Yahoo Lifestyle The Real Brad Pitt Has Reacted To The Viral Story About The Woman Who Claimed She Was Conned Out Of $855K By Scammers Pretending To Be Him
CONTENT WARNING: This post briefly discusses attempted suicide.
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On Sunday, Brad Pitt inadvertently found himself at the center of an overseas catfishing scandal when a woman claimed on a French news show that she was scammed out of €830,000 by someone posing as the movie star.
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If you’ve not seen the pictures online yet, scammers allegedly used AI-generated images and manipulation tactics to trick the 53-year-old woman — an interior designer who identified herself as Anne — into believing she was in a relationship with the actual Brad Pitt.
The ordeal apparently began in February 2023, when Anne — who was then married to a wealthy entrepreneur — received an Instagram message from someone pretending to be Brad's mom, Jane Etta Pitt. As the story goes, Brad’s fake mother told Anne that her son “needed a woman just like her,” and soon enough, she found herself in direct contact with the movie star — or so she thought.
“At first, I thought it was fake, but I didn’t really understand what was happening to me,” Anne recently recalled on the French TV show "Sept à huit," which is aired by broadcaster TF1.
Dimitrios Kambouris
As their online relationship developed, the scammers behind fake Brad convinced Anne that he needed money, alleging that his bank accounts were frozen due to his divorce proceedings with Angelina Jolie.
“Like a fool, I paid... Every time I doubted him, he managed to dissipate my doubts,” Anne recalled.
A french woman was scammed out of over $800K by someone pretending to be Brad Pitt
• Scammer DM'd her on Instagram and convinced her with AI-generated videos and edited images
• She divorced her husband thinking they would get together
• Scammer convinced her his bank… pic.twitter.com/VWD3RtvIO3— Culture Crave 🍿 (@CultureCrave) January 14, 2025
A french woman was scammed out of over $800K by someone pretending to be Brad Pitt
• Scammer DM'd her on Instagram and convinced her with AI-generated videos and edited images
• She divorced her husband thinking they would get together
• Scammer convinced her his bank… pic.twitter.com/VWD3RtvIO3
“I thought that meant he had taken those selfies just for me,” she said.
Gilbert Flores / Variety via Getty Images
So, feeling that she would be “saving a man’s life,” Anne obliged and sent the payments — which, over a year and a half, came out to about $855,000.
While all this was going on, Anne went through a divorce in which she received a settlement of €775,000. She wound up giving all this money to fake Brad and the scammers.
Annalisa Ranzoni / Getty Images
Amidst the ordeal, Anne’s now-22-year-old daughter had tried and failed to get her mom to “see reason.” However, things eventually came crumbling down in the summer of 2024 when Anne saw online that Brad (the real one) had debuted his (real) relationship with Ines de Ramon.
Despite the scammers' attempts to rectify the situation with an AI-generated news report about the actor’s “exclusive relationship” with Anne, she eventually decided to end things. She later contacted the police, and an investigation is currently underway.
It was revealed on "Sept à huit" that Anne — now left in financial ruin — has tried to end her life three times since the ordeal came to light. “Why was I chosen to be hurt this way?” she said on the show. “These people deserve hell. We need to find those scammers. I beg you — please help me find them.”
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Since the TV segment aired last week, Anne has been the subject of mockery online. And now, Brad Pitt (for real) has addressed the situation with a warning about online scams.
“It’s awful that scammers take advantage of fans’ strong connection with celebrities,” the actor’s spokesperson said in a statement provided to E! News on Jan. 15.
They added that the ordeal is “an important reminder to not respond to unsolicited online outreach, especially from actors who have no social media presence.” For context, Brad has no official social media accounts.
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TF1 has since withdrawn the segment from replays of "Sept à huit," and Anne has criticized the broadcaster for apparently misrepresenting her experience and attempting to “tarnish” her image.
“I had forty times, maybe even more, when I didn't believe it,” she said during an appearance on a popular French YouTube channel on Jan. 14. “I say each time, this photo is fake. [...] In the show, obviously, none of this is said.”
Further calling out "Sept à huit," she added: “The journalist spent two days interviewing me. And he only remembered what shouldn't have been remembered in fact, to tarnish my image. It's only for the purpose of gaining an audience… My whole life is a small room with some boxes. That's all I have left.”
