A French woman has reportedly been scammed out of tens of thousands of dollars after she was led to believe she was having an affair with Brad Pitt.

A scammer allegedly managed to dupe a 53-year-old interior designer, called Anne, into forking out 830,000 euros ($850,0000) after convincing her they were for the Hollywood movie star’s ‘cancer treatment’, reports BFM TV.

The hoax dates back to February 2023. Anne was on a ski trip and posted snaps of her vacation on Instagram when she said she had a message from someone claiming to be Pitt’s mom.

The woman believed she was speaking to the real Brad Pitt (Qian Jun/MB Media/Getty Images)

The next day, she had another message from an account pretending to be Pitt himself.

Anne was ‘flabbergasted’ by the exchange and apparently put fears that the account could’ve been fake to the back of her mind as she told the French media channel, TF1, that the person behind the account ‘knew how to talk to women’.

Despite dodging phone and video calls, AI-generated images and videos of the actor hoodwinked Anne into thinking it was really him.

After the poems and declarations, the pair developed a relationship followed by a marriage proposal and the promise of lavish gifts from the likes of Chanel or Hermès.

Romance fraud is just one method scammers are using to exploit people for money (Getty Images)

The catch was that Anne had to pay customs fees to receive them, and so the trap was set as she forked out 9,000 euros, only to receive nothing.

At the time, Anne was married to a millionaire almost 20 years her senior, but decideD to divorce him and confided in her new ‘friend’ about the situation, including the hefty divorce settlement she received.

The fraudster then appealed for help to fund medical bills for an alleged kidney cancer, claiming his own bank accounts were blocked due to their ongoing divorce from Angelia Jolie.

To sway Anne, photographs of Pitt apparently pent up in a hospital bed, created with the help of artificial intelligence, were sent to her.

One image appears to show the actor’s face artificially imposed over a hospital scene holding a note that reads: “Anne I love you.”

The scammer used AI of Brad Pitt to convince the woman (@TheOscarRace/Twitter)

It wasn’t until summer 2024 that the horrendous realization dawned on Anne that the person behind the account was not Pitt after she read about the actor’s new girlfriend, Ines de Ramon, in the press.

By this point, she had departed with almost one million euros to the scammer and reported the incident to police.

According to BFM TV, Anne is now hospitalized with severe depression and it remains unclear if she has managed to recover some of the funds.

Users on Twitter have since been touched by the story with many sending their sympathy to the victim.

One woman wrote: “Romance scams are the cruellest.

“It’s funny until you realize, more often than not it’s a vulnerable person that just wanted to be loved.”

Another chimed: “They are so mean and it’s awful that people make fun of the people who fall for them. Exploiting someone’s desire to be loved is obscene.”

According to UK police, data on romance fraud indicates victims are more likely to be lonely, widowed, recently bereaved, have suffered a recent break up, and/or suffer from depression.

Surrey Police adds the method is one of the ‘fastest growing crimes affecting the vulnerable’ and financial losses can be so high that victims become in denial and thus less likely to self-report.

Angelina Jolie criticizes ‘liars’ in a new interview as her divorce from Brad Pitt reaches its end after a lengthy eight-year legal battle.

The former couple first met on the film set of Mr and Mrs Smith in 2003 before becoming official in 2005.

Jolie and Pitt have six children together and, in 2014, the couple got married after being in a relationship for almost a decade.

However, in 2016, the Wanted actor filed for divorce from the Fight Club star, 61, citing irreconcilable differences.

After an eight years in court, the exes officially signed off on their divorce on Monday (December 30) and reached a settlement.

Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt announced their divorce in 2016 (Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images for WSJ. Magazine 2015 Innovator Awards)

Jolie’s divorce attorney, James Simon, said in a statement (via Sky News) that Jolie was ‘exhausted’ by the situation, adding: “More than eight years ago, Angelina filed for divorce from Mr Pitt.

“She and the children left all of the properties they had shared with Mr Pitt, and since that time she has focused on finding peace and healing for their family. This is just one part of a long ongoing process that started eight years ago.

