Fake Brad Pitt undergoes surgery in one of the AI-generated images

The 53-year-old French woman, named only as Anne, recently appeared on a French TV show to recount her story, saying that she was entirely convinced that the Hollywood star had fallen in love with her.

She was first contacted on social media by a person claiming to be Mr Pitt’s mother, playing the role of matchmaker, before receiving messages from someone purporting to be Mr Pitt himself.

The married woman, who divorced her wealthy husband as her fake online relationship progressed, was duped by AI-generated photos, including one which showed Mr Pitt holding a sign which read “I love you Anne”.

She was told that Mr Pitt had been diagnosed with cancer and that she needed to send increasingly large amounts of money to a Turkish bank account in order to pay for his treatment.

Despite never meeting Mr Pitt in real life, she agreed to marry him and only realised that she had fallen for a scam when she saw news coverage of the real actor’s new relationship with Inès de Ramon.

French police are now investigating a complaint of fraud, TF1 reports.