Anna Delvey‘s Dancing With the Stars experience left her feeling used and disappointed.
After getting eliminated in the first round last week, the infamous fake heiress opened up about feeling exploited by the ABC dance show.
“I feel that the show so obviously used me to drive up the ratings,” Delvey told NBC News. “That they never had any plans to give me any chance to grow and only cared about exploiting me for attention.”
“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,” Delvey added. She’s known for pretending to be a wealthy European heiress to con New York’s elite art and fashion circles, as well as several banks, out of hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Delvey didn’t hold back her feelings after being voted off Dancing With the Stars last Tuesday. When asked what she learned from her time on the show, the Russian-born con artist bluntly replied, “Nothing.”
Later, on Tori Spelling‘s misSpelling podcast, Delvey chatted with her fellow Season 33 eliminee about her honest exit comment, saying it was simply “the truth.”
“You guys told me what I’m supposed to do,” she said about the DWTS production team. “I tried to do it, and then I still was rejected. And I’m taking away nothing. This is what I’m taking away from it, because your advice was worthless.”
“I felt like, well, they were building me up. It’s, like, ‘Oh, well, only if you smile more, only if you do, like, x y z, it’s going to be so much better for you,'” Delvey shared. “And it felt like they put so much effort trying to get me on the show, like, make me feel comfortable just to… eliminate me this early.”
During her brief stint on Dancing With the Stars, the show played up Delvey’s criminal past, even having her perform with a sparkly ankle monitor.
Delvey, whose real name is Anna Sorokin, is currently on parole after spending over three years behind bars for second-degree grand larceny, attempted grand larceny, and theft of services.
As pop culture fans, we can’t help but wonder: Was Delvey’s inclusion on the show a genuine opportunity or just a ratings grab? It’s a reminder that reality TV isn’t always as real as it seems, and sometimes, the stars we watch are left feeling more like props than people.
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