French woman faces online mockery after being conned out of £700,000 by fake Brad Pitt
A French woman has been mocked on social media after losing more than €830,000 (£700,000) to scammers posing as the Hollywood actor Brad Pitt.
The 53-year-old interior designer, known only as Anne, thought she was in a year-long romantic relationship with the Fight Club and Ocean’s Eleven star.
But after opening up about her ordeal to reporters, she suffered so much trolling that the French television channel TF1 had to pull her interview.
“The story broadcast this Sunday has resulted in a wave of harassment against the witness,” TF1 presenter Harry Roselmack wrote on X.
“For the protection of victims, we have decided to withdraw it from our platforms,” he added.
At the time of the broadcast, Anne was reported to have been suffering from severe depression.
Anne told TF1’s Seven to Eight show that, after starting to use Instagram for the first time, she was contacted by someone posing as Pitt’s mother.
“She told me that her son needed someone like me,” Anne explained. The scammers messaged her again several days afterwards, this time posing as Brad Pitt.
Anne said she began talking to the fake version of the actor sometime in February 2023 on different social media and messaging platforms, including WhatsApp.
Images from the TF1 programme have been widely shared online, showing a number of AI-generated images of Brad Pitt in hospital, designed to trick Anne in believing she was interacting with the 61-year-old actor.
Brad Pitt with partner Ines de Ramon at the Venice film festival. File pic: AP
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‘I really didn’t understand’
“At first I said to myself that it was fake, that it’s ridiculous,” Anne explained to TF1. “But I’m not used to social media and I didn’t really understand what was happening to me.”
Scammers began requesting money, telling Anne that Brad was in hospital with kidney cancer and needed money for treatment. He claimed his bank accounts were frozen during divorce proceedings with ex-wife Angelina Jolie.
She eventually agreed to transfer a large sum of money to a Turkish bank account after receiving an email from the fake star’s “doctor”.
Scammers ‘deserve hell’
Anne said she finally realised she had been scammed after she saw pictures of the real Brad Pitt with his current partner, Ines de Ramon.
“I ask myself why they chose me to do such harm like this?” she told TF1. “I’ve never harmed anyone. These people deserve hell.”
Police are investigating the scam, but the interview has triggered some social media posts making jokes at Anne’s expense.
French newspaper Sud Ouest reported that Anne was going through divorce proceedings with a millionaire entrepreneur at the time and needed hospital treatment for severe depression following the scam.
A spokesperson for Brad Pitt told Sky News: “It’s awful that scammers take advantage of fans’ strong connection with celebrities.”
They added it was “an important reminder to not respond to unsolicited online outreach, especially from actors who have no social media presence”.
Donald Trump has said he is considering “taking away” the US citizenship of actress and comedian Rosie O’Donnell, despite a Supreme Court ruling that expressly prohibits a government from doing so.
In a post on Truth Social on Saturday, the US president said: “Because of the fact that Rosie O’Donnell is not in the best interests of our Great Country, I am giving serious consideration to taking away her Citizenship.”
He also labelled O’Donnell, who has moved to Ireland, as a “threat to humanity” and said she should “remain in the wonderful country of Ireland, if they want her”.
O’Donnell responded on Instagram by posting a photograph of Mr Trump with Jeffrey Epstein.
“You are everything that is wrong with America and I’m everything you hate about what’s still right with it,” she wrote in the caption.
“I’m not yours to silence. I never was.”
Rosie O’Donnell moved to Ireland after Donald Trump secured a second term. Pic: AP
O’Donnell moved to Ireland with her 12-year-old son in January after Mr Trump had secured a second term.
She has said she’s in the process of obtaining Irish citizenship based on family lineage and that she would only return to the US “when it is safe for all citizens to have equal rights there in America”.
O’Donnell and the US president have criticised each other publicly for years, in an often-bitter back-and-forth that predates Mr Trump’s move into politics.
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This is just the latest threat by the president to revoke the citizenship of someone he has disagreed with, most recently his former ally Elon Musk.
But the two situations are different as while Musk was born in South Africa, O’Donnell was born in the US and has a constitutional right to American citizenship.
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Amanda Frost, a law professor at the University of Virginia School of Law, said the Supreme Court ruled in a 1967 case that the fourteenth amendment of the constitution prevents the government from taking away citizenship.
“The president has no authority to take away the citizenship of a native-born US citizen,” he added.
“In short, we are nation founded on the principle that the people choose the government; the government cannot choose the people.”
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