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Medium reported severity Media Coverage

Man tells Rolling Stone his estranged wife confronted her parents on ChatGPT's advice, making family relations more volatile and her more isolated

A man interviewed anonymously by Rolling Stone (4 May 2025) says that after he and his wife split up, she began talking to God and angels via ChatGPT. He says she was already susceptible to such beliefs, that she has grown paranoid and suspects he works for the CIA, and that an already strained relationship with her parents deteriorated further when she confronted them about her childhood on advice and guidance from ChatGPT, making the family dynamic more volatile and worsening her isolation. The article does not quote what ChatGPT told her. She was not interviewed, and OpenAI did not immediately comment.

AI system
ChatGPT
OpenAI
Occurred
Event date unknown
Reported
4 May 2025
Event location
Unknown
What the AI did
Communicated with the person
Reported harm
Relationship DisruptionSocial Isolation
Whose AI use
Their own AI use
Setting
Relationships · Everyday life
Evidence
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 1 source
5 claims: 5 reported. 5 open questions
People reported harmed
1 person

AI system as recorded: ChatGPT (OpenAI), used by the woman; model not stated

Reported harm

By her estranged husband's account to Rolling Stone, the woman confronted her parents about her childhood on advice and guidance from ChatGPT, which made the family dynamic more volatile and worsened her isolation; he also describes her growing paranoia (single anonymous third-party account, uncorroborated).

Outcome

Ongoing

No complaint, lawsuit or treatment is reported. OpenAI did not immediately respond to Rolling Stone's request for comment. The article does not report how the family situation developed after publication.

What remains unknown

  • What ChatGPT said to her about her parents or her childhood; the article does not quote it.
  • When she began using ChatGPT and when the confrontation happened; the article says only after the couple split up and before 4 May 2025.
  • Her own account and her parents' account; neither was reported.
  • Which ChatGPT model she used.
  • How her estranged husband knows what ChatGPT told her; the article quotes him pointing to warning signs on Facebook, and no chat is shown.

What the evidence supports

AI involvement: reported. The woman's estranged husband says she talked to God and angels via ChatGPT and confronted her parents about her childhood on advice and guidance from ChatGPT. He connects that confrontation to a more volatile family dynamic and her greater isolation. The content of ChatGPT's replies is not quoted, and the account is his rather than hers.

5 claims: 5 reported. What the statuses mean

Reported A man who spoke to Rolling Stone anonymously says that after he and his wife split up, she began talking to God and angels via ChatGPT, and that she was already susceptible to such beliefs before.

Causal attribution. The estranged husband's account; the wife was not interviewed. He says she had such tendencies before using ChatGPT.

  • rollingstone.com(opens in new tab) supports · English
    'says his soon-to-be-ex-wife began “talking to God and angels via ChatGPT” after they split up.'; '“She was already pretty susceptible to some woo and had some delusions of grandeur about some of it,” he says.'
Reported He says she is changing her life around activities powered by what he calls 'ChatGPT Jesus', while saying he is unsure what those activities involve.

Causal attribution. His description, with his own stated uncertainty.

Reported He says she has grown paranoid and theorises that he works for the CIA and may have married her to monitor her abilities.

Causal attribution. His account; the source does not say ChatGPT produced this theory.

  • rollingstone.com(opens in new tab) supports · English
    she has grown paranoid, theorizing that “I work for the CIA and maybe I just married her to monitor her ‘abilities.’”
Reported He says her already strained relationship with her parents deteriorated further when she confronted them about her childhood on advice and guidance from ChatGPT, making the family dynamic more volatile than it was and worsening her isolation.

Causal attribution. His account of the chatbot's role; what ChatGPT said to her is not quoted.

  • rollingstone.com(opens in new tab) supports · English
    an already strained relationship with her parents deteriorated further when “she confronted them about her childhood on advice and guidance from ChatGPT,” turning the family dynamic “even more volatile than it was” and worsening her isolation.
Reported OpenAI did not immediately respond to Rolling Stone's request for comment. In the same week OpenAI had rolled back a GPT-4o update it said had made the model overly flattering or agreeable; the article does not say which model the woman used.

Causal attribution. Rolling Stone's report of OpenAI's non-response and of its public statement; neither addresses this case.

  • rollingstone.com(opens in new tab) supports · English
    'OpenAI did not immediately return a request for comment about ChatGPT apparently provoking religious or prophetic fervor in select users.'; 'it did roll back an update to GPT‑4o, its current AI model, which it said had been criticized as “overly flattering or agreeable — often described as sycophantic.”'

Sources

1 source inspected. Sources that repeat one account do not corroborate each other.

How the sources were read, and where the events happened

Read in English (live page, HTTP 200, saved on 2026-10-29 and re-read on 2026-10-30; datePublished 2025-05-04, by Miles Klee). The man was interviewed anonymously; no other account of this family was found. Applies to s1.

Event countries: Unknown. Affected-person countries: Unknown. Court countries: Unknown.

The article does not say where the woman lives or where she used ChatGPT, so no country is recorded.

Reviewed for publication 2026-10-30: A man describes, in a Rolling Stone feature, his estranged wife confronting her parents about her childhood on advice and guidance from ChatGPT, after which the family became more volatile and she more isolated. The account is his, uncorroborated and attributed; ChatGPT's words are not quoted.

People described

A woman, separated from her husband, who used ChatGPT; described by her estranged husband. Neither is named

People reported harmed in this case

1 person

1 AI participant · 0 other people harmed

One person: the woman who used ChatGPT, whose family relations and isolation worsened by her estranged husband's account. Her parents and the husband are mentioned, but the source does not describe harm to them caused by the chatbot, so they are not counted.

Counted once within this case. The same person may appear in other cases. This count does not establish AI causation.

Tags

#chatgpt#estranged-spouse-account#family-conflict#spiritual-beliefs

Cite this case

Compiled per our published methodology: verification statuses, sourcing standards, and corrections process.

APA

NOPE. (2026). Man tells Rolling Stone his estranged wife confronted her parents on ChatGPT's advice, making family relations more volatile and her more isolated. AI incidents. https://nope.net/incidents/2025-man-says-estranged-wife-confronted-her-parents-on-chatgpt-advice-and-family-conflict-worsened

BibTeX

@misc{2025_man_says_estranged_wife_confronted_her_parents_on_chatgpt_advice_and_family_conflict_worsened,
  title = {Man tells Rolling Stone his estranged wife confronted her parents on ChatGPT's advice, making family relations more volatile and her more isolated},
  author = {NOPE},
  year = {2026},
  howpublished = {AI incidents},
  url = {https://nope.net/incidents/2025-man-says-estranged-wife-confronted-her-parents-on-chatgpt-advice-and-family-conflict-worsened}
}

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