There's no doubt the internet is slowly destroying the world – either via the energy spent in data centres, the misinformation that runs rife on social media or the sheer quantity of time we waste using it.
Occasionally, however, a niche local story that would have otherwise been lost to history finds its way onto our feeds and we forget about all the negatives. A woman in France being catfished by someone pretending to be Brad Pitt and losing €830,000 (£698,768) in the process is one such story.
It all started in 2023 when 53-year-old Anne downloaded Instagram to share some of her holiday snaps with friends and family. That’s when she was contacted by 'Jane Etta Pitt', the alleged mother of Brad Pitt, who told her she would be the perfect match for her son. A few days later, she received a message from the alleged Oscar-winning actor himself. 'Hello Anne, my mother has told me a lot about you,' read the fateful DM, 'I’d like to know more.'
Over the course of the next year, the fake Pitt would end up stealing more than £690,000 of Anne's money. She was sent photoshopped pictures of 'Pitt' in hospital holding up a sign that reads, 'I love you Anne', as well as pictures of his 'arm' attached to a drip. He was, or so Anne was told, being treated for kidney cancer.
The catfish told her they needed urgent treatment and that their accounts were blocked because of the lawsuit he had against Angelina Jolie, so they needed to borrow some money. Once trust had been established, Anne went along with it. They even sent fake passport pictures, IDs of Pitt's 'entourage' and pictures of the actor that couldn't be found elsewhere on the internet. Of course, these included the somewhat laughable photoshop images of Pitt smirking in the operating theatre.
'At first, I thought it was fake, but I didn’t really understand what was happening. Then, we started contacting each other daily, and we became friends. I had someone who showed interest in me and my work. I loved the man I was talking to. He knew how to talk to women,' the victim explained.
It's now a viral story in France, and indeed on TikTok, and Anne has entered a period of reflection. 'I immediately wrote to the supposed Brad Pitt, saying I disagreed, and that’s when he told me his accounts were blocked because of the lawsuit he had against Angelina Jolie, that he had millions of dollars but couldn’t access them.
'Otherwise, he would have paid the taxes himself. So, like an idiot, I paid the €5,000. Every time I had doubts, he managed to dispel them.'
The worst part is that Anne was going through a divorce at the time and had just acquired €775,000 (£652,464) in the settlement. The money was not put towards a home extension, a new car or a luxury holiday with friends, it was sent to help 'Brad Pitt' in his fight against cancer.
While there are parts of the story that have kept people entertained on social media, not least the hatch Photoshop job, it is ultimately a cautionary lesson in deception. Anne was a financially well-off and otherwise ordinary person who was new to social media and unaware of the weaponisation of AI-generated images. She was also recently divorced, vulnerable, and a cancer survivor herself.
Now she has lost her life savings and become a national laughing stock. 'I ask myself why they chose me to do such harm like this,' she told TF1. 'I've never harmed anyone. These people deserve hell.'
All jokes aside, if Anne can be scammed out of such a vast amount of money by a fake movie star preying on her goodwill, the chances are thousands of other people could be too.
In fact, they already have. Last year, two Spanish women were scammed out of €325,000 (£273,600) by another Pitt-themed catfish.
Spanish police arrested five people in suspicion of scamming the two women and ten other people were also investigated as part of 'Operation Bralina', which spanned eight provinces, according to a statement from the Guardia Civil published in September.
One woman lost €175,000 (£147,330) to the fraudsters, while another lost €150,000 (£126,283). Of that total, police managed to recover €85,000 (£71,560). Apparently, both victims were contacted via a Brad Pitt fan site by fraudsters who managed to convince them that the actor wanted to invest in various projects with them, police said.
'In order to find their victims, the cyber criminals studied their social networks and put together a psychological profile of them, discovering as a result that both women were vulnerable people suffering from depression and a lack of affection,' reads the statement.
'They also used instant messaging platforms to exchange messages and emails with the two women until they thought they were chatting via WhatsApp with Brad Pitt himself, who promised them a romantic relationship and a future together.'
It led to both women making numerous bank transfers to the person they thought was Pitt before they realised they were being scammed. Investigators found that, as part of the scam, a network of bank accounts were created using fake identity documents. The scammers also used 'mules' to help to launder money through their own bank accounts in exchange for a small payment.
These women are not the first people to be scammed online by calculated catfish accounts, nor will they be the last. Consider this story a reminder to keep your wits about you, never trust strangers on the internet and don't ever wire money to A-list actors to help pay off their medical bills.
Nikki Peach is a writer at Grazia UK, working across pop culture, TV and news. She has also written for the i, i-D and the New Statesman Media Group and covers all things TV for Grazia (treating high and lowbrow shows with equal respect).