“Frankly, Angelina is exhausted, but she is relieved this one part is over.”

No court documents have been filed and a judge will have to sign off on the agreement, Sky News also reported.

In 2024, Jolie made her return to acting with her film, Maria, where she portrays opera singer, Maria Callas, which made it’s debut at the Venice International Film Festival before being released in cinemas later that year to critical acclaim.

Following it’s release, the 49-year-old opened up in her cover story for W Magazine, where she described ‘liars’ as being one of her biggest ‘pet peeves’.

Jolie called ‘liars’ her biggest pet peeve (Steve Granitz/FilmMagic)

Without going into specifics, the Oscar winner said: “My pet peeve is somebody who is a liar. Somebody who feels a need to not say the truth or what they want, what they feel.

“There’s a big version of that – and I’m not trying to be heavy about it – but people who say one thing and mean another, who aren’t completely who they are.

“I think a lot of people don’t say what they mean.”

While the two have settled their divorce proceedings, they are still embroiled in a row over their shared $25 million winery business in the south of France.

In 2022, Pitt claimed Jolie had broken ‘contractural rights’ by selling her half of Château Miraval without his knowledge to a Russian oligarch, the BBC reported at the time.

Countering the claim, Jolie claimed that she had attempted to discuss the sale with Pitt, but that he allegedly wanted her to ‘sign a nondisclosure agreement’.

Her countersue also accused Pitt of ‘waging a vindictive war’ against Jolie, PEOPLE reported.

LADbible Group has previously contacted Jolie and Pitt’s representatives for comment.

Brad Pitt has been accused of ‘volatile’ behavior while filming 1994 movie, Legends Of The Fall.

The period film, which was directed by Ed Zwick, saw Pitt play Tristan Ludlow, one of three brothers living in rural Montana during World War I.

The brothers all end up falling for the same woman, with the movie charting the trio as they overcome obstacles to maintain their family in the midst of conflict.

Getty Images/Stringer

Some 20 years on from the movie, Zwick has spoken about what it was like to film all those years ago.

In an excerpt from his new memoir, Hits, Flops and Other Illusions: My Fortysomething Years in Hollywood – as published by Vanity Fair – Zwick described Pitt as ‘volatile’.

Describing one ‘blowup’, he wrote: “I don’t know who yelled first, who swore, or who threw the first chair. Me, maybe? But when we looked up, the crew had disappeared. And this wasn’t the last time it happened.

“It was the first augury of the deeper springs of emotion roiling inside Brad. He seems easygoing at first, but he can be volatile when riled, as I was to be reminded more than once as shooting began and we took each other’s measure.

“Sometimes, no matter how experienced or sensitive you are as a director, things just aren’t working.”

It seems the pair clashed over Pitt’s character, Tristan.

“His ideas about Tristan differed from mine,” Zwick continued.

“Brad had grown up with men who held their emotions in check; I believed the point of the [Legends of the Fall] novel was that a man’s life was the sum of his griefs… Yet the more I pushed Brad to reveal himself, the more he resisted. So, I kept pushing and Brad pushed back.”

Zwick recalled an incident in which he had given Pitt some direction in front of the crew, which he admitted was ‘a stupid, shaming provocation’.

“Brad came back at me, also out loud, telling me to back off,” he said.

“The considered move would have been to tell the crew to take five and for the two of us to talk it out. But I was feeling bloody-minded, and not about to relent.

“I was angry at Brad for not trusting me to influence his performance. Also for the reluctance he’d shown after the first table read. Who knows, I might even have been acting out my own inability to be vulnerable.

“But Brad wasn’t about to give in without a fight. In his defense, I was pushing him to do something he felt was either wrong for the character, or more “emo” than he wanted to appear onscreen.”

Slaven Vlasic/Getty Images

Zwick did explain that the pair would always make up ‘and mean it’.

“[Pitt] is a forthright, straightforward person, fun to be with and capable of great joy. He was never anything less than fully committed to doing his best,” he concluded.

UNILAD has reached out to Pitt’s reps for comment.