Woman scammed £700,000 after believing she was dating Brad Pitt

A French woman has told how she thought she was dating Brad Pitt and parted with nearly £700,000 in what was an AI scam.

Anne, 53, parted with the cash after believing that the Hollywood star needed the money for cancer treatment.

She had reportedly become convinced that she was communicating with the real person due to AI-generated images.

It all began when Anne was contacted supposedly by the actor’s mom after she had shared on Instagram photos of her ski holiday to Tignes and the following day she was contacted by a fake Brad Pitt account.

The interior designer told French channel TF1 that the nightmare began in September 2023 when she received a message on Instagram from Jane Etta Pitt, the actor’s mother – or so they claimed.

Their chat quickly turned to Brad Pitt – and how the two would make a great romantic match.

Anne was told by the fraudster: ‘It is a woman like you that my son needs.’

Their chat quickly turned to Brad Pitt – and how the two would make a great romantic match.

Anne sent the con artist almost one million euros for the fake cancer treatment

Anne was told by the fraudster: ‘It is a woman like you that my son needs.’

The fraudster was never available for a phone call – a common tactic in many scams

It was the next day that another account contacted her: ‘Hello Anne, my mother told me a lot about you. I would like to know more.’

At first, she it may be a scam, but she soon fell in the fraudster’s tangled web of deceit.

Anne recalled being ‘flabbergasted’ that she was actually speaking with Brad Pitt, adding: ‘At first, I thought it was fake, but I could not understand what was happening to me.

‘After that, we would contact each other every day and we became friends.’

At the time, she was going through a rough patch in her personal life and her relationship with a millionaire entrepreneur, 19 years her senior, was in tatters, newspaper Sud Ouest reported.

Posing as Brad Pitt, the fraudster sent her poems and songs and AI photos to look like the actor.

‘He knew how to talk to women; it was always very well done,’ Anne said.

He started buying her luxurious bags but told her that she had to pay for customs. This is how Anne lost her first €9,000 (£7,580).

Eventually, the scammer – still impersonating the actor – claimed that he had kidney cancer and needed money for treatment.

He told Anne that his ex-wide Angelina Jolie had frozen his bank accounts and he had no access to his fortune.

Their chat quickly turned to Brad Pitt – and how the two would make a great romantic match.

Anne was told by the fraudster: ‘It is a woman like you that my son needs.’

The fraudster was never available for a phone call – a common tactic in many scams.

It was the next day that another account contacted her: ‘Hello Anne, my mother told me a lot about you. I would like to know more.’

At first, she it may be a scam, but she soon fell in the fraudster’s tangled web of deceit.

Anne recalled being ‘flabbergasted’ that she was actually speaking with Brad Pitt, adding: ‘At first, I thought it was fake, but I could not understand what was happening to me.

‘After that, we would contact each other every day and we became friends.’

At the time, she was going through a rough patch in her personal life and her relationship with a millionaire entrepreneur, 19 years her senior, was in tatters, newspaper Sud Ouest reported.

Anne became convinced that she was dating the actor over a period of almost a year.

Posing as Brad Pitt, the fraudster sent her poems and songs and AI photos to look like the actor.

“He knew how to talk to women; it was always very well done,” Anne said.

He started buying her luxurious bags but told her that she had to pay for customs. This is how Anne lost her first €9,000 (£7,580).

Eventually, the scammer – still impersonating the actor – claimed that he had kidney cancer and needed money for treatment.

He told Anne that his ex-wide Angelina Jolie had frozen his bank accounts and he had no access to his fortune.

Anne sent the con artist almost one million euros for the fake cancer treatment.

Fake photos of Brad Pitt in a hospital bed strapped to an IV machine soon followed and the victim was convinced.

She eventually transferred 830,000 euros (£697,000) to help with what she believed was cancer treatment for the film star.

It was only after Anne saw pictures of Brad Pitt with his new girlfriend, Ines de Ramon, in the newspapers that she began suspecting the scam.

The victim went to the French police with the story, who then launched an investigation in the summer of 2024.

Following the con, BFMTV reported that Anne is currently hospitalised in a clinic with severe depression.

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