By New York Post (World News) | Created at 2025-01-15 00:05:07 | Updated at 2025-01-15 06:13:31
6 hours ago
This was a real “Inglourious Basterd.”
A romance scammer who pretended to be an ailing Brad Pitt suckered a French woman out of $850,000 by using AI-generated hospital selfies of the “Fight Club” hunk to tug at her heartstrings.
The victim — a 53-year-old interior designer named Anne — told the French TV show “Seven to Eight” on Sunday that someone pretending to be the actor’s mom, Jane Etta Pitt, got in touch with her first, the Daily Beast reported.
“She told me that her son needed someone like me,” she told France 24.
“We’re talking about Brad Pitt here, and I was stunned,” Anne said. “At first, I thought it was fake, but I didn’t really understand what was happening to me.”
The messages kept coming over the next 18 months, with Anne’s fake lover sending poems, declarations of love and eventually a marriage proposal, according to the Independent.
“There are few men who write to you like that,” she said. “I loved the man I was talking to. He knew how to talk to women and it was very well put together.”
At the time, Anne was divorcing her millionaire, entrepreneur husband — a man nearly two decades her senior.
Meanwhile, the scammer running the AI bot claimed he’d send her expensive purses, but noted she’d have to pay the customs fee.
That, of course, started at about $9,200, the Independent said.
The requests continued, and eventually the faux-Pitt told her he had kidney cancer and needed cash for hospital treatments since Pitt’s real-life ex, Angelina Jolie, had allegedly frozen his bank accounts.
Forged photos of Pitt in a hospital room and an email from a “doctor” followed, saying the “Mr. & Mrs. Smith” actor was on his deathbed.
So Anne sent boatloads of money — more than $850,000 — to a Turkish account, the outlet said.
Her daughter told her she was being conned. But Anne refused to believe it.
“You’ll see when he’s here in person, then you’ll say sorry,” the victim said.
She only realized she was being scammed over the summer, when Pitt was seen with current beau Inès de Ramon. It’s unclear if the scammer was ever caught.
She shared her story on the French station TF1, but the network later pulled the interview because she was being cyber-bullied, the Independent said.
She has also been hospitalized for severe depression, the Daily Beast said.
“I ask myself why they chose me to do such harm like this?” she said of the scammers. “I’ve never harmed anyone. These people deserve hell.”
