A French woman was led to believe she was romantically involved with high-profile actor Brad Pitt, being scammed out of $850,000 along the way.
The 53-year-old interior designer, Anne, believed she was giving the money, 830,000 euros ($850,000), for the actor’s alleged cancer treatments.
It all started after Anne posted photos of herself while on a ski vacation and received a message from someone claiming to be the star’s mother.
The following day, she received yet another message from a social media profile that belonged to the actor himself, or that’s what she thought.
Speaking to the French media channel TF1, Anne revealed she didn’t question if the account really belonged to Brad Pitt because the man behind it appeared charming and “knew how to talk to women.”
“At first I said to myself that it was fake, that it’s ridiculous,” she explained on the channel’s Sunday broadcast. “But I’m not used to social media and I didn’t really understand what was happening to me.”
The person behind the scam used AI generated videos and images of the Once Upon A Time In Hollywood star, and even proposed to her.
He promised to treat her with lavish gifts.
At the time of the scam, which started back in 2023, Anne was married to a millionaire husband.
Initially, she sent the scammer around $9,000 so that they could cover the custom expenses for the gifts they had bought for Anne.
The rest of the money, over $800,000 that she had received through her divorce settlement, was sent after the scammer sent Anne altered images of Brad Pitt at the hospital, claiming they needed funds for a kidney surgery.
Anne revealed that the impersonator told her they couldn’t access their own money due to the divorce with actress Angelina Jolie.
Her suspicions about the account, that she had at the beginning, faded with the images she had been receiving. She didn’t get suspicious even when the scammer never contacted her through a phone or a video call.
Her daughter tried to warn her about the scammer many times, but she wouldn’t listen.
When the news about Pitt’s relationship with Ines de Ramon made headlines, Anne started doubting the person behind the account was a scammer, but even then, they sent her fabricated news stating the actor was in fact involved with a “mysterious person.”
She finally realized she was lied to, but at that point, she had already been financially drained.
This poor woman who has been scammed out of $850,000 was forced to sell her furniture and move in with a friend.
Unfortunately, she attempted suicide three times and has since been hospitalized with severe depression.
It remains uncertain if she would be able to recover any of the money.
Anne’s story gained widespread attention, and while some said it was all her fault, others sympathized with her.
“Romance scams are the cruellest. It’s funny until you realize, more often than not it’s a vulnerable person that just wanted to be loved,” a person wrote.
“They are so mean and it’s awful that people make fun of the people who fall for them. Exploiting someone’s desire to be loved is obscene,” another added.
“Honestly, if you fall for this thinking, Brad Pitt, of all people, is going to randomly DM you. You kinda deserve it,” someone wrote.
Since Anne’s story “has resulted in a wave of harassment against the witness,” as per TF1 journalist Harry Roselmack, the channel has decided to take it off from the platform.
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