Faced with a wave of cyberharassment targeting a woman defrauded by a fake Brad Pitt, TF1 decided to withdraw a report broadcast on the show “Sept à Huit”. A case which raises questions about the media exposure of victims and the responsibility of broadcasters.
In the report broadcast on January 12, 2025, a woman named Anne, aged around fifty, recounted how scammers posing as Brad Pitt extorted 830,000 euros from her. Using fake selfies, falsified documents and artificial intelligence tools, the scammers gained his trust, going so far as to pretend they needed money for an operation related to kidney cancer.
Ruined by this scam, Anne tried three times to end her life. Now hospitalized in a specialized establishment, she has also filed a complaint against her attackers.
A wave of online harassment
After the report was broadcast, Anne became the target of mockery on social networks. Some Internet users mocked his supposed gullibility, ignoring the psychological mechanisms often at work in this type of scam. TFC, the Toulouse football club, posted a message on “Hello Anne, Brad told us he will be at the Stadium on Wednesday for #TFCLAVAL. And you?”. Under fire from criticism, the L1 club then backtracked by presenting its “sincere apologies”.
Netflix, for its part, published a list of films with Brad Pitt, accompanied by an ironic message. Even comedian Mathieu Noël made this affair the subject of his post on France Inter, fueling the debate on the media treatment of this story.
TF1 withdraws the report
This Tuesday, the show “Sept à Huit”, presented by Harry Roselmack, announced the withdrawal of the report from all its platforms. “The report broadcast this Sunday sparked a wave of harassment against a witness. For the protection of the victims, we have decided to remove it from our platforms”can we read in a message published on X.
Beyond the media coverage, this drama reminds us of the importance of raising awareness about online scams and the sophisticated methods used by scammers, capable of targeting even the most cautious profiles.
Media harassment fraud celebrities investigation Brad Pitt Harry Roselmack
