch: 60 Minutes trailer featuring Pete Evans. Story continues below.

3. Bubba Yum Yum.

The next year, in 2015, Evans announced his new cookbook, titled Bubba Yum Yum The Paleo Way: For new Mums Babies and Toddlers. The book recommended replacing both breast milk and formula with bone broth.

Once again, in what would become routine, peak health bodies and organisations denounced Evans' claims. The Dietitians Association of Australia (DAA) was especially critical, and reported that babies would actually be placed in serious danger if parents followed the advice in the cookbook. Spooked, publisher Pan Macmillan pulled out of the deal. Evans and his co-writers, blogger Charlotte Carr, and naturopath and nutritionist Helen Padarin, reworked some recipes and self-published the book online.

While the outrage against Evans grew, so did his social media following. He had two million followers on Facebook - his strongest platform by far. In an "Ask Me Anything" session, a follower asked for his advice following an osteoporosis diagnosis. Evans told the woman she should avoid dairy and adopt a paleo diet because "calcium from dairy can remove the calcium from your bones."

4. Magic Pill documentary.

In 2017, he produced and narrated the documentary Magic Pill, a film that followed a group of people with various ailments like autism, asthma and cancer. The documentary advocated for the "Paleo way", a high-fat, low-carb diet, to effectively act as a magic pill. Gwyneth Paltrow's Goop website did a Q&A with Evans to promote the film. Netflix picked up the documentary, and despite calls for it to be removed, Magic Pill remained available on the streaming giant's schedule until 2020.

Evans then turned his attention to fluoride, saying that he had been drinking fluoride-free water for 30 years. He quoted a Canadian study which appeared to show that pregnant women who drank fluoride ran the risk of their babies having a lower IQ. "This has been known for ages, and this is just the tip of that iceberg," he told News Corp. "Fluoride is a known neurotoxin and it should not be put in our water supply."

This is despite fluoride being found naturally in all bodies of water, and numerous studies showing it helps to rebuild and strengthen the tooth's enamel. In December 2018, he recommended that people "stare into the sun" for health. 

Again, there was blowback, and again, it ultimately blew over. MKR was still dominating the ratings, and in a world where there is a lot of talking, nothing talks louder than money.

5. BioCharger and COVID.

That all changed in 2020. In January that year, Evans posted a photo of himself with prominent anti-vaxxer Robert F Kennedy, Jr, promoting an anti-vaccine organisation called Children's Health Defense. Then, during a Facebook Live session in April, he promoted a product called BioCharger, which claimed to optimise and improve potential health, wellness and athletic performance, and retailed at $15,000. 

"It's programmed with a thousand different recipes and there's a couple in there for the Wuhan coronavirus," Evans said.

The Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) subsequently fined him $25,000 for misleading information. [In total, his fines equated to $80,000 after the TGA launched an investigation into other claims Evans had made.]

6. No more My Kitchen Rules (MKR).

By May 2020, MKR was 11 seasons in, and fatigue had set in for viewers. The Seven Network decided it was the right time to slice and dice MKR (pun intended), ending the show and letting Evans go from his contract. While some speculated his departure was due to his controversial views, it was far more likely that his leaving came down to cost-cutting measures. Money talks, remember.

Once MKR was gone from his remit, Evans had no reason to hold back. He no longer had anyone of authority to answer to. He wore Make America Great Again (MAGA) caps and was pro-Trump. He appeared on podcasts and on 60 Minutes to talk about his controversial views on COVID and vaccines. He gave his very powerful social media platforms over to conspiracy theorists and anti-vaxxers.

The clever thing about all these "alternative views" that Evans gave credence to is that he never actually endorsed any of them. His opinion was always in the realm of, 'Here are different views. What do you think?'

For instance, when posting about conspiracy theorist David Icke on Instagram, he captioned it with, "Here is an alternative view. I would be keen to hear your thoughts on this video as to whether there's any validity in this man's message, especially as there seems to be a lot of conflicting messages coming out of the mainstream these days. What is the truth? I personally love the last 30 minutes talking about heart frequency and love. Icke has denied being antisemitic and a Holocaust denier."

