A French woman who revealed on television how she lost her life savings to scammers posing as Brad Pitt has faced a wave of abuse and ridicule online, forcing her to withdraw her interview on Tuesday.
The woman, named Anna, told the program “Seven to Eight” on the TF1 channel that she thought she was in a romantic relationship with the Hollywood star, which led her husband to split and transfer $850,000.
The scammers used fake social media and WhatsApp accounts, as well as AI image creation technology to send the selfies and messages from Pitt to Anne.
To cash out, they pretended the 61-year-old actor needed money to pay for kidney treatment, with his bank accounts apparently frozen due to divorce proceedings with his ex-wife Angelina Jolie.
Anne, a 53-year-old interior decorator with mental health problems, spent a year and a half believing she was dating Pitt and only realized she had been scammed when news of their real-life relationship emerged. Pitt had with his girlfriend Ines de Ramon.
“The story that aired this Sunday has led to a wave of outrage against the witness,” TF1 presenter Harry Roselmack write on his account X Tuesday. “For the protection of victims, we have decided to withdraw it from our platforms.”
The channel had said that Anne was suffering from severe depression at the time of her broadcast and that she received hospital treatment.
The interview, in which she was openly filmed and even shared family photos with reporters, went viral on Monday.
This prompted a lot of mocking comments and jokes, but some online critics accused TF1 of failing to protect a vulnerable person who may not have been aware of the public implications.
Toulouse Football Club tweeted that “Brad has told us he will be at the stadium on Wednesday” for the team's next game, before retracting the message and apologizing.
Netflix France too posted on social media promotion “four movies to watch with Brad Pitt (of course) for free.”
Romance scams has been a feature of the Internet since the advent of email, but experts say artificial intelligence has increased the risk of identity theft, hoaxes and online fraud.
“These people deserve hell”
Anne told TF1 that she was first contacted by someone posing as Pitt's mother shortly after she started using Instagram for the first time while on a skiing trip with her family in France.
“She told me her son needed someone like me,” Anne explained.
The scammers messaged her again several days later, this time posing as Pitt.
“At first I told myself it was fake, it's stupid,” Anne explained to TF1. “But I'm not used to social media and I didn't really understand what was happening to me.
“I ask myself why they chose me to do such harm?” she continued. “I have never harmed anyone. These people deserve hell.”
More than 64,000 Americans were taken for more than $1 billion in income romantic scams in 2023 — double the $500 million just four years earlier, according to the Federal Trade Commission.
In 2023, seniors were swindled out of about $3.4 billion in a range of financial crimes, according to the FBI. data. The recent group warning that AI has increased “credibility” or criminal scams because they “help create content and can correct for human errors that could be warning signs of fraud.” “
