Brad Pitt's Identity Allegedly Stolen By Online Catfisher Who Conned Woman for $850,000
Once upon a time in Hollywood, a scammer posing as Brad Pitt allegedly ran off with thousands of dollars in a catfishing scheme.
That was what a 53-year-old woman said happened to her after being duped into believing she was in a romantic relationship with the Oscar winner. The woman—who identified herself as Anne —recently appeared on French news show Sept à huit to share her story, saying that she gave away almost all her life savings to a person pretending to be Brad online.
Now, in a statement to E! News, Brad's rep addressed the situation.
"It's awful that scammers take advantage of fans' strong connection with celebrities," the spokesperson said on Jan. 15, "but this is an important reminder to not respond to unsolicited online outreach, especially from actors who have no social media presence."
Indeed, Brad does not have verified accounts on major social media platforms, including Instagram, TikTok and X (formerly Twitter). But that didn't stop Anne from believing he did.
"I'm not used to social media," Anne told Sept à huit as she explained how she was first contacted online by someone claiming to be his mom Jane Etta Pitt , per BFM TV . "And I didn't really understand what was happening to me."
Anne said she was then messaged by a person claiming to be Brad, who told her, "My mother told me a lot about you." The two continued corresponding, with Anne eventually falling in love with her pen pal after receiving love poems.
"There are so few men who write you this kind of thing," she recounted. "I liked the man I was talking to. He knew how to talk to women, it was always very well done."
David M. Benett/Max Cisotti/Dave Benett/WireImage
After divulging that she had come into a divorce settlement with her ex-husband, Anne said the purported Brad told her he had been locked out of his bank accounts due to his divorce with Angelina Jolie and needed a loan for supposed cancer treatments. She said the fake Brad sent her images as proof of the alleged hospitalization, which all appeared to be AI-generated in hindsight.
"It hurt me to do it," Anne said, "but I told myself that I might save a man's life."
Anne only realized she had been swindled when she started seeing photos of the real Brad stepping out with girlfriend Ines de Ramon . By then, she said she had already given out approximately $850,000.
"I ask myself why they chose me to do such harm like this?" Anne said during her appearance on Sept à huit , according to French outlet AFP . "I've never harmed anyone. These people deserve hell."
For a complete guide to Brad's IRL love life, keep reading.
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Sinitta
The "Toy Boy" singer dated Pitt off and on for several years in the '80s, long before every couple had a clever one-word nickname—so when the pop star was asked in 2016 what their cutesy name could've been, she suggested "Braditta."
Shalane McCall
Pitt played the actress' boyfriend Randy on four episodes of Dallas between 1987 and 1988 and was rumored to have romanced her off-camera as well. But in 1989, when she was 17, McCall married current hubby Trent Valladares and never looked back.
Jill Schoelen
Pitt's first fiancée! The Cutting Class co-stars had been engaged for three months when, claiming loneliness, Schoelen pleaded with Pitt to visit her in Budapest, where she was shooting a movie. "At this point I had $800 to my name and I spent $600 of it getting a ticket from Los Angeles to Hungary to see her," Pitt reportedly told The Sun in 2011. "I got there, went straight to the set where she was filming and that night we went out to dinner. She told me that she had fallen in love with the director of the film. I was so shocked I said, 'I'm outta here.'" Love works in mysterious ways.
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Robin Givens
Pitt scored an appearance on the Riverdale actress' sitcom Head of the Class in January 1989. The ink on Givens' divorce from Mike Tyson wouldn't be dry until that February, however, and the boxing champ later recalled seeing Pitt toking away when he came across him at his estranged wife's house one morning—where Tyson says his intent was to have a quickie while on his way to see his divorce lawyer.
"She drives up with the handsome Brad Pitt," he said while telling the story, then a sample anecdote from his one-man show, on Conan in 2012. "I said, 'aw man, I ain't gonna get no p--sy, f--k.'" Andy Richter chimed in, "Brad Pitt is the international symbol for that."
The tale continued to be a favorite for interviewers over the years, with Tyson concluding on The Real in 2016, "I didn't really catch them in the act—maybe before the act...He's a really nice guy."
Christina Applegate
Pitt was the Married...With Children star's date to the 1989 MTV Video Music Awards—and though she has remained mum on the subject, Skid Row rocker Sebastian Bach insists that he was the guy Applegate infamously ditched her up-and-coming-actor date for that night.
E.G. Daily
Pitt also dated Dottie from Pee-Wee's Big Adventure in 1989. He may have had that rebel look, but Daily would later describe him as a "laid back, very earthy" guy, and not "super Hollywood." "He's the kind of guy that would pick up and leave and drive his car just to get out of the city," she told DailyMail.com in 2016.
