A scammer impersonating American actor Brad Pitt and who “knew how to talk to women” managed to dupe a French woman out her life savings — more than $1.2 million — before she realized many months later it was all a ruse.
Anne, 53, told a popular French television network that she was extorted out of tens of thousands of euros for many months after believing she was in a romantic relationship with the Hollywood hunk.
“These people deserve hell,” the interior designer told TF1 program Sept à Huit (Seven to Eight), according to France’s BMFTV. “We have to find these crooks.”
The woman said her problems began when she signed up for an Instagram account and immediately shared photos of a ski trip in Tignes, a high-altitude ski resort in the French Alps, in February 2023. She wasn’t on social media before creating the Instagram profile.
She said she received a message from an account claiming to be Jane Etta Pitt, the actor’s mother. The next day, a profile pretending to be the actual movie star contacted the woman saying Pitt’s mom had spoken a lot about the victim.
“Actually, we’re talking about Brad Pitt, I’m flabbergasted,” the woman said, according to a translation of the TV interview.
“At first, I think it’s fake, but I don’t really understand what’s happening to me. Afterwards, we contacted each other every day and we become friends.”
The woman, who revealed that her marriage to a millionaire 19 years her senior was going through a rough patch, said she then began receiving poetry and other romantic correspondence.
RECOMMENDED VIDEO
“There are so few men who write you this kind of thing,” she said. “I liked the man I was talking to. He knew how to talk to women, it was always very well done.”
While avoiding calling the victim, Anne said she received a video message days later from the con artist clone asking her to marry him.
That’s when the victim began sending money to the scammer.
Anne was told that, to receive luxury Chanel or Hermes gifts supposedly bought by the Pitt fraudster, she would need to pay customs fees totalling 9,000 euros ($13,300). She paid but didn’t receive the gifts.
At this time, she decided to file for divorce and told the scammer she received 775,000 euros ($1.14 million) in compensation.
RECOMMENDED VIDEO
The online cheat wastes no time by telling Anne that he is battling kidney cancer and needs money as his bank account is tied up due to his divorce from wife Angelina Jolie.
“It hurts me to do it, but I tell myself that I might save a man’s life,” she told herself.
The scammer then sent her photos of Pitt — created by artificial intelligence — in which the actor is seen in hospital receiving treatment.
In one AI photo, the fake Pitt is seen holding up a note that says, “Anne I love you.”
It was a year and a half later that Anne finally realized it was a fraud after seeing photos in the media of the real actor out and about with his new girlfriend Ines de Ramon.
Anne filed a complaint in the summer of 2024 and the fraud is under investigation.
She is currently hospitalized in a clinic specializing in severe depression.
After the interview aired, an onslaught of negative comments flooded social media. The TV station decided to remove the story from their website to protect the victim.
“The report broadcast this Sunday sparked a wave of harassment against the witness,” TF1 presenter Harry Roselmack wrote on the program’s X account Tuesday. “For the protection of victims, we have decided to remove it from our platforms.”