There was a time in early 2022 when everyone tried to learn a strange Russian-German hybrid accent. No one pulled it off quite like Julia Garner, the actor playing the now infamous fake heiress Anna Delvey in Netflix’s juggernaut miniseries. But we tried!
“You’re so basic,” we’d say, emphasis on the -ic. About 18 months since Shonda Rhimes’ drama took over our streaming algorithms, it appears that ‘basic’ is still the worst possible thing Delvey (or, should we say, Sorokin) thinks she could become.
As we watched play out in Inventing Anna, Anna Delvey, born Anna Sorokin, conned her way into New York City’s upper crust. Originally from Russia, she made people believe she was a German heiress set to inherit a sizeable fortune, and used this cover to gain money, goods, services and clout while working towards her goal of opening an exclusive art club.
New York Magazine‘s 2018 story ‘How Anna Delvey Tricked New York’s Party People’ inspired the show, which chronicled how Delvey had ended up in jail after being found guilty of eight charges, including grand larceny in the second degree, attempted grand larceny, and theft of services.
In February 2021 she was released on parole. Six weeks later, she was taken into custody by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) for overstaying her visa and has been legally contesting her deportation from the United States ever since.
Last October, she was granted a US$10,000 bail bond and released from prison, but is required to remain on a 24-hour home arrest with electronic monitoring and no access to social media.
It is here, in her 44 square metre apartment in Manhattan’s East Village, that Variety met up with Delvey in July 2023. In fact, it was one of the rare days the 32-year-old is allowed to leave her building.
Since October, Delvey has only been allowed to leave for her weekly ICE check-ins and trimonthly parole meet-ups. When she does go outside, she’s equipped with a fashion accessory very different to those she swindled for years earlier: an ankle monitor.
“It’s nice to be able to walk, but it would be nicer if I was, like, free,” she told Variety journalist Tatiana Siegel as they walked the New York streets.
The reason Delvey is not ‘free’, despite serving her time in prison, is because she is contesting her deportation to Germany. She is fighting to stay in New York, the city where she committed her crimes.
It makes sense: it’s harder to monetise your infamy from another continent.
Currently, Delvey is wearing many hats (all from the confines of her apartment, obviously): podcaster, TV host, artist and sometime model.
She hopes that with enough of them, we’ll allow her to take off her most recognisable: scammer.
“This was never something that I was trying to [be] or I wanted to be,” Delvey told NBC News about her ‘scammer persona’ in June 2022.
“This is, like totally, has been pushed upon me like by the prosecution and by the following media and by the Netflix show, but I’m trying to move away from that definitely. I just like hate seeing all the ‘scammer’ and ‘fake heiress’ headlines. So it’s not something I enjoy… I’d love to be given an opportunity for people not to just dismiss me as a quote-unquote scammer.”
During her 2019 court case, Delvey became known for her court room looks. Her designer outfits gained her a lot of attention, and a viral Instagram fan account. It’s a formula that she’s recreated since being released, turning her walks to mandated parole meetings into photoshoots several times over the past year.
From her apartment, Delvey has launched a podcast — The Anna Delvey Show — which has so far included guests including Paris Hilton and comedian Whitney Cummings.
Also in her corner are New York personalities, including long-time friend Julia Fox and writer and TV host Ziwe Fumudoh. After recording an upcoming interview, Delvey and Fumudoh posed for a photoshoot outside Delvey’s building.
So, Delvey’s audaciousness has certainly not been dulled by her government-mandated anklet.
Since leaving prison, she has established an oddly celebrated art career, with works she made in ICE detention exhibited in New York and Miami.
“It’s ironic,” Delvey told the New York Times in 2022. “How after having failed so publicly while trying to build [her social club, The Anna Delvey Foundation] a couple of years ago, people are way more interested in hearing my voice now than they were back in 2017.”
Her current home is a far cry from the expensive hotel suites she conned her way into before her arrest, but she is really committed to getting the most out of it.
With cameras set up around the apartment, she plans to turn its footage into a documentary.
“Like a time-lapse. Just to communicate the monotony of what it’s like to be in the same space for extended periods of time,” she explained to Variety.
There is also dinner-party TV series called Delvey’s Dinner Club in the works, where she will host parties for a series of (famous) guests. Presumably, they will have to come to her.
“I was really adamant about not including the ‘reality show’ label. It’s never used in a good way, right? It’s always like, ‘Oh, this shallow superficial person…'” she said. “It’s also hard to like, sit down at dinner when two or three are having a conversation. It’s hard to capture that on camera. But I have a great team working on that.”
Even though it’s the sole reason she can make anything of her current situation, Delvey told Variety she does regret many of her past decisions.
“Me moving on does not mean that I’m saying everything I did was so right. I learned from my mistakes. I paid restitution in full. I paid my legal fees. I never had any public defender. I never took money from the government. Nobody’s paying my rent. Nobody’s paying for anything. So, people, what else is there?”
Fewer ankle bracelet photoshoots, perhaps?