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Geena Davis
Pitt rocked Davis' world onscreen as a hustling hitchhiker in 1991's Thelma & Louise , which proved to be the actor's (and his abs') true breakout role—and Pitt's onetime roommate Jason Priestley claimed in his 2014 memoir that they were an off-screen item as well.
"I actually read with him first—there were five candidates for the role," Davis recalled Pitt's audition to The Hollywood Reporter in 2014. "And then he came in—this is so embarrassing—but I got a little distracted during the scene, you know? I was forgetting my lines. I was like, 'I'm totally screwing up this kid's audition.'"
Juliette Lewis
These two played murderously dysfunctional couples twice, in the 1990 TV movie Too Young to Die? and the gritty 1993 thriller Kalifornia , but real life seems to have been sweeter during the several years—he was her Oscars date in 1992 when she was nominated for Cape Fear —they were together.
"I still love the woman," Pitt told Vanity Fair in February 1995. "There's some real genius there. I had a great time with her...It was one of the greatest relationships I've ever been in. The problem is, we grow up with this vision that love conquers all, and that's just not so, is it?" In 2010 Lewis told Pop Tarts that she and Pitt "run into each other on and off and we say hello and that is really nice."
Thandiwe Newton
Pitt has described his experience making Interview With the Vampire as "miserable." He told Entertainment Weekly in 2011 that "the great thing that came out of that movie is that it birthed my love affair with New Orleans."
But the shoot also birthed a brief relationship with Newton, who had a small role as Yvette, a servant on Pitt's character Louis' plantation.
Jitka Pohlodek
The Czech model was Pitt's date to the 1994 premiere of Legends of the Fall , which sent the actor's heartthrob status skyrocketing—and they were dating when Pitt told Vanity Fair he still loved Juliette Lewis.
Gwyneth Paltrow
Pitt's the one who lost his head for Paltrow on the set of 1995's Se7en . They were the mid-90s couple, from the top of her slip dress to the ends of his frosted tips. Accepting the Best Supporting Actor Golden Globe for 12 Monkeys in 1996, Brad thanked Gwyneth, his "angel, the love of my life," and he proposed that December. They even had matching haircuts at one point.
"I take the institution extremely seriously. There are no divorces in my family either—and in his either, so this is not something—we've been together for quite some time, so this is not a rash decision," Gwyneth convincingly told Entertainment Tonight about their engagement. But in June 1997, they broke up.
"When two people aren't supposed to be together, they're not supposed to be together," a defiant Paltrow said in 1998. Fast-forward to 2015, when she told Howard Stern, "I was such a kid, I was 22 when we met. It's taken me until 40 to get my head out of my ass. You can't make that decision when you're 22 years old... I wasn't ready, and he was too good for me."
Moreover, her dad, Bruce Paltrow, was "devastated" when they broke up. "My father loved him like a son." Ultimately, Paltrow said, "I definitely fell in love with him. He was so gorgeous and sweet. I mean, he was Brad Pitt!"
Claire Forlani
After his breakup with Paltrow, Pitt's said to have briefly dated his Meet Joe Black co-star. They attended the 50th Annual WGA Awards together.
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Jennifer Aniston
The story goes that Aniston met Pitt in 1998 on a blind date set up by their agents. The world still not one for smushed-together names yet, they were simply "Hollywood's golden couple." They married in 2000, Pitt guest-starred on Friends in 2001 and in 2002 Aniston said of starting a family, "Absolutely it will happen but probably not for a while."
Alas, on Jan. 8, 2005, the actors announced they had "formally" separated. "For those who follow these sorts of things, we would like to explain that our separation is not the result of any speculation reported by the tabloid media," they said in a statement. The divorce was finalized that October amid all sorts of reports perpetuated by the people who do follow these sorts of things.
Meanwhile, Aniston's September 2005 Vanity Fair interview will go down in history as one of the rawest, most poignant breakup postmortems in celebrity history.
But years later...they're friends !
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Angelina Jolie
The Oscar winner eventually admitted that she and a still-married Pitt had fallen in love during the making of Mr. and Mrs. Smith in 2004.
Spurred on by their kids—Maddox , Zahara , Shiloh , Pax and twins Vivienne and Knox —Brangelina finally married at their chateau in France in 2014 after being engaged for two years .
"You get together and you're two individuals and you feel inspired by each other, you challenge each other, you complement each other, drive each other beautifully crazy," Jolie told Elle in 2014, before the surprise nuptials. "After all these years, we have history—and when you have history with somebody, you're friends in such a very real, deep way that there's such a comfort, and an ease, and a deep love that comes from having been through quite a lot together."
But Jolie filed for divorce on Sept. 19, 2016, citing irreconcilable differences and triggering an FBI investigation into Pitt's behavior on an overseas flight (he never faced charges ). And though there have been periods where the dust seemed settled , the aftermath got messy and stayed messy .
They finally settled their divorce in late 2024 after an eight-year legal battle.
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Ines de Ramon
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