Scammer using AI to pose as a sick Brad Pitt duped wife of millionaire out of $1.3m

A woman who was duped into believing she was in a relationship with Brad Pitt ended up giving a scammer pretending to be the Hollywood star $1.38 million.

The hoaxer used fake, AI-generated images of Pitt in hospital to convince a 53-year-old French interior designer that the actor was receiving treatment for kidney cancer.

The victim, the wife of a millionaire, shelled out $1.3m, believing she was in a long-term romantic relationship with Pitt, 61.

In an interview on French television, the woman – identified only as Anne – said her ordeal began in February 2023 when she posted photos on Instagram of a skiing holiday at Tignes in the French Alps.

She was then contacted on social media by someone claiming to be Jane Pitt, the film star’s mother.

They began chatting, and “Mrs Pitt” said Anne would be a good match for her son.

This was followed by messages from someone claiming to be Pitt himself, who said his mother had told him all about her.

Anne spent 18 months in the “relationship”, exchanging messages every day on social media and WhatsApp.

She said she did have suspicions at first, but as the relationship appeared to blossom she became more at ease.

To draw her in, the scammer sent poems and fake photos, including an image of Pitt’s passport.

Anne said: “I was in love with the man I was chatting to. He knew how to speak to a woman.”

She told the French broadcaster BFM TV: “There are so few men who write you this kind of thing. I liked the man I was talking to. It was always very well done.”

Eventually, the bogus Pitt proposed to Anne and promised her fancy gifts – and then got her to pay customs fees of 9,000 euros (AUD$15,000) to receive them.

However, it was when she revealed that she was having a difficult time with her millionaire husband and was expecting a large divorce settlement that his demands really gathered pace.

Claiming he was desperate, he appealed for help in paying for urgent kidney cancer treatment, explaining he could not access his fortune thanks to his acrimonious divorce from Angelina Jolie.

His pleading was accompanied by doctored photos of Pitt, showing him in hospital beds and hooked up to a ventilator.

In one sign that things might not have been as they appeared, he refused to speak on the phone.

But Anne remained undeterred, and in the end she parted with nearly one million euros (AUD$1.6m) before she finally realised she was being deceived after reading in the press about the actor and his girlfriend, Ines de Ramon.

Police have begun an investigation, and she is now said to be in a clinic suffering from depression.

Reaction to her plight on social media was mixed.

Sarah Bee tweeted: “Romance scams are the cruellest.”

Another said: “Why you need to know what your old folks are up to before they give away your inheritance to Brad Pitt.”

Jay Kennedy replied: “It’s sad how lonely and lost older people get. To where they are so delusional and do this.”

Another asked why Anne didn’t appear to have checked online whether Pitt was really in hospital with cancer.

Others were far less sympathetic, and TF1 announced last night that it had withdrawn the interview from its online platforms after Anne faced a torrent of online mockery.

Toulouse Football Club tweeted: “Brad told us that he would be at the stadium on Wednesday.”

It later withdrew the message and apologised.

Netflix France told viewers it had “four films to see with Brad Pitt (really) for free”.

TF1 presenter Harry Roselmack tweeted: “The story has resulted in a wave of harassment. For the protection of victims, we have decided to withdraw it.”