Actor Ioan Gruffudd has warned his social media followers about an AI-generated impersonation scam after a woman told him, in person at a fan convention, that she believed she had been in a yearlong "extramarital relationship" with him.
"She showed me hundreds of AI images and videos that someone claiming to be me had sent to her. The images were explicit and disturbing," Gruffudd, 53, wrote in an Instagram post reported by the BBC. He called the discovery "distressing and disturbing."
According to Gruffudd, the woman was first contacted through a Facebook fan page dedicated to the legal drama "Elsbeth," in which he plays a recurring character. The person running the page sent her a phone number and directed her to continue the conversation on the encrypted messaging app Telegram, then used AI-generated images "to prove" the account belonged to the actor, Gruffudd said.
Gruffudd, best known for the Hornblower television series and the Fantastic Four films, said he has reported the account to police and urged anyone contacted by similar pages to cut off communication. "Please do not engage and never send money," he wrote, adding that he would "never give out my cell number to anyone I don't personally know."
Other celebrities have issued similar warnings this year, including Johnny Depp and Tom Hanks, both of whom said AI-generated videos using their likenesses had been used to promote scams or products without their consent, underscoring how widespread the tactic has become as AI image and video tools grow more convincing.
Singer Sir Tom Jones issued a near-identical warning in January after scammers used fake verified-looking accounts to target his fans. No financial loss was reported in Gruffudd's case, but he said the encounter left him shaken that someone had gone to such lengths to impersonate him convincingly, according to Yahoo Entertainment.