A French woman who was defrauded of €830,000 (£700,000; $850,000) by fraudsters posing as actor Brad Pitt has faced a barrage of ridicule, prompting French television channel TF1 to pull a show about her.
Interior designer Anne (53), who thought she had been in a relationship with Pitt for a year and a half, drew attention in the central programme, which aired on Sunday.
Since then, she has told the popular French show on YouTube that she is not “crazy or a moron”: “They just played me, I admit, and that’s why I came forward, because I’m not the only one.”
A representative for Pitt told US publication Entertainment Weekly that it was “terrible that scammers are taking advantage of fans’ strong connection with celebrities” and that people should not respond to unsolicited online contact, “especially from actors who are not present on social media”.
Hundreds of social media users mocked Anne, who the program said had lost her life savings and tried to take her own life three times since the fraud came to light.
Netflix France published a post on X touting “four movies with Brad Pitt (for real)”, while in a now-deleted post Toulouse FC said: “Hi Anne, Brad told us he’ll be at the stadium on Wednesday. . . how about you? “
In the meantime, the club apologized for the publication.
On Tuesday, TF1 said it had pulled a segment on Anne after her testimony sparked a “wave of harassment” – although the program can still be found online.
Anne said in the report that her ordeal began when she took over Instagram in February 2023, while she was still married to a wealthy businessman.
She was immediately contacted by someone who said it was Pitt’s mother, Jane Etta, who told Anne that her son “needs a woman just like her.”
Someone purporting to be Pitt called the next day, which set off alarm bells for Anne. “But as someone who’s not really 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 couldn’t pay customs because his bank accounts were frozen due to the divorce case with actress Angelina Joliewhich is why Anne transferred 9,000 euros to fraudsters.
– I paid like a fool… Every time I doubted him, he managed to dispel my doubts – she said.
Demands for money increased 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 for those photos on the Internet but I couldn’t find them, so I thought it meant he took those selfies just for me,” she said.
In the meantime, Anne and her husband divorced, and she was awarded 775,000 euros – all of which went to fraudsters.
“I told myself that I might be saving someone’s life,” said Anne, who herself is in remission from cancer.
Anne’s daughter, now 22, told TF1 that she had been trying to “convince her mother sense” for more than a year, but that her mother was too excited. “It hurt me to see how naive she is,” she said.
When pictures of the real Brad Pitt with his new girlfriend Ines de Ramon surfaced in gossip magazines, raising suspicions about Anne, scammers sent her a fake news story in which the AI-generated host talked about Pitt’s “exclusive relationship with one special person. .. whose name is Anne.”
The video briefly comforted Anne, 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 “FBI Special Agent John Smith”, Anne contacted the police. The investigation is now underway.
The TF1 program said Anne was devastated by the event and tried to end her life three times.
“Why was I chosen to be hurt like this?” said a tearful Anne. “These people deserve hell. We have to find these crooks, I’m begging you – please help me find them.”
But in a YouTube interview on Tuesday, Anne hit back at TF1, saying details about her repeated doubts about whether she was talking to the real Brad Pitt had been left out, adding that anyone could fall for the scam if they were told “words you’ve never heard from her own husband.”
Anne said she now lives with a friend: “My whole life is a small room with some boxes. That’s all I have left.”
Although many online users overwhelmingly mocked Anne, a few took her side.
“I understand the comedic effect, but we’re talking about a woman in her 50s who’s been duped by deepfakes and artificial intelligence that your parents, grandparents wouldn’t be able to spot,” read one popular post on Xu.
An article in the newspaper Libération says that Anne is a “whistleblower”: “Today’s life is paved with cybernetic traps… and the advancement of artificial intelligence will only worsen this scenario.”
