A FRENCH woman who handed over nearly £700,000 to a scammer pretending to be Brad Pitt with cancer revealed she’s glad she did it.
Interior designer Anne Deneuchatel, 53, was left homeless and broke after a year-long affair with the online swindler who showered her in romantic poems and AI-generated photos and videos of the actor.
A scammer convinced her to hand over nearly £700,000 for his ‘cancer treatment’.[/caption]
She divorced her husband, pocketed a £670,000 (€775,000) settlement, and started wiring cash to the scammer.
But despite the torment – resulting in three suicide attempts and being hospitalised for depression – she said one “positive thing” came out of it.
The scam forced Anne to divorce her millionaire husband who she said had turned out to be “selfish and manipulative”.
He reportedly made her close her boutique, forcing her to become financially dependent on him.
She told Le Monde: “It was a gilded prison… He turned out to be selfish, manipulative.”
“My husband had put me in a bind. He said I should be content to be a trophy. I no longer had any independence.
“At one point, it seemed easier to help ‘Brad’ than to help myself,” she added.
CRUEL LOVE
Anne thought she’d struck up a romance with the Hollywood star after someone pretending to be Pitt’s mother sent her an Instagram message in February 2023.
The next day, “Brad” himself slid into her DMs saying: “My mother has spoken a lot about you already.”
What followed was a year-long online affair, complete with daily texts, romantic poems, and AI-generated photos and videos of the actor.
“There are so few men who write you this kind of thing,” Anne told French media.
“I liked the man I was talking to. He knew how to talk to women, it was always very well done.”
After Anne divorced her husband, she began wiring funds to the scammer.
First, it was £7,566 for “customs fees” on luxury gifts.
Then came £50,500 for kidney cancer treatment, with fake doctors emailing her to say her beloved Brad was “fighting to survive”.
Fake Brad would also tell Anne that he could not access his money because of his ongoing divorce from Angelina Jolie.
“It cost me to do it, but I thought that I might be saving a man’s life,” Anne said, according to The Telegraph.
When warned by her daughter that she could be a victim of a scam, she said: “You’ll see when he’s here in person then you’ll say sorry.”
The penny finally dropped in summer 2024 when Anne saw photos of the real Brad Pitt with his girlfriend, Ines de Ramon.
But even then, the scammer doubled down, sending fake “news flashes” claiming Pitt was secretly dating “a special person.”
And in a final cruel twist, someone pretending to be an FBI agent offered to “rescue” her from the scam — for another £4,200.
Now penniless and homeless, Anne has sold all her furniture, moved in with a friend, and launched a crowdfunding campaign to cover her legal fees.
After three suicide attempts, she’s been hospitalised in a clinic specialising severe depression, reports BFMTV.
Anne has filed a complaint and an investigation is currently underway.
This isn’t the first time scammers have used Pitt’s identity.
Last year, five people in Spain were arrested for swindling two women out of €325,000 using similar fake romances.
