Overview

Fake Brad Pitt Scam or Brad Pitt France Catfishing Scam refers to a viral catfishing scam involving a French woman who was deceived into believing she was in a romantic relationship with someone impersonating American actor Brad Pitt using AI-generated images of him. The woman reportedly transferred over €830,000 ($855,000) to the scammer before realizing she had been duped. The scam started in February 2023 when the woman received a message from the fake Brad Pitt claiming that he had kidney cancer. In mid-January 2025, the fake Brad Pitt scam became widely spread on social media as several media outlets shared details of the scam, prompting numerous reactions, memes, jokes and parodies of people impersonating the actor to mock the situation.

Background

On January 12th, 2025, the French TV news channel TF1^[1] shared a report about a woman named Anne, an interior designer abused by a fake Brad Pitt for weeks since February 2023. The story was broadcast on the program Sept à Huit claiming the French woman sent €830,000 ($855,000) to one or more scammers pretending to be the Hollywood star.

On January 13th, 2025, X^[2] user @TheOscarRace posted a screenshot from TF1's report showing several AI-generated images of the fake Brad Pitt scammer inside a hospital room, with one photo in particular showing the actor holding a sign that reads, "Anne I love you." The tweet (seen below) received more than 22 million views and 293,000 likes in two days.

The network decided to block viewing the document after the victim of the scam started to get bullied online. In a statement to the French tabloid RTL,^[3] TF1 wrote, "The report broadcast this Sunday sparked a wave of harassment against a witness. For the protection of the victims, we have decided to remove it from our platforms." ​​

On January 14th, 2025, X^[4] user @pastrescausant posted the full TF1 report on the fake Brad Pitt scam (seen below), which amassed over 1.6 million views and 24,000 likes in a day.

Developments

Anne's Response

On January 15th, 2025, X^[5] user @CerfiaFR posted a clip from an exclusive interview Anne gave to a French news tabloid in which she claimed that TF1 "tarnished her image" by choosing only the wrong one "for the ratings." She says she didn't fall in love with the fake Brad Pitt but wanted to "help." The video (seen below) received roughly 3 million views and 13,000 likes in a few hours.

Online Reactions

In the following days, the fake Brad Pitt scam story became a viral topic on X / Twitter, TikTok and other social media platforms in which numerous netizens reacted with a mix of humor and disbelief regarding the obvious usage of artificial intelligence images to mimic the actor.

For example, on January 13th, 2025, X user @insandyeggo^[6] posted one of the AI images of Brad Pitt, referencing the viral scandal, which received roughly 76,000 likes and 1,700 reposts in two days.

TikTok user @paulidy1^[7] further contributed to the buzz on January 14th, 2025, by posting a video in which he employed a Brad Pitt filter and requested money while adopting a French accent and speaking in English. This video amassed over 5.7 million plays and 683,000 likes within a day.

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References