PARIS: A French woman who revealed on television how she had lost her life savings to scammers posing as Brad Pitt, has faced a wave of online harassment and mockery, leading the interview to be withdrawn on Tuesday (Jan 14).
The woman, named as Anne, told the Seven to Eight programme on the TF1 channel that she had believed she was in a romantic relationship with the Hollywood star, leading her to divorce her husband and transfer 830,000 euros (US$850,000).
The scammers used fake social media and WhatsApp accounts as well as AI image-creating technology to send Anne what appeared to be selfies and messages from Pitt.
To extract money, they pretended that the 61-year-old actor needed money to pay for kidney treatment, with his bank accounts supposedly frozen because of divorce proceedings with his ex-wife Angelina Jolie.
Anne, a 53-year-old interior decorator with mental health problems, spent a year and half believing she was communicating with Pitt and only realised she had been scammed when news emerged of Pitt’s real-life relationship with girlfriend Ines de Ramon.
“The story broadcast this Sunday has resulted in a wave of harassment against the witness,” TF1 presenter Harry Roselmack wrote on his X account on Tuesday. “For the protection of victims, we have decided to withdraw it from our platforms.”
Anne was said by the channel at the time of its broadcast to have been suffering from severe depression and received hospital treatment.
