Anna Delvey says ‘DWTS’ used her to ‘drive up the ratings’

Anna Delvey is speaking out about her first-round elimination from Dancing With the Stars.

Anna Delvey on ‘Dancing With the Stars’.

Disney/Eric McCandless

“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,” Delvey told NBC News on Sept. 26. “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,” she continued.

Delvey, whose real name is Anna Sorokin, was convicted in 2019 for posing as a German heiress to swindle thousands from the New York jet set, as well as hotels and banks. Delvey “felt like I was never really given a fair chance by the viewers or some of the judges, given their nonsensical scoring,” because of the reputation she brought to the show. Finally, she stated that DWTS is “supposed to be a dance competition and not a popularity contest.”

Reps for Dancing With the Stars did not immediately respond to Entertainment Weekly‘s request for comment.

The day after her final episode aired, she told the hosts of Good Morning America that her favorite part of the experience was “getting eliminated.” Delvey’s indifference toward the show shouldn’t come as a surprise. Before the first episode even aired, she told EW that, for her, winning the mirrorball trophy would mean “nothing, really. I don’t know.”

Delvey’s stated feelings about her experience “left a bad taste” in former pro Cheryl Burke‘s mouth, Maksim Chmerkovskiy called her “a s—– dancer,” and judge Carrie Ann Inaba said that it’s both “a shame” that Delvey didn’t have more “gratitude,” and that when Delvey danced, the “energy in the room was really low.”

But not everyone has negative things to say about Delvey or her time on DWTS. On Sept. 27, Delvey’s dancing partner, Ezra Sosa, shared some redemptive thoughts exclusively with EW, insisting, “she learned something!”

“When we were eliminated, I could tell from the jump just staring at her face, she was a little upset about it,” he said. “So I was like, ‘She’s going to go off on Julianne. I can see it happening.'” When she made her already-infamous “nothing” remark, Sosa said it “honestly didn’t [hurt my feelings] when she said that. I was like, ‘Facts, queen.'”

Spelling also had kind words for Delvey, saying on a Sept. 26 episode of her misSPELLING podcast, “I think Anna has a lot of potential… This week, you know, she was starting to smile… she was starting to have more fun, and she has beautiful lines. I think she could be a beautiful dancer. But you know, she has a lot up against her with the public opinion of her.”

The Beverly Hills 90210 star also revealed that she and Delvey “have become unlikely friends.”

Neither Delvey nor Spelling came into episode 2’s elimination with the lowest cumulative scores. That would be Reginald VelJohnson and Eric Roberts, who both survived to dance another step. We’ll see how much further they get when Dancing With the Stars airs Tuesday, Oct. 2 and every Tuesday at 8 p.m. ET/PT on ABC and Disney+.