French woman duped by AI Brad Pitt faces mockery online
2025-01-15
Category: news

A French woman who was conned out of €830,000 (£700,000; $850,000) by scammers posing as actor Brad Pitt has faced a huge wave of mockery, leading French broadcaster TF1 to withdraw a programme about her. The primetime programme, which aired on Sunday, attracted national attention on interior designer Anne, 53, who thought she was in a relationship with Pitt for a year and a half.  She has since told a popular French YouTube show that she was not "crazy or a moron": "I just got played, I admit it, and that's why I came forward, because I am not the only one."A representative for Pitt told US outlet Entertainment Weekly that it was "awful that scammers take advantage of fans' strong connection with celebrities" and that people shouldn't respond to unsolicited online outreach "especially from actors who have no social media presence."
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Hundreds of social media users mocked Anne, who the programme said had lost her life's savings and tried to take her own life three times since the scam came to light. Netflix France put out a post on X advertising "four films with Brad Pitt (for real)", while, in a now-deleted post, Toulouse FC said: "Hi Anne, Brad told us he would be at the stadium on Wednesday... and you?"The club has since apologised for the post.On Tuesday, TF1 said it had pulled the segment on Anne after her testimony had sparked "a wave of harassment" - although the programme can still be found online. In the report, Anne said her ordeal began when she downloaded Instagram in February 2023, when she was still married to a wealthy entrepreneur. She was immediately contacted by someone who said they were Pitt's mother, Jane Etta, who told Anne her son "needed a woman just like her". Somebody purporting to be Pitt got in touch the next day, which set off alarm bells for Anne. "But as someone who isn't very used to social media, I didn't really know what was happening to me," she said. At one point, "Brad Pitt" said he tried to send her luxury gifts but that he was unable to pay customs on them as his bank accounts were frozen due to his divorce proceedings with actor Angelina Jolie, prompting Anne to transfer €9000 to the scammers. "Like a fool, I paid... Every time I doubted him, he managed to dissipate my doubts," she said. The requests for money ramped up when the fake Pitt told Anne he needed cash to pay for kidney cancer treatment, sending her multiple AI-generated photos of Brad Pitt in a hospital bed. "I looked those photos up on the internet but couldn't find them so I thought that meant he had taken those selfies just for me," she said. Meanwhile, Anne and her husband divorced, and she was awarded €775,000 - all of which went to the scammers."I told myself I was maybe saving a man's life," Anne said, who is in cancer remission herself.Anne's daughter, now 22, told TF1 she tried to "get her mother to see reason" for over a year but that her mother was too excited. "It hurt to see how naive she was being," she said.When images appeared in gossip magazines showing the real Brad Pitt with his new girlfriend Ines de Ramon, awakening suspicions in Anne, the scammers sent her an fake news report in which the AI-generated anchor talked about Pitt's "exclusive relationship with one special individual... who goes by the name of Anne."The video comforted Anne for a short time, but when the real Brad Pitt and Ines de Ramon made their relationship official in June 2024, Anne decided to end things. After scammers tried to get more money out of her under the guise of "Special FBI Agent John Smith," Anne contacted the police. An investigation is now under way. The TF1 programme said the events left Anne broke, and that she has tried to end her life three times. "Why was I chosen to be hurt this way?," a tearful Anne said. "These people deserve hell. We need to find those scammers, I beg you - please help me find them."But in the YouTube interview on Tuesday Anne hit back at TF1, saying it had left out details on her repeated doubts over whether she was talking to the real Brad Pitt, and added that anyone could've fallen for the scam if they were told "words that you never heard from your own husband."Anne said she was now living with a friend: "My whole life is a small room with some boxes. That's all I have left."While many online users overwhelmingly mocked Anne, several took her side. "I understand the comic effect but we're talking about a woman in her 50s who got conned by deepfakes and AI which your parents and grandparents would be incapable to spot," one popular post on X read.An op-ed in newspaper Libération said Anne was a "whistleblower": "Life today is paved with cybertraps... and AI progress will only worsen this scenario." 