This was an actual “Inglourious Basterd.”
A romance scammer who pretended to be an ailing Brad Pitt suckered a French lady out of $850,000 through the use of AI-generated hospital selfies of the “Fight Club” hunk to tug at her heartstrings.
The sufferer — a 53-year-old inside designer named Anne — informed the French TV present “Seven to Eight” on Sunday that somebody pretending to be the actor’s mother, Jane Etta Pitt, acquired in contact together with her first, the Day by day Beast reported.
“She told me that her son needed someone like me,” she informed France 24.
“We’re talking about Brad Pitt here, and I was stunned,” Anne stated. “At first, I thought it was fake, but I didn’t really understand what was happening to me.”
The messages saved coming over the subsequent 18 months, with Anne’s pretend lover sending poems, declarations of affection and finally a wedding proposal, in response to the Impartial.
“There are few men who write to you like that,” she stated. “I loved the man I was talking to. He knew how to talk to women and it was very well put together.”
On the time, Anne was divorcing her millionaire, entrepreneur husband — a person practically twenty years her senior.
In the meantime, the scammer working the AI bot claimed he’d ship her costly purses, however famous she’d must pay the customs price.
That, in fact, began at about $9,200, the Impartial stated.
The requests continued, and finally the faux-Pitt informed her he had kidney most cancers and wanted money for hospital therapies since Pitt’s real-life ex, Angelina Jolie, had allegedly frozen his financial institution accounts.
Solid images of Pitt in a hospital room and an e mail from a “doctor” adopted, saying the “Mr. & Mrs. Smith” actor was on his deathbed.
So Anne despatched boatloads of cash — greater than $850,000 — to a Turkish account, the outlet stated.
Her daughter informed her she was being conned. However Anne refused to imagine it.
“You’ll see when he’s here in person, then you’ll say sorry,” the sufferer stated.
She solely realized she was being scammed over the summer season, when Pitt was seen with present beau Inès de Ramon. It’s unclear if the scammer was ever caught.
She shared her story on the French station TF1, however the community later pulled the interview as a result of she was being cyber-bullied, the Impartial stated.
She has additionally been hospitalized for extreme melancholy, the Day by day Beast stated.
“I ask myself why they chose me to do such harm like this?” she stated of the scammers. “I’ve never harmed anyone. These people deserve hell.”
