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Dancing with the Stars has had Celebrities-participants from various backgrounds, including athletes and reality TV personalities. This season, however, centers on Anna Delvey, the con artist, who gained notoriety for posing up in New York City as a German heiress.
Known by her stage name Anna Sorokin, she participated in Dancing with the Stars season 33 while wearing an ankle monitor adorned with jewels. Delvey's continuous legal battle over her immigration status in the United States makes her participation in Dancing with the Stars possible.
Although she is still under house arrest and is tracked by an ankle bracelet, her appearance on the show has sparked debate over whether it is morally appropriate to feature someone with her criminal background.
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Her case has cultural issues in addition to legal ones. While some regard her as an anti-establishment hero, others find it puzzling how she has continued to be visible in public, The New York Post even labeled her appearance "a new low for pop culture."
Who is she Anna Delvey from Dancing with the Stars?
Anna disguising herself as a wealthy European socialite, she began to infiltrate affluent New York circles in the mid-2010s. She was successful in defrauding banks, companies, and private citizens of hundreds of thousands of dollars by claiming to have a fortune that didn't exist.
The audience was fascinated by her boldness, especially after an investigation of her scams was published in 2018 by New York Magazine and eventually turned into the Netflix series Inventing Anna.
Sorokin has utilized her fame to stay in the public eye despite her transgressions, and her past has become an integral part of Anna. Jessica Pressler, the journalist who originally broke her story, noted,
“People don’t look that far past the surface,” adding, “Dancing with the Stars...it’s a natural extension of the story.”
Her Participation in Shows
Sorokin's involvement in Dancing with the Stars represents a new phase of her public life. She has generated a lot of criticism because ABC has portrayed her as,
"An artist, fashion icon, and infamous NYC socialite."
Many critics question why a convicted fraudster is being given such a platform. Whoopi Goldberg even mentioned on The View that Sorokin’s presence on the show illustrates a “two-tier immigration system” that benefits the wealthy.
Still, the legal system has allowed her to appear on the show. Sorokin's deportation case has been "fairly protracted," according to her immigration lawyer and former acting head of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), John Sandweg.
He also noted that her home arrest restrictions were initially "really restrictive." But in August 2023, those restrictions were loosened, allowing her to visit Los Angeles to participate in the Dancing with the Stars filming.
Her Crimes
Her frauds cost victims over $200,000. She falsified bank paperwork and conned both individuals and businesses. Securing a $22 million loan to create an arts organization named after her was one of her most daring actions. In 2017, she was apprehended after being discovered in California.
She was found guilty in 2019, one of which was grand larceny, and she received a sentence ranging from four to twelve years in jail. Sorokin was freed in February 2021, having spent almost four years in prison, but she was quickly embroiled in another legal dispute, this time with US immigration authorities, for exceeding the duration of her visa.
Where is she now?
Sorokin has been under house arrest in New York since being released from prison, and she has continued to get attention from the media there. Even yet, she continued to wear her court-mandated ankle monitor while doing interviews and starting a podcast.
ABC and Dancing with the Stars producers defend their decision, with Conrad Green stating,
“Yes, [Sorokin] had the issues she’s had, but we’ve had other people on the show who’ve had criminal issues in the past. She served her time.”
She is becoming more and more well-known as she enters the dance floor, and the controversy surrounding her contentious ascent to stardom is only going to become stronger.
Dancing with the Stars season 33 premiered on Tuesday, September 17 at 8 pm ET on ABC and Disney+.
