A 53-year-old French woman was scammed out of $850,000 when she was convinced she was dating the actor Brad Pitt after being sent AI-generated images of the actor.
Newsweek has reached out to a representative for the French government via an online form for comment.
Why It Matters
AI scams are on the rise and many people could be vulnerable to them. According to the online marketing firm Authority Hacker, Americans lost over $108 million to scams that involved AI in the last year and 45 percent of AI fraud scams led to financial losses, with an average loss of $14,600.
This is not the first time the identity of Brad Pitt has been used in online scams. According to The Latin Times, five people were arrested in Spain for scamming two women into paying more than $330,000 in a scam related to the actor.
What To Know
According to French broadcast network BFM TV, this scam began in 2023 when the 53-year-old French woman, who went by the name Anne, received a message on Facebook from the scammer.
The scammer first posed as Pitt's mother. Later, she received a text from someone who claimed to be Pitt himself. This was when the "affair" began. Anne was married to a millionaire at the time of the scam.
According to BFM TV, the scammer asked Anne to marry him and she divorced her millionaire husband.
She reportedly first sent $9,000 to the scammer when they said they had bought gifts for her. They claimed they needed the money to send the gifts through customs, which the victim sent immediately.
Then the woman was scammed into sending more than $800,000, which she received through her divorce settlement. The scammer was asking for money to receive alleged cancer treatment, and sent AI-generated images and videos of Brad Pitt on a hospital bed to convince the woman he needed treatment.
A post on X, formerly Twitter, which included the AI-generated images of Pitt has gone viral, receiving over 7.2 million views at the time of reporting.
A woman in France was scammed out of €830,000 after believing she was in a relationship with Brad Pitt.
These are the photos she received, allegedly from Brad Pitt, that convinced her. pic.twitter.com/DHZklWbUDj
The woman only communicated with the scammer through text messages and said they were not available for phone calls.
According to reports, the scammer told the woman he could not use his own money due to his ongoing divorce proceedings with the actress Angelina Jolie.
Brad Pitt came to a divorce settlement with his ex-wife Angelina Jolie in December of 2024. Jolie first filed for divorce in 2016 and the terms of the settlement have not been made public.
Ultimately, the 53-year-old woman realized she had been scammed when she saw a picture of Brad Pitt with his current girlfriend, Ines de Ramon.
A complaint was filed in 2024 and the woman has since been under treatment for severe depression at a clinic.
What People Are Saying
Sentiment online was split. Some expressed sympathy for the victim, with one user writing, "This is so sad. Cruel actually," while another user wrote, "Romance scams are the cruelest."
But not everyone was sympathetic, with one user commenting, "Natural selection," and another writing, "There's better AI-generated images available for free."
What's Next
The police have not found the scammer at this time.
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