Anna Delvey Got Permission From ICE To Compete on ‘Dancing With The Stars,’ Will Wear Her Ankle Monitor

Anna Delvey will be strutting her stuff on the dance floor in the upcoming season of Dancing With the Stars.

If the name rings a bell, the 33-year-old Russia-born woman, born Anna Sorokin, pretended to be a German heiress and scammed her