In November 2020, he spoke about getting help for the "vulnerable" people likely to catch the virus - by changing their diet, doing meditation, and looking at self-love.

"You can't go outside today because somebody else might die. These are big, big, big questions and I don't have the answers, but I'm putting out the question out there. Let's just take this virus as an example, we know that it affects 0.00 part of the population that already have these issues. So, should we look after these people? Should we improve their immune system? Should we look at feeding them a wonderful diet? Should we look at doing meditation for these people? Should we look at what self-love means for these people in the nursing homes? How do we encourage self-growth, self-love, self-empowerment? How do we change their immune system? Because we can," he said.

"Imagine if the government came together with the leading health professionals and said, 'Okay, let's target this. Let's help these vulnerable people.' Everybody else - continue on the way that you're living. But let's put the funds and the resources into wonderful anti-inflammatory diet. Let's make sure that there's no Wi-Fi in the vicinity of these people, because we know EMFs can have a problematic effect of the immune system. What about if we put these people into the sun for a certain period of time, so we can increase the vitamin D?"

That same month, he posted what seemed, at first glance, like an innocuous meme to his social media.

Except, of course, it wasn't innocuous at all.

7. Neo-nazi symbolism.

The meme Evans posted. Image: Instagram.

In the meme, a caterpillar wears a MAGA cap and is talking to a butterfly with a Black Sun symbol on its wings. The symbol, also sometimes referred to as a sonnenrad or sunwheel, is one of a number of ancient European symbols appropriated by the Nazi fascist regime and has been appropriated by the far right movement.

In the comment section of the post, someone wrote, "The symbol on the butterfly is a representation of the Black Sun." Evans replied with, "I was waiting for someone to see that."

Within 24 hours of the meme being posted, the disgraced chef was dropped by numerous organisations, including Woolworths, Coles, Big W, Dymocks, Pan Macmillan, Kmart, Target, Baccarat, and Network 10, which had included Evans in its cast for I'm A Celebrity... Get Me Outta Here! 

"Just when you thought 2020 couldn't get any more bizarre, the mainstream media have just come out and labelled me a racist and neo-Nazi," he said in a video on his social media. "The fact that I had to actually Google what neo-Nazi meant is pretty telling. I just want to tell you this once and one time only. It is completely untrue, unfactual and a load of garbage."

A few months later, in January 2021, Evans' prolific Facebook page was shut down. A month later, so too was his Instagram account.

Much like Kanye "Ye" West, whose trajectory is eerily similar, Evans reached a point of no return. But was that actually a good thing?

"I can see why people might want to ban him, but I think it might backfire because what it might actually do is confirm everything that he is talking about - that there are powerful forces at work who are trying to silence him," Professor Jetten says.

"So in a way it confirms his hypothesis, his conspiracy, and this may make him more keen to go out there and to tell people what has happened to him. I think it could lead to polarisation and radicalisation, and that is ultimately not what you want."

Judging by Evans' current activities away from the mainstream, the professor is likely right on the money. And don't expect conspiracy theories to go away either.

"If you look historically, there were periods where conspiracy theories were at least, if not more so, prevalent, and that was even in the absence of social media. For instance, in the 1950s, in the height of the Cold War in the US, there were a lot of conspiracy theories. Everyone was accused of being a communist," Professor Jetten says.

"It happened during a period of unrest, when people felt like things were out of control. And of course that's the context we are experiencing right now. Especially under the Trump years where you have a President who is actively putting conspiracy theories out there and is talking about how everyone is trying to get him... It's something that is as old as we are and it's something we will see more of in the decades to come."

One thing is for sure - the Pete Evans who started out as a humble chef of Hugos Bondi in 1996 is markedly different to the Pete Evans of today. We all change over time of course, or, to use one of Evans' favourite words, we all "evolve", but not all of us were once household names on the biggest show on Australian television.

For now, Evans has disappeared. Kind of. He may not be visible to us, but for the people who worship him, he looms as large as ever. 

Mamamia has reached out to Pete Evans for comment.

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