In the season premiere of Dancing With the Stars, Anna Delvey wore head-to-toe rainbow sequins but lacked the sparkle of her meticulously decorated ankle monitor. Her dance partner, Ezra Sosa, said to Delvey in rehearsal, “To get you to smile is the hardest thing for me to do.” But here’s the thing: Delvey doesn’t care. In fact, it’s her indifferent demeanor that’s making her a star. Again.
Delvey, whose legal name is Anna Sorokin (and who told me to call her either, but that Delvey was better known), was arrested in a sting operation planned by the Manhattan District Attorney’s office in October 2017. Delvey was soon transferred to Rikers Island, where she was held without bail. Three weeks later, she was indicted for stealing approximately $275,000 through multiple scams. Delvey was released from prison on good behavior in 2021 after serving nearly four years. In March 2021, she was taken back into custody by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) for overstaying her visa, and she remained in ICE custody in upstate New York for a year. All of this explains her sparkly ankle monitor and her casting on Dancing With the Stars, where she was one among many chosen from a pool of controversial contestants.
Photography by Oliver Halfin
For Delvey, it was a second chance. She says, “I’ve grown up as a person. I was 26 when I was arrested. I’m 33 now; I think everyone changes between those ages. It doesn’t matter if you’ve been to jail or prison. You go through life experiences and hopefully learn something.”
But did her appearance on the show actually equate with acceptance? She says, “If it were up to me, I would love for people to give me the chance to move on from, whatever, my past. It feels like it’s impossible to shed this wild moniker that the tabloids gave me. So many people were upset about me being cast on the show, even though I’m by far not the worst person they’ve had,” Delvey says, referring to former contestants like Mark Wahlberg, who had a history of racist hate crimes and Adrian Peterson, who was charged with felony child abuse. She says, “It seems like they deserve to have a chance to move on more than I do.”
And she has a point. While unforgivable crimes and social justice movements bring about real change, America is generally a forgiving place to be a celebrity. Think along the lines of Martha Stewart, Mike Tyson, Tiger Woods, Prince Harry, Will Smith, Michael Richards and Lance Armstrong … the list goes on and on. “If you look at my crime, I never had any plans to defraud anyone,” says Delvey. “It’s not like I was an addict or a pathological liar or a pickpocketer. And now I turned my life around. I think my intentions were never bad to begin with, even though people refuse to accept that.”
Delvey says she paid her restitution before going to prison and that she’s done the time for her crime. Dancing With the Stars was just a stepping stone. The show approached her while she was on house arrest (perhaps they could envision the ankle monitor cascading light into the mirror ball trophy). She said she was hesitant; she’s self-admittedly not an entertainer. She then agreed and said, “What’s the worst that can happen? I’ll get a workout.” That, and some negative media attention, apparently.
Delvey was kicked off on the second episode, and by that time, she was so famous that my best friend’s 9-year-old daughter had an impersonation of her coyly quoting, “You’re so basic.” People dressed up as Delvey for Halloween; the costume couldn’t be more, well, basic: simply don an ankle monitor and a sign that says, “Nothing.” The idea stemmed from when DWTS co-host Julianne Hough asked Delvey what she learned from the competition, and Delvey now-notoriously replied, “Nothing.” And the internet went wild. That one word left pop culture devotees wanting another bite of the no-nonsense Anna Delvey, who is frank to a fault. When I ask if she’s an unabashedly honest person, Delvey tells me, “I don’t like to lie as much as people think I do.”
So what’s next for America’s next not-so-sweetheart? It certainly won’t be another televised dancing competition. “I don’t want to be in the entertainment business,” says Delvey. “I don’t have the personality for that. I hate reality TV. It’s just stupid and exhausting.”
These days, Delvey is diving into the fashion world. She put on three shows with publicist Kelly Cutrone during NYFW and capped off the event by walking the runway herself in a custom Shao Yang design featuring a sleek leather slit skirt and blazer. Her debut went better than, say, her performance on DWTS. Delvey says, “I think it went well? The comments I saw were mostly positive, and I didn’t fall down … not sure how else to judge things like that.”
Delvey isn’t new to the fashion industry. She explains, “I’ve been involved in the fashion world one way or another since my teens; I interned for a fashion PR company in Berlin, then for Purple magazine in Paris, and I’m now working with Kelly Cutrone.” She says that since Inventing Anna came out, she’s been asked about translating her aesthetic into a business. “I’m constantly being asked about starting my own line, and it seemed like a natural progression, but that’s only one of the reasons.” Delvey says she is working on something different from anything else on the market.
The name of her new line? Naturally, it’s “Nothing.” Now, who’s smiling?
