Wednesday, January 22, 2025

January 15, 2025

French TV Show Pulled After Mocking Woman Who Got Scammed For R16 Million By AI Brad Pitt

For a year and a half, scammers used fake social media and WhatsApp accounts, as well as artificial intelligence image-creating technology to send her what appeared to be selfies and other messages, including poems and songs.

[Image: Goodfon AI]

A French woman who was duped into believing she was in a long-term love connection with an AI Brad Pitt was so mercilessly ridiculed during a French TV show that the programme was pulled off air.

The poor 53-year-old woman named Anne was dragged on a satirical sketch show on France’s biggest radio breakfast show after giving an interview about the case to the Seven to Eight programme on the TF1 channel on Sunday.

Anne, an interior designer, was scammed into paying €830,000 (R16 million) to ‘help Brad Pitt with medical treatment’.

Speaking about what she had believed to be an online relationship with Pitt lasting more than a year, Anne said she had thought they were in love. When she was told the actor needed financial help for cancer treatment because his accounts had been frozen during divorce proceedings with Angelina Jolie, she transferred the money.

It was only when the Hollywood star was pictured in the media this summer with his partner, Inés de Ramon, that she realised she had fallen for an elaborate scam, Anne said. “I ask myself why they chose me to do such harm like this.”

“I’ve never harmed anyone. These people deserve hell.”

The TV show went viral, sparking a flood of internet jokes and eventually prompting the broadcaster to remove the episode from its replay facilities on its websites on Tuesday.

TF1 said at the time of its broadcast that Anne had experienced mental health difficulties, had also had severe depression and had been hospitalised for treatment. The TF1 presenter Harry Roselmack wrote on social media on Tuesday: “For the protection of victims, we have decided to withdraw [the segment] from our platforms.”

Even the Toulouse Football Club got into the mockery by posting on X: “Brad told us that he would be at the stadium on Wednesday for the team’s next match.” The message was eventually removed and the team page posted an apology.

Even Netflix France took a swipe at the poor lady on social media, promoting “four films to see with Brad Pitt (really) for free”.

The scam began in February 2023, when Anne, who had been married to a wealthy entrepreneur, decided to open an Instagram account to share pics of her skiing holiday in the French Alps. It wasn’t soon after that she was contacted by someone posing as ‘Jane Pitt’, Brad’s mother. ‘Jane’ apparently convinced the lady that she would be a perfect fit for her famous son.

It wasn’t long before the fake Brad also connected with Anne, saying “I’d like to know more about you, but I’d like to know whether you work in the media as I’m protective of my private life.”

For the next year and a half, the scammers used fake social media and WhatsApp accounts, as well as artificial intelligence image-creating technology to send her what appeared to be selfies and other messages, including poems and songs and an apparent copy of Pitt’s passport.

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

After confiding in ‘Brad’ about her large divorce settlement, she received AI-generated pictures of the actor apparently in hospital, with requests to her to pay for his kidney treatment. She transferred hundreds of thousands of euros for supposed medical costs.

Needless to say, she never heard from Brad again, and realising she had been scammed, she went to the police. Embarrassment and ridicule followed.

[Source: Guardian]

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