‘Dumb’ girl scammed into giving pretend AI Brad Pitt £700,000 now homeless and penniless
A French woman who was scammed out of nearly £700,000 by a fraudster using AI to pose as Brad Pitt is now homeless and penniless after being hounded by online trolls
A woman has been left homeless and penniless after a savage con artist, masquerading as A-lister Brad Pitt, fooled her into shelling out a staggering £700,000.
The victim, a French woman known only as Anne, was lured in by the technology-savvy fraudster who used AI to create images of the Hollywood hunk.
After falling prey to the scam, the waves of vitriol Anne has faced online has been so fierce, it’s understood she has removed herself from all social media to escape the relentless bullying. She’s been insulted and called “dumb”, “naive”, and even “stupid” by ruthless trolls since her plight came to light.
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Anne was hoodwinked into thinking that she was helping Pitt pay for cancer treatment, and had become convinced she was communicating to Brad due to AI-generated images.
Anne said she was romanced by the scammer’s poems, which came at a time when her relationship with her millionaire husband was on the skids. Anne only realised something was fishy when she saw photos of the real Brad Pitt with his girlfriend, Ines de Ramon.
Her lawyer Laurene Hanna, said Anne is now desperate to recover the money and is in dire straights, having been left homeless and penniless. The Paris-based lawyers said: “Love scams on the internet are not new. Anne is really not the only one. What my client needs is to be given some sensible advice and to be treated with dignity,” reports the Mirror.
Ms Hanna is pursuing a civil case against the French bank that allowed Anne to transfer such staggering amounts of money to overseas accounts unchecked.
Anne, an interior designer, said the nightmare started after posting about a posh ski jaunt in Tignes on Instagram, which led to her being contacted by someone claiming to be Brad Pitt’s mother.
The next day, she got another message from someone pretending to be Brad Pitt, who said his mum had been praising her. Anne, who was riding out a rough patch in her marriage, said she formed an odd friendship with the account from 2023, which showered her with poems and kind affirmations.
“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,” she said, as reported byBFMTV.
She had initial doubts that the account was real, but after messaging every day and receiving AI-generate photos and videos of Brad Pitt, Anne let her guard down.
Mail Online reports that the bogus Brad love-bombed her, popping the question and promising to shower her with luxury gifts – if she paid the custom fees to receive them, which amounted to 9,000 euros (£7,566).
Once Anne showed she was willing to part with cash, the scammer ramped up the requests. When she told the scammer that she was expecting a considerable divorce settlement, the phoney asked her to fund his emergency cancer treatment.
