Woman Scammed into Believing She Was Dating Brad Pitt Divorced Her Husband, Transferred Over $800,000

A French woman was swindled out of over $800,000 by scammers posing as Brad Pitt who made her believe she was dating him and that he needed help paying for medical care.

U.K. paper The Times and French outlets AFP and BFM TV reported that the woman, identified only as Anne, spoke to French television outlet TF1, which has since removed the interview from its website after a flood of online ridicule sparked by the report.

Anne reportedly told the French station that she was first contacted online by someone claiming to be Pitt’s mother saying, “It’s a woman like you that my son needs,” The Times reported.

Despite expressing skepticism, the woman kept in contact before being messaged by someone posing as the actor.

“At first I said to myself that it was fake, that it’s ridiculous,” Anne told TF1, according to BFM TV. “But I’m not used to social media and I didn’t really understand what was happening to me.”

The woman first sent nearly €10,000 when the fake account said it needed her to pay customs tariffs so she could receive gifts he claimed to have sent her, according to the reported interview with the woman.

“There are so few men who write you this kind of thing,” Anne said, according to the report from BFM TV. “I liked the man I was talking to. He knew how to talk to women, it was always very well done.”

After reportedly telling the scammer that she had recently divorced her husband, Anne sent almost all of her €775,000 divorce settlement — about $798,000 — after the fake Pitt said he had developed kidney cancer and needed a loan because his bank accounts were locked as a result of his ongoing divorce proceedings with Angelina Jolie.

Want to keep up with the latest crime coverage? Sign up for PEOPLE’s free True Crime newsletter for breaking crime news, ongoing trial coverage and details of intriguing unsolved cases.          

BFM TV reported that the woman was sent AI-generated images of Pitt’s face over men in hospital beds.

When Anne read that Pitt was in a relationship with Ines De Ramon, the scammers reportedly sent something denying the reports. Eventually, The Times reported, Anne told TF1 that she read more about Pitt and De Ramon and accepted that she had been scammed.

Anne has since filed a lawsuit and a police inquiry has been opened, the outlets reported.

TF1 has since removed the interview, with The Times reporting that the outlet did so to protect her from a “wave of harassment” she has received online.