A consultant for Brad Pitt is warning followers a couple of current rip-off involving the actor’s likeness that price a 53-year-old French girl every part.
The sufferer, recognized solely as Anne, stated she was contacted on social media in 2023 with pictures that appeared to indicate Pitt hospitalized in grave situation. She finally wired the scammer $850,000 underneath the misunderstanding that she was paying for the actor’s kidney therapy.
Pitt’s camp addressed the matter Tuesday in an announcement to Entertainment Weekly, days after actor Johnny Depp warned about scams focusing on his followers final week.
“It is awful that scammers take advantage of fans’ strong connection with celebrities,” a spokesperson for Pitt informed ET, “but this is an important reminder to not respond to unsolicited online outreach, especially from actors who have no social media presence.”
Anne defined on Sunday’s “Seven to Eight” information broadcast on French channel TF1 that somebody claiming to be Pitt’s mom had contacted her on Instagram.
“She told me that her son needed someone like me,” she stated Sunday, per France 24.
An account impersonating Pitt himself then contacted Anne, who reportedly spent the following yr and a half believing she’d struck up a romantic relationship with the actor and that his financial institution accounts had been frozen amid his then-ongoing divorce with Angelina Jolie.
“At first I said to myself that it was fake, that it’s ridiculous,” Anne informed TF1, France 24 reported. “But I’m not used to social media, and I didn’t really understand what was happening to me.”
Vianney Le Caer/Invision/Related Press
Anne not solely believed the pictures of Pitt had been actual and despatched the scammer her fortune, but additionally divorced her husband — admitting on “Seven to Eight” that she “was in love with the man” she was chatting with as a result of he “knew how to speak to a woman.”
She stated she solely understood she’d fallen for a rip-off after Pitt’s precise romance with Ines de Ramon hit the information. She’s reportedly since filed a police report, though the swindler stays unidentified. The channel additionally reported that Anne had suffered extreme despair.
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“I ask myself why they chose me to do such harm like this?” she informed TF1. “I’ve never harmed anyone. These people deserve hell.”
Since her interview aired, Anne has been being broadly mocked for her mistake. Netflix France jokingly promoted “4 films to see with Brad Pitt (promise)” and the Toulouse Soccer Membership wrote, “Brad told us he’ll be at the stadium Wednesday” — earlier than apologetically deleting the submit.
TF1 finally pulled the “Seven to Eight” episode from circulation after the cyberbullying got here to gentle.
