A lovestruck French woman handed over €830,000 to a fake, AI-generated Brad Pitt who convinced her he needed the money for cancer treatment in the midst of his divorce battle with Angelina Jolie.

Anne, a 53-year-old interior designer, said she believed that she and the Hollywood star had fallen in love online and would marry so she divorced her husband and then wired fraudsters all the money from the settlement.

The truth only started to dawn on her when she saw reports of the Fight Club star with his new girlfriend. She has filed a legal complaint for fraud and opened an online crowdfunding account to cover her legal costs.

Anne’s ordeal reportedly started in February 2023 when she created an Instagram account to share photos of her skiing holiday in the Alps.

A woman calling herself Jane Etta Pitt – the real name of Brad Pitt’s mother – then contacted her in English, saying: “My son needs a woman like you.”

The “son” in question then popped up in her messages – also in English – the next day, demanding to know more about her.

She said: “We’re talking about Brad Pitt here and I was stunned. At first, I thought it was fake, but I didn’t really understand what was happening to me. After that, we got in touch every day and became buddies.”

While admitting to being a relative novice on social networks, Anne asked for proof of the man’s identity and received images of his passport, messages from people supposedly close to the actor, and AI-generated photos and videos of him. 

She said: “I thought he had taken these photos for me.”