The footage went viral within hours. Sunday evening, the “Sept à quatre” teams took an interest in the case of Anne, a French woman defrauded by a fake Brad Pitt rampant on Instagram. In front of the magazine’s camera, the victim explained how she had fallen into the trap of a “grazer” posing as the Hollywood star in order to extort money from her. In total, this interior designer lost 830,000 euros. Fake selfies, falsified identity documents, use of artificial intelligence, all means were good to mislead this fifty-year-old who firmly believed in their romance. But Internet users had very little compassion for Anne, ruined and hospitalized for serious depression. The video, running in a loop on social networks, has been parodied in every way, and sometimes with bad taste.
The replay cut from the report in question
This avalanche of mocking reactions forced TF1, in agreement with the magazine’s production company, Elephant, to first delete the replay of “Sept à quatre”, before putting it back online without the twenty-minute report devoted to the victim of this scam. “‘Sept à Huit’ is a news program that neutrally deals with social problems”recalled the channel in a message written on X to justify its decision. “The report broadcast this Sunday sparked a wave of harassment against a witness. For the protection of victims, we have decided to have it removed from our platforms.” it is then clarified.
Mocking posts on social networks
-To our colleagues from “Parisien”, the Elephant company confirmed that the victim, Anne, “was the subject of denigration on social networks”. “We therefore decided that it was better to remove the replay,” she confirmed. From the Toulouse football club to the Charente-Maritime gendarmerie, many institutions have surfed on this sordid affair to serve their communication or make their communities laugh. With a bad buzz and public apologies for some. The TFC thus withdrew its tweet, in which it addressed Anne directly. “Hello Anne, Brad told us that he would be at the Stadium on Wednesday for Toulouse-Laval. And you ?“, accompanied by photomontages with the head of the famous actor.
A few hours later, the football club made its mea culpa: “We understand that our tweet may have been misinterpreted, and we sincerely apologize. We deeply regret if our comments may have conveyed a negative message. Thank you for your feedback on this error. We pledge to exercise even greater care and discernment in the future“.
