Anna Delvey and her electronic ankle bracelet are dancing with the stars on Dancing with the stars this station.
The biggest names this season come from The Bachelor franchise, the Olympics and Tori Spelling’s house.
But Anna Delvey has a very different claim to fame. She’s a fake socialite. She’s a fraudster. And she went to prison for a shoplifting conviction. Now, she and her ankle monitor, which is all everyone’s talking about, will be in DWTS.
It’s the new American dream.
Who is Anna Delvey?
Anna Delvey does not exist, strictly speaking. Anna Sorokin was born in Russia in the early 1990s and eventually came to the United States. As an intern at a fashion magazine, she used forged documents to pretend to be a wealthy European heiress — gaining access to people, places, and loans.
Eventually, the NYPD caught her in a sting operation in 2017. Her former friend not only reported her, but wrote about her online and published a book about her.
Anna Delvey — as she appears to still be using the fake heiress alias she adopted — was sentenced to four to 12 years for grand larceny, second-degree larceny and theft of services. Since 2022, she has been on parole with an electronic ankle bracelet — and fighting deportation to Germany.
Why is she wearing an electronic ankle bracelet?
If this story sounds familiar… well, it really should. Even if you haven’t read her former friend’s account, there have been several documentaries, podcasts, and headline-grabbing scripted iterations of Anna Delvey’s scheme.
Most famously, Netflix paid Anna Delvey $320,000 for the rights to her story. Here’s how the 2022 miniseries, Inventing Annacame to be.
In October 2022, Anna Delvey received $10,000 bail and was released from jail. Since then, the infamous con artist has remained under house arrest — with an ankle monitor.
The titular “stars” of Dancing with the stars tend to have dubious celebrity status. And there have been many people of Dancing with the stars competitors much worse than a fraudster who scammed some banks and rich people. But one detail really stands out.
Yes, Anna Delvey Has an Electronic Ankle Bracelet — and It Won’t Be Removed on ‘DWTS’
Some ankle monitors are for home confinement only. Someone released under these conditions is usually only allowed to leave the house for court appointments, to meet with authorities, or when given special leave (such as for a funeral or for work).
According to The Associated Press, Representative of Anna DelveyJuda Engelmayer confirmed on Tuesday, September 3, that Anna’s house arrest conditions allow her to travel anywhere within a 70-mile radius of her home and anywhere within the five boroughs of New York City.
Geographical fact: Los Angeles, where DWTS movies, is not part of New York. It is possible—even likely—that Anna Delvey received special permission to participate Dancing with the stars. The ridiculous alternative would mean that she is doing this without permission and will soon end up behind bars.
As you can see in their official document Dancing with the stars promo, Anna Delvey is wearing an ankle monitor for the official promos. This is on purpose. Many promotional photos zoom in on the “star”. This one doesn’t.
It is, of course, sensational that Anna Delvey and her ankle monitor are on the show. As we noted, DWTS has generated controversy in the past, making up for a list of competitors that includes mostly failures and The Bachelor former students with people who really don’t deserve a place in any decent, civilized society.
Truth be told, this is no Anna Delvey. It is often wise to judge fraudsters by their victims. If you need to con someone, it may be morally better to be an Anna Delvey. than a Jen Shah.
By the way? She prefers to wear something else…
Dancing with the stars may be quite happy to show off your ankle monitor and your dazzling “A”, but Anna Delvey is tired of this. According to The New York Postshe has been a “pain in the neck” during monthly ICE checks over her “not-so-elegant” ankle monitor.
“It’s like I don’t want to make a spectacle of it,” Delvey said earlier this summer. “I would love to be able to go out and not be stared at or like not have every delivery guy ask me if I killed my husband or something.”
A tongue-in-cheek response would be to mention that one of the few silver linings to come out of the COVID-19 pandemic is contactless delivery. Between that and the availability of all sorts of clothing and shoes, she could prevent any human being from seeing her ankle monitor if they wanted to.
On a more serious note… there are thousands of non-violent people languishing behind bars who would probably love a chance to be as unfashionable as Anna Delvey. Some might enjoy competing in Dancing with the starsalso.