French TV series pulled after woman falls in love with Brad Pitt
Anne, 53, faces online ridicule for believing she was in a relationship with the actor and paid £780,000 to a scammer.
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A French woman who believed she was in a long-term relationship with Brad Pitt and was tricked into paying €830,000 (£700,000) to help pay for medical treatment has faced such a wave of online ridicule that a TV programme about it has been removed. . .
The interior designer, named Anne, 53, was targeted on social media and even in a satirical skit on France's biggest breakfast show after giving an interview about the case on the TF1 channel on Sunday.
Speaking about what she believes was an online relationship with Pitt that lasted more than a year, Anne said she thought they were in love. When she told him the actor needed financial help for cancer treatment because his accounts were frozen during his divorce from Angelina Jolie, she transferred the money. It wasn't until the Hollywood star was photographed in the media this summer with his partner, Inés de Ramon, that she realized she had fallen for an elaborate scam, Anne said. "I wonder why they chose me to do such damage," she told TF1. "I never hurt anyone." These people deserve hell." The show went viral and sparked a wave of jokes about the witticism online, prompting the network to remove the show from its rerun services on its websites on Tuesday.
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TF1 had indicated at the time of its broadcast that Anne had been struggling with mental health issues, had also suffered from severe depression and had been hospitalized for treatment. TF1 presenter Harry Roselmack wrote on social media on Tuesday: "To protect the victims, we have decided to remove [the segment] from our platforms."
Among the social networks that mocked Ana's loyalty, Toulouse Football Club wrote about X: "Brad told us he would be at the stadium on Wednesday," for the team's next match, before deleting the message and apologizing. Netflix France also posted on social media promoting "four movies to watch with Brad Pitt (really) for free."
The scam dates back to February 2023, when Anne, who was married to a wealthy businessman, took to Instagram to share photos from a skiing holiday in the French Alps.
Upon her return, she was contacted on social media by someone claiming to be Jane Pitt, the actor's mother, who began chatting with her and told her she would be a good fit for her son. Then another account was contacted claiming to be the actor himself. His mother had told her all about him, the person said. "I want to know more about you," one message read to Anne. "But I'd like to know if you work in the media, because I'm very protective of my private life." »
Anne, who said she didn't really understand social media, spent a year and a half communicating with the person she thought was Pitt. The person used fake social media and WhatsApp accounts, as well as artificial intelligence image-making technology, to send her what appeared to be selfies and other messages, including poems and songs and an apparent copy of Pitt's passport. She said he was genuinely interested in her work and they communicated every day. "I was in love with the man I was talking to," she said. "He knew how to talk to a woman." »
Anne argued in particular with the person who claimed to be Pitt about the large sum he had to pay for her divorce. He then received AI-generated photos of the actor apparently in hospital, with demands for payment for his kidney treatment. He transferred hundreds of thousands of euros for alleged medical expenses.
The creators of the TF1 show said that Anne had filed a complaint with the police about this fraud.
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