Anna Delvey is speaking out following her controversial stint on Dancing with the Stars following her elimination from the dance competition series.
During an email interview with NBC News, published on Thursday, the convicted con artist accused DWTS of using her to increase ratings, and claimed she wasn’t “given a fair chance” by viewers or the judges.
“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,” Delvey said. “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.”
“It felt like I was never really given a fair chance by the viewers or some of the judges’ given their nonsensical scoring,” Delvey added. “It’s supposed to be a dance competition and not a popularity contest.”
On Tuesday’s episode of Dancing with the Stars, Delvey and her partner Ezra Sosa performed a quickstep to “Suddenly I See” by KT Tunstall. The pair scored 17 points out of 30 from the judges. This came after the two performed a cha-cha during the season premiere, in which they received a six from all three judges, with a total score of 18.
Delvey and Sosa were eliminated on Tuesday, alongside Tori Spelling and her partner Pasha Pashkov. Spelling lamented her early departure with a message for her kids that they can do anything. However, when Delvey was asked what she’d take away from her experience, she deadpanned, “Nothing.”
Meanwhile, during her interview with NBC News, Delvey also reacted to her partner Sosa’s video, in which he said he found her “crying” after she saw mean comments from viewers following the debut performance on the show’s premiere.
“I hadn’t been on social media in over seven years,” she said, before recalling, “I felt good after my first dance but was not prepared for the hatred directed at me online and just how mean-spirited people can be hiding behind their keyboards.”
Delvey’s appearance on Dancing with the Stars was met with controversy immediately after she was announced. The 33-year-old, whose real name is Anna Sorokin, was convicted of larceny after allegedly posing as a German heiress and scamming thousands of dollars from New York elites to fund her luxurious lifestyle.
Her story was dramatized for Netflix’s Inventing Anna, which starred Julia Garneras Delvey, and had Shonda Rhimes as its showrunner.
Delvey was released from prison in 2021 after serving four years, but has since been on house arrest while fighting her deportation case. Delvey admitted she was granted permission from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to be a part of DWTS, and was required to wear an ankle monitor during the competition.
During her interview with NBC News, Delvey said she hopes she can “finally” get a “second chance” someday.
“I’m trying to start a new chapter moving past mistakes I made and regret when I was much younger,” she wrote after claiming that there was a “double standard” on the show regarding how other convicted felons were treated. “Not sure when people will finally afford me that second chance and stop persecuting me so I have the opportunity to move on with my life.”
And while she claims she doesn’t watch television and said she likely won’t keep watching Dancing with the Stars following her elimination, Delvey noted that she hopes Reginald VelJohnson will take home the Mirrorball Trophy.
