French TV show pulled after mocking woman scammed by AI Brad Pitt
Anne, 53, faces wave of online mockery for believing she was in relationship with actor and paying scammer €830k.
A French woman who believed she was in a long-term romantic relationship with Brad Pitt and was scammed into paying €830,000 (£700,000) to help him with medical treatment faced such a wave of online mockery that a TV programme about her has been withdrawn.
The interior designer, named as Anne, 53, has been targeted on social media and even a satirical sketch on France’s biggest radio breakfast show after giving an interview about the case to the Seven to Eight programme on the TF1 channel on Sunday.
Speaking about what she had believed to be an online relationship with Pitt lasting more than a year, Anne said she had thought they were in love. When she was told the actor needed financial help for cancer treatment because his accounts had been frozen during divorce proceedings with Angelina Jolie, she transferred the money.
It was only when the Hollywood star was pictured in the media this summer with his partner, Inés de Ramon, that she realised she had fallen for an elaborate scam, Anne said.
“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.”
The TV programme went viral and resulted in a wave of online gags about credulity, causing the channel to withdraw the programme from its replay services on its websites on Tuesday.
TF1 said at the time of its broadcast that Anne had experienced mental health difficulties, had also had severe depression and been hospitalised for treatment. The TF1 presenter Harry Roselmack wrote on social media on Tuesday: “For the protection of victims, we have decided to withdraw [the segment] from our platforms.”
Among the social media accounts to have mocked Anne’s gullibility was Toulouse Football Club, which wrote on X: “Brad told us that he would be at the stadium on Wednesday,” for the team’s next match, before withdrawing the message and posting an apology.
Netflix France also posted on social media promoting “four films to see with Brad Pitt (really) for free”.
The scam dated back to February 2023, when Anne, who had been married to a wealthy entrepreneur, joined Instagram in order to share pictures of a skiing holiday in the French Alps.
On her return, she was contacted on the social network by someone posing as Jane Pitt, the actor’s mother, who began chatting to her and said she would be a good match for her son. Then another account got in touch claiming to be the actor himself. His mother had told him all about her, the person said. “I’d like to know more about you,” read one message to Anne. “But I’d like to know whether you work in the media as I’m protective of my private life.”
Anne, who said she did not have much understanding about social media, spent a year and a half communicating with the person she thought was Pitt. That person used fake social media and WhatsApp accounts, as well as artificial intelligence image-creating technology to send her what appeared to be selfies and other messages, including poems and songs and an apparent copy of Pitt’s passport. She said he was really interested in her work and they communicated every day. “I was in love with the man I was chatting to,” she said. “He knew how to speak to a woman.”
Among the things Anne discussed with the person claiming to be Pitt was her large divorce settlement payment. She then received AI-generated pictures of the actor apparently in hospital, with requests to her to pay for his kidney treatment. She transferred hundreds of thousands of euros for supposed medical costs.
The TF1 programme makers said Anne had filed a police complaint over the scam.
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