"It's terrible"

Brad Pitt reacts in shock to fake Pitt scam

"It's terrible that scammers abuse the close relationship between celebrities and their fans like this!" Via a spokesperson, Brad Pitt expressed his outrage that a French woman had been scammed out of around 830,000 euros. The woman, named Anne, had believed she was using her fortune to pay for a vital operation for the star.

According to French TV station TF1, the scammers contacted the woman on Instagram in 2023 and pretended to be Pitt's mother: "My son needs someone like you in his life!" The supposed mother then sent the French woman AI-generated fake photos of "my Brad" in hospital and revealed that he was suffering from a life-threatening kidney condition and absolutely needed an expensive operation.

Fraudsters very convincing
Anne herself was initially suspicious that they were trying to trick her. But the scammers turned out to be too convincing: "I hardly know anything about social media and didn't understand what was possible." When "Brad" contacted her directly, the 53-year-old was madly in love. Not only did she transfer 830,000 euros for the alleged treatment costs of her famous lover, she even divorced her husband: "I was in love with him because he knew how to talk to a woman."

Pitt doesn't use social media
Anne's fantasy bubble of a chat romance with Pitt only burst when he made his romance with Spanish woman Ines de Ramon public. The Frenchwoman then pressed charges against the cheater or cheaters and has been suffering from severe depression ever since. She told TF1: "I wonder why they chose me in particular to hurt me. I have never hurt anyone. These people deserve to go to hell."

She seems to share this attitude with the real Brad. In his statement to the TV show "Entertainment Tonight", he reminded us: "It's an important warning to all fans to never respond to online requests like this - especially if they come from actors who are not active on social media." Pitt does not use Instagram, Facebook, X, TikTok or any other internet platform.

Spanish fraud ring
It had already come to light in September that two other women had also sent more than 362,000 euros to the supposed Hollywood star. Behind the fake account was a five-member Spanish fraud ring that was busted by the police. The fake Pitt had contacted his victims via a Brad Pitt fan page and convinced the two women to invest in his alleged projects.