Hundreds of social media users mocked Anne, who the program said had lost her life savings and attempted suicide three times since the scam came to light.
Netflix France released a post on X advertising “four films with Brad Pitt (actually)”, while, in a now deleted post, Toulouse FC said: “Hi Anne, Brad told us that he will be at the stadium on Wednesday. .. and you? “
The club has since apologized for the post.
On Tuesday, TF1 said it had pulled Anne’s segment after her testimony sparked a “wave of harassment” – although the program can still be found online.
In the report, Anne said her ordeal began when she downloaded Instagram in February 2023, while she was still married to a wealthy businessman.
He was immediately contacted by someone who said they were Pitt’s mother, Jane Etta, who told Anne her son “needs a woman like her”.
Someone claimed Pitt contacted her the next morning, which set off alarm bells for Anne. “But as someone who is not used to social media, I don’t know what happened to me,” she said.
At one point, “Brad Pitt” said that he tried to send her a luxury gift but he could not pay customs because his bank account was frozen due to his divorce proceedings with actor Angelina Jolie, causing Anne to transfer €9000 to scammers.
“Like a fool, I paid … Every time I doubted him, he managed to dissipate my doubts,” she said.
Demands for money escalated when Pitt faked telling Anne he needed money to pay for kidney cancer treatment, sending several AI-generated photos of Brad Pitt in a hospital bed. “I looked for those photos on the internet but couldn’t find them so I thought it meant he took those selfies just for me,” she said.
Meanwhile, Anne and her husband divorced, and she was awarded €775,000 – all of which went to scammers.
“I told myself I might have saved a man’s life,” said Anne, who is in remission from cancer herself.
Princess Anne, now 22, told TF1 that she had been trying to “get her mother to see reason” for more than a year but her mother was too excited. “It hurts to see how naive he is,” she said.
When a picture appeared in a gossip magazine showing the real Brad Pitt and his new girlfriend Ines de Ramon, arousing suspicion in Anne, the scammers sent a fake news report in which an AI-generated anchor talked about “Pitt’s exclusive relationship with a special individual… who goes by the name Anna.”
The video amused Anne for a short time, but when Brad Pitt and the real Ines de Ramon made their relationship official in June 2024, Anne decided to end things.
After scammers tried to take more money from her under the guise of “FBI Special Agent John Smith,” Anne contacted the police. An investigation is currently underway.
The TF1 program said that the show that Anne left was broken, and that she had tried to end her life three times.
“Why was I chosen to be hurt like this?,” said a tearful Anne. “These people deserve hell. We need to find these scammers, I’m begging you – please help me find them.”
But in a YouTube interview on Tuesday, Anne hit back at TF1, saying that it had left out the details of repeated doubts about whether she was talking to the real Brad Pitt, adding that anyone could fall for the scam if they said “the words which you have never heard from your own husband.”
Anne said that she now lives with a friend: “My whole life has been a small room and a few boxes.
While many online users overwhelmingly mocked Anne, some took her side.
“I understand the comic effect but we’re talking about women in their 50s being duped by deepfakes and AI that your parents and grandparents can’t see,” one popular post on X read.
An op-ed in the newspaper Libération said Anne was a “whistleblower”: “Life today is paved with cybertraps … and the progress of AI will only worsen this scenario.”
