Brad Pitt has criticized the person who scammed a 53-year-old French woman out of $850,000 while pretending to be the Oscar-winning actor.
Newsweek emailed a spokesperson for Pitt for comment on Thursday outside of normal business hours.
Why It Matters
As AI continues to improve, the number of con artists using it to scam victims is on the rise. 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 that Brad Pitt's identity has been used in online scams. Five people were arrested in Spain for scamming two women into paying more than $330,000 in a scheme related to the actor.
What To Know
A woman identifying herself as Anne appeared on the French news show Sept à huit to claim that she had been led to believe she was in a relationship with Pitt.
The scam began in 2023 when she received a message on Facebook from someone pretending to be Pitt's mother. Later, she received a text from someone who claimed to be the actor himself, and even though Anne was married at the time, she began an "affair" with the scammer.
Anne eventually fell in love after she was sent love poems, explaining: "There are so few men who write you this kind of thing. I liked the man I was talking to. He knew how to talk to women, it was always very well done."
BFM TV reported that Anne initially sent $9,000 to the scammer when they claimed they had purchased gifts for her that needed to clear customs.
Anne later divorced her husband after the scammer proposed. When she eventually received a sizable sum of money through her divorce settlement, the con artist claimed they needed a loan for alleged cancer treatments. To persuade her, they sent doctored images of Pitt in the hospital.
A post on X (formerly Twitter) including AI-generated images of Pitt has gone viral, receiving 24 million views at the time of reporting.
The scammer pretending to be Pitt told Anne that because of his divorce from Angelina Jolie, he was unable to access his bank accounts. Pitt came to a divorce settlement with Jolie in December of 2024.
The French woman claims to have sent approximately $850,000 to the scammer. She realized she had been scammed when she saw a picture of Pitt with his current girlfriend, Ines de Ramon.
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
What People Are Saying
A spokesperson for Pitt addressed the situation in a statement to E!: "It's awful that scammers take advantage of fans' strong connection with celebrities. But this is an important reminder to not respond to unsolicited online outreach, especially from actors who have no social media presence."
Pitt does not have any verified accounts on Instagram, TikTok or X.
Anne told Sept à huit: "I'm not used to social media, and I didn't really understand what was happening to me."
People have been divided over the story, with some people sharing sympathy for Anne. One person wrote on X: "Romance scams are the cruellest."
"Some poor lady got scammed. Why do people think it's funny," someone else said.
However, others have questioned how she was so easily fooled.
"Old people should have their internet usage monitored. Coz how do you get scammed this easily?" one person asked, with another adding: "the wrong people have too much money these days."
What's Next
A complaint was filed in 2024 and the woman has since been under treatment for severe depression at a clinic. At the time of writing, police are still searching for the scammer.
English (US) ·