A French woman lost over $800,000 to scammers pretending to be Brad Pitt. They convinced her that she was dating him and that he needed help paying for medical care.
According to reports from the U.K. paper The Times and French news outlets AFP and BFM TV, the woman, named Anne, shared her story with French television channel TF1... Continue reading here ▶
However, the interview was later removed from the website after it received a lot of online mockery.
Anne said that she was first contacted online by someone claiming to be Pitt’s mother, who told her, “It’s a woman like you that my son needs.” Even though she was skeptical, Anne continued communicating with the person, who later posed as Brad Pitt himself.
Anne admitted to TF1, “At first, I thought it was fake, that it was ridiculous. But I’m not familiar with social media and I didn’t fully understand what was happening.”
The scam started when the fake account told Anne that she needed to pay customs fees to receive gifts from Pitt. She sent nearly €10,000 (around $10,500) for this reason.
Anne said, “There are so few men who write you these kinds of things. I liked the man I was talking to. He knew how to talk to women, it was always very well done.”
After telling the scammer she had recently divorced, Anne sent almost her entire €775,000 ($798,000) divorce settlement when the fake Pitt claimed he had kidney cancer and needed money because his bank accounts were frozen due to his divorce from Angelina Jolie.
The scammers sent Anne AI-generated images of Pitt’s face over pictures of men in hospital beds. When Anne saw news reports about Pitt dating Ines De Ramon, the scammers sent her messages denying the relationship. Eventually, Anne realized she had been scammed after reading more about Pitt and De Ramon.
Anne has now filed a lawsuit, and the police have opened an investigation. TF1 removed the interview to protect her from the online harassment she received.
