If Anna Delvey’s response to being asked what she’d gleaned from her brief stint on Dancing With the Stars — “Nothing” — didn’t make clear enough how she felt about the dance competition, the convicted fraudster happily elucidated more in a new interview with NBC News.
“I feel that the show so obviously used me to drive up the ratings, that they never had any plans to give me any chance to grow and only cared about exploiting me for attention,” said Delvey in an email.
In 2019, Delvey — whose real name is Anna Sorokin — was convicted of impersonating a German heiress and swindling members of the New York art scene. After a few years in prison, she was released in 2021 for good behavior and has since parlayed her notoriety into a Netflix show, a podcast, and her own art career — all while remaining under house arrest as she fights a deportation case. She had to get special approval from Immigration and Customs Enforcement to appear on DWTS, which is why she appeared on the show (and in all promo material) prominently wearing a court-issued ankle bracelet.
On DWTS, Delvey and her partner Ezra Sosa were eliminated after just two episodes. Their first dance, a cha-cha-cha to Sabrina Carpenter’s “Espresso,” earned a score of 18 (out of 30) from the judges, while their second, a quickstep to KT Tunstall’s “Suddenly I See,” garnered a 17. Though these scores weren’t the lowest issued by the judges, the addition of fan voting ultimately led to Delvey’s early exit.
In her email, Delvey defended her dancing from both the judges and viewers while also pushing back further against the show.
“It was predatory of them to try [to] make me feel inadequate and stupid all while I did get progressively better yet they chose to disregard that,” she said, adding: “It felt like I was never really given a fair chance by the viewers or some of the judges’ given their nonsensical scoring. It’s supposed to be a dance competition and not a popularity contest.”
Delvey’s DWTS exit quickly went viral. After being eliminated last week, co-host Julianne Hough asked her what she’d take away from the experience, and she quickly replied with a laugh, “Nothing.” The next day on Good Morning America, she said her favorite part of being on the show was “getting eliminated.”
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