Anna “Delvey” Sorokin’s pivot from notorious high-society scammer to competitive dancer ended abruptly on Tuesday evening after her first-round elimination from ABC’s “Dancing With the Stars.”
Following her short-lived stint on the reality TV show, the convicted felon spoke exclusively with NBC News about the backlash she endured over her casting — and the wild way she exited the competition.
“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,” Sorokin wrote in an email. “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.”
Representatives for “Dancing With the Stars” did not immediately respond to a request for comment Thursday.
Sorokin was convicted in 2019 of duping friends and financial institutions out of hundreds of thousands of dollars while masquerading as a German heiress. This month, amid her ongoing immigration case for overstaying her visa, ABC announced Sorokin would be among the 13 pop-culture figures to participate in the dance show alongside actress Tori Spelling and U.S. Olympians Ilona Maher and Stephen Nedoroscik.
On Tuesday night, Sorokin and Spelling were eliminated after Sorookin performed a quickstep routine with her partner Ezra Sosa — her court-issued ankle monitor in full view — to KT Tunstall’s “Suddenly I See.” The week prior, she performed a cha-cha dance to Sabrina Carpenter’s “Espresso” and scored 18 out of 30 possible points.
“It felt like I was never really given a fair chance by the viewers or some of the judges’ given their nonsensical scoring,” Sorokin said. “It’s supposed to be a dance competition and not a popularity contest.”
Afterward, the show’s co-host Julianne Hough asked what Sorokin would take away from the experience.
“Nothing,” she responded before laughing.
Sorokin’s on-stage quip, along with her admission later that her favorite part of the show was “getting eliminated,” has since become a viral meme and the latest talking point in criticism aimed at ABC for casting her in the first place. To join the show, which Sorokin admitted she was “hesitant” about, she had to get permission from the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to compete in Los Angeles, far outside her 75-mile house arrest radius based in New York.
Viewers immediately expressed outrage when ABC announced that the “notorious ankle bracelet fashionista” would appear on the show’s 33rd season, demanding the network “stop glorifying” a felon. “DWTS” alum and choreographer Maksim Chmerkovskiy called her a “professional liar” and mocked her dancing on a TMZ podcast. “The View” co-host Whoopi Goldberg lamented that Sorokin received “special treatment” from the government to compete.
Sorokin was released from a New York prison in February 2021 but was detained weeks later by ICE for overstaying her visa, landing back in prison for another 18 months. In October 2022, she was released on a $10,000 bond and put on house arrest. While she was originally housebound in her Manhattan apartment, Sorokin moved to the Hudson Valley in February to live with PR maven and business partner Kelly Cutrone. The terms of her house arrest were revised in August and she was allowed back on social media before jetting off to Los Angeles this month.
But her time in Hollywood hasn’t been smooth sailing. Sorokin said the backlash over her casting made her realize “how easily people will judge you without getting to know you or the true facts of your story.”
The intense criticism even forced the show’s showrunner, Conrad Green, to defend her casting earlier this month in a Variety interview. “Anna is fascinating to a lot of people… so I think there is an inherent curiosity about her,” Green said. “She’s a very valid and interesting part of that cast. Yes, she had the issues she’s had, but we’ve had other people on the show who’ve had criminal issues in the past.”
Sorokin also noted that convicted felons have appeared on the show and were not similarly shamed — an obvious “double standard.”
“I’m trying to start a new chapter moving past mistakes I made and regret when I was much younger,” Sorokin wrote. “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.”
Sosa came to his dance partner’s aid, revealing in a TikTok video that Sorokin was “crying” in the bathroom after all the online negativity. Her crimes were “not right,” Sosa said, but nobody “deserves the amount of hate she’s getting.” Sorokin “deserves a second chance,” he asserted.
“I hadn’t been on social media in over seven years. 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,” she said of her emotional reaction.
Sorokin said she probably won’t keep up with the show as it continues, but she hopes actor Reginald VelJohnson will win.
“I don’t watch TV,” she added.
