Meet the Woman Suing Brad Pitt Over Charity Payments and "Discussions of Marriage"
Kelli Christina seems to be the victim of a catfishing scam, but is Brad Pitt somehow involved?
Kelli Dennehey Christina is the founder and CEO of Texas-based healthcare recruitment company KD-Staffing.
Her company's website boasts of her extensive experience in medical recruiting and business management, and offers her advice to younger women to "remember the importance of education" and "to never give up."
While it seems that Christina could use a little more education on the nature of the Internet, she is certainly taking her own advice in refusing to give up. Since March of 2020 she has been seeking financial restitution from Brad Pitt and his Make It Right Foundation after being catfished and scammed by a person or group of people pretending to be Brad Pitt online...
At the time that the incident occurred, Christina was quite convinced that she was communicating with Pitt himself and that she and the actor were actually falling for each other. While she was organizing fundraisers to benefit the Make It Right Foundation—which builds homes for victims of Hurricane Katrina—and sending money to the Pitt-imposters in exchange for a promised appearance, she and the Benjamin Button star were ostensibly developing an intimate rapport.
From Christina's perspective, she and the A-list actor—who has twice been named People's Sexiest Man Alive—grew so close through their long-distance communiques that they were even having "discussions of marriage." No doubt she was hurt when Pitt continually canceled his charity appearances, promising her, "Next time."
However she came in contact with these catfish scammers, Christina was convinced that they have official ties to Pitt and his charity. As a result, she organized fundraising events which she marketed to the public with the express promise that Brad Pitt would be in attendance.
How embarrassing, then, to repeatedly disappoint attendees at five consecutive events over a two-year period with the news that "Brad Pitt" had canceled at the last minute. What a sad realization when you are forced to accept that the person to whom you sent $40,000—a person for whom you were starting to develop real feelings—was not who they said they were at all.
And once you've had that sad realization and accepted that public embarrassment, there is only one way to grow and move on—to very publicly sue the man with whom you were never in contact.
Christina accepts the fact that whoever she was conversing with was not the real deal. Rather, she was exchanging messages with one or multiple "fake Brad Pitts," which is why she is therefore suing...the actual Brad Pitt for $100,000?
This week, the Oscar-winning actor's defense team sought to dismiss the case, insisting that whoever Kelli Christina had communicated with had nothing to do with either Brad Pitt or the Make It Right Foundation. But Christina is not ready to let things go.
As she put it, "This lawsuit is important for the country, so I will continue to fight Brad Pitt and Make it Right Foundation. I have 113 pages of organized discovery to support the charges and allegations. I wouldn't expect this lawsuit to go away easily."
This isn't the first time Pitt and the Make It Right Foundation have come under scrutiny. In recent years the apparently shoddy workmanship of the homes built by the foundation led residents to sue—only for the foundation to then sue architect John C. Williams for his allegedly defective designs.
But what Kelli Christina seems to be claiming is a different story entirely.
If Christina is right, then Brad Pitt or some person or persons representing the actor and his charity set out to actively deceive her—giving her the impression that she was developing an intimate online relationship with the Once Upon a Time in Hollywood star—in order to extract $40,000 in appearance fees.
It seems far more likely that Kelli Christina is a woman who does not fully understand how easily a person with criminal intentions can falsify their identity with, for example, an official-sounding email address. If the individuals she was in contact with were smart, it's likely that she will never know who was behind this scam, and this lawsuit will prove to be another sad and embarrassingly public waste of her time.
If, on the other hand, Brad Pitt is in the habit of employing "fake Brad Pitts" to impersonate him online, seducing executives of small companies into discussing marriage and sending the actor—who makes around $20 million per movie—$40,000, then we should all wish Kelli Christina the best of luck in exposing his cruel plot.
Brad Pitt and his representatives have declined to comment. Highly suspicious...