Sandra Bullock issued a rare public statement after social media scammers impersonated her online.
“My family’s safety, as well as the innocent people being taken advantage of, is my deep concern, and there will be a time when I will comment more, but for now our focus is helping law enforcement handle this matter,” Bullock, 60, told People on Monday, February 3.
Bullock warned her fans not to trust accounts they didn’t know, adding, “Please be aware that I do not participate in any form of social media. Any accounts pretending to be me or anyone associated with me are fake accounts and have been created for financial gain or to exploit people around me.”
The actress addressed the situation one day after her younger sister Gesine Bullock-Prado, called out people who were impersonating her on Facebook for financial gain. Gesine Bullock-Prado shared screenshots of the fake accounts with her name and photo attached.
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“I spend multiple times a day reporting fakes, dealing with weird & scary emails to my BUSINESS and HOME from men who believe that, through one of these many fake ‘me’s, they have a relationship with my sister through private messages and off app sites and have been giving (sometimes) THOUSANDS OF DOLLARS to an incredibly famous and successful grown assed woman,” Gesine, 54, wrote on Sunday, February 3.
Gesine only included “a few FB imposter accounts, all of which I’ve reported both on this app and to a live human.”
“Surprise! They are all still up! When I report, i also report to a security service that gives the account addresses directly to a Meta employee,” she continued before alleging that the accounts are run by “crime rings” that “also run fake groups” that post fake statements from her. “This is my only account and y’all know it’s about baking, cooking, animals, and gardening. I’m a grown assed middle aged woman with a life and I don’t troll around at 54 DMing people.”
Gesine confirmed that law enforcement had to get involved, adding, “If you see a fake account, are friended or messaged by one, report and block. The only reason I stay on FB is to monitor this for my own knowledge so I am aware of the danger coming at me (and yes, because of these scams, I’ve had to involve local law enforcement and they’ve been outstanding).”
She continued: “Strangely, Insta handles these things and even informs me when someone creates an account that may be an imposter. But FB? Same company with same tech? Can’t be bothered.”
In her social media post, Gesine referenced a recent incident when a woman in France was scammed out of $800,000 by an anonymous account posing as Brad Pitt using AI. Meanwhile, a single mother from Kentucky gave approximately $10,000 to a scammer claiming to be Stranger Things star Dacre Montgomery.
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“Here I am thinking that he is going to say he is Johnny Depp or something. He tells me that he is Dacre Montgomery. That is one of my favorite actors,” McKala told YouTube’s Catfished series in August 2023. “Me and him just really hit it off but of course I am suspicious until he starts doing things that make me believe that he is who he is.”
McKala divorced her ex — with whom she shares a daughter — in order to make her relationship work with the individual she thought was Montgomery, 30. After speaking with the hosts of the YouTube series, McKala realized that she was being misled.
“If you’re someone like me, you’re afraid of abandonment and you’re a real big people pleaser and you’re very codependent,” she added at the time. “These scammers, they just kind of come in and they leech off that.”
Montgomery never publicly addressed the scam.
