Brad Pitt has spoken out after AI images were used to con a woman out of £700,000 and lead her to divorce her husband.
The star released a statement after the scammer posing as him scammed the 53-year-old interior designer out of her life savings believing he was in love with her.
The star of films such as Oceans Eleven and Bullet Train said: “It’s awful that scammers take advantage of fans’ strong connection with celebrities,” before sharing his warning to others who may find themselves in another precarious situation with a purported celeb.
Earlier this week, it was reported that the woman, identified only as Anne, was conned out of £700,000 by a catfish posing as the 61-year-old Oscar-winning actor.
The alleged con artist made her believe that they were dating and proceeded to ask her for help paying for medical care, sharing AI generated photos of Pitt from a hospital bed.
For a year and a half, she was convinced that she was conversing daily with the American actor.
After the story and the fake images of the Once Upon a Time in Hollywood actor quickly went viral.
Pitt released a statement through his rep: “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’s rep shared in a statement.
Anne reportedly told French television station TF1, that it all went down after she was contacted by someone claiming to be Pitt’s mother, Jane Etta, who told her, “It’s a woman like you that my son needs.”
While Anne was sceptical at first, she kept in contact with the person before she was messaged by someone posing as Pitt.
“At first I said to myself that it was fake, that it’s ridiculous,” Anne told TF1. “But I’m not used to social media and I didn’t really understand what was happening to me.” N
Anne first sent nearly £8,500 to the scammer after they said they needed her to pay customs tariffs so she could receive gifts they claimed to have sent to her.
“There are so few men who write you this kind of thing,” Anne said. “I liked the man I was talking to. He knew how to talk to women, it was always very well done.”
Anne said her ordeal began when she downloaded Instagram in February 2023, when she was still married to a wealthy entrepreneur.
Anne and her husband divorced, and she was awarded £654,000 – all of which went to the scammers.
“I told myself I was maybe saving a man’s life,” Anne said, who is in cancer remission herself.
Anne’s daughter, now 22, told TF1 she tried to “get her mother to see reason” for over a year but that her mother was too excited. “It hurt to see how naive she was being,” she said.
Having reportedly told the scammer that she had recently divorced her husband, she proceeded to send a total of £700,000 to the fake Brad after they said they had developed kidney cancer and needed a loan because his bank accounts were frozen as a result of his divorce proceedings with Angelina Jolie.
The scammer reportedly sent Anne AI-generated images of Pitt’s face over men in hospital beds to strengthen their case.
“I ask myself why they chose me to do such harm like this?” Anne said during her appearance on the French TV show Sept à huit. “I’ve never harmed anyone. These people deserve hell.”
She has since told a popular French YouTube show that she was not “crazy or a moron”, adding, “I just got played, I admit it, and that’s why I came forward, because I am not the only one.”
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