Brad Paisley and Kimberly Williams-Paisley fall victim to online cancer scam

(UPI) -- Even celebrities can be "catfished."

Brad Paisley hammed it up on stage Wednesday night at the Country Music Awards, the same day that he and his wife, Nashville actress Kimberly Williams-Paisley, revealed that they were the victims of an elaborate online hoax.

Speaking to Nightline, the Tennessee-based couple admitted that they'd been taken in by an email from a stranger, who claimed to have a daughter dying of cancer.

"She said that her daughter had begged her to get in touch with me," Kimberly revealed Wednesday. "So it sounded very sort of real. But she wasn't dying to get a hold of me. You know, that was kind of the beginning of the manipulation," Kimberly added.

Kimberly communicated with "Carrie" over email, and received photos, journal entries and texts from her and her supposed daughter "Claire." Brad even sang "Amazing Grace" to her over the phone.

But Brad and Kimberly grew suspicious when they offered to send photos to "Claire's" funeral and "Carrie" responded angrily. When they investigated, they found out that images of "Claire" belonged to another girl in a different state.

"That's the sickest part about this to me," Brad said. "That is the part that when I start to talk about that, that's when I get really mad. That there were real kids, that there were real photos involved."

Brad said that he and Kimberly desperately wanted to find the scammer.

“I’m going to find her, and I’m going to make sure this person isn’t able to do this, or isn’t capable of doing worse," he said.