French Divorcee Scammed of £700,000 by Nigerian ‘Brad Pitt’ Turns Ordeal Into Book

Anne Deneuchatel, a 53-year-old French woman defrauded of more than £700,000 by Nigerian conmen using AI to impersonate Hollywood star Brad Pitt, says her divorce was the only good to come out of the ordeal.

Earlier this year, Ms Deneuchatel admitted herself to a psychiatric hospital. Now, she is re-emerging with a new book, Je ne serai plus une proie (I Will No Longer Be a Prey), in which she lays bare her experience and the intimate online exchanges that left her penniless and severely depressed.

The former interior designer, now an author, said she was trapped in a loveless marriage to a “selfish and manipulative millionaire businessman” when she received a message on Instagram from someone claiming to be Pitt’s mother. She was soon introduced to “Brad” and the pair began chatting via Telegram.

“I became addicted to our conversations and lived in total fantasy,” she admitted. When the scammer began asking for money, Ms Deneuchatel said she felt “validated and loved” — feelings she said were absent from her marriage.

“My husband had put me in a bind,” she told Le Monde. “He said I should be content to be a trophy. I no longer had any independence. At one point, it seemed easier to help ‘Brad’ than to help myself.”

The fraudster, posing as Pitt, even confided in her about his supposed struggles with alcoholism, loneliness, and divorce from actress Angelina Jolie. In turn, Ms Deneuchatel opened up about her own failing marriage.

She finally broke away after being asked to fund a £13,000 private jet trip. Emotionally drained and estranged from friends and family, she went to the police. Investigators later traced the scam to three men living in a villa in Nigeria.

Despite the devastation, Ms Deneuchatel says the experience ultimately freed her: “The divorce is the only positive thing to come out of this.”

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