French woman who was tricked by AI Brad Pitt faces online ridicule.

A French woman who was conned out of €830,000 (£700,000; $850,000) by fraudsters posing as actor Brad Pitt has faced a barrage of ridicule, prompting French broadcaster TF1 to pull a program about her.

The prime-time program, which aired on Sunday, attracted national attention when Anne, 53, an interior designer, revealed that she had been in a relationship with Pitt for a year and a half.

She has since told the popular French YouTube show that she is neither “crazy nor dead”: “I just played, I believe, and that’s why I came, because I’m not the only one.”

A rep for Pitt told US Entertainment Weekly that it’s “shameful that scammers are taking advantage of fans’ strong relationships with celebrities” and that people shouldn’t respond to unsolicited online services “especially from actors who have no social media.”

Hundreds of social media users mocked Anna for losing her life savings on the show and attempting to commit suicide three times after the scam was revealed.

Netflix France posted a post on X ad “Four movies with Brad Pitt (in reality)”, in a now deleted post, Toulouse FC said: “Hey Anne, Brad told us he’ll be at the stadium on Wednesday. . . and you?”

The club apologized for the post.

On Tuesday, TF1 said it had pulled the episode on Anne after her testimony sparked a ‘storm of harassment’ – although the program can still be found online.

According to the report, Ann’s ordeal began in February 2023 when she took down Instagram while she was married to a wealthy entrepreneur.

Immediately, Pete’s mother, Jane, is contacted by someone who claims to be Etta, who tells Anne that her daughter “needs a woman just like her.”

A man claiming to be Pete is contacted the next day, which sets off alarm bells for Anne. “But being someone who isn’t very used to social media, I didn’t know what was going on,” she said.

At one point, “Brad Pitt” tried to send her lavish gifts, but said he couldn’t pay customs because his bank accounts were frozen. Due to his divorce with actress Angelina JolieHe prompted Anne to transfer 9000 euros to the fraudsters.

“I paid like a fool… every time I had doubts, he cleared my doubts,” she says.

When the fake Pitt tells Anne that he needs money to pay for kidney cancer treatment, his demands for money escalate and he sends her several AI-generated photos of Brad Pitt in a hospital bed. “I looked at those photos on the internet but I couldn’t find them so I thought it must have been me who took those selfies,” she said.

Meanwhile, Anne and her husband divorced and were awarded €775,000 – all of which went to the fraudsters.

“I told myself that maybe I was saving someone’s life,” says Ann, who herself is battling cancer.

Anne’s daughter, now 22, told TF1 that she had been trying to “get her to see her mother” for more than a year, but her mother was too excited. “It hurt me to see how gentle she was,” she said.

When pictures of the real Brad Pitt with his new girlfriend, Ines De Ramon, aroused suspicions in Anne, the scammers sent her a fake news report.

The video briefly comforted Anne, but when the real-life Brad Pitt and Ines De Ramon announced their relationship in June 2024, Anne decided to end things.

Ann contacted the police after scammers tried to get more money under the name of “Special FBI Agent John Smith.” An investigation is now underway.

The TF1 program says the events left Anne broken, and that he tried to take her life three times.

“Why was I chosen to be hurt like this?” she said through tears. “These people deserve hell. We have to find those crooks, I’m begging you – please help me find them.”

But in a YouTube interview on Tuesday, Anne hit back at TF1, leaving out the details of repeated suspicions that she was talking to the real Brad Pitt and saying that anyone who told them could fall for the scam. “The words you have never heard from your husband.

Ann says that she lives with her friend now: “My whole life is a small room with some boxes. That’s all I have left.”

While many netizens mocked Ann for being so outlandish, many stood by her side.

“I understand the comic effect, but we’re talking about a woman in her 50s with deep stories and AI that your parents and grandparents can’t see,” said a popular post on X Reading.

An op-ed in the newspaper Liberation said Ann was a “fraud”: “Life today is full of cybertracks… and the advancement of AI will only make this situation worse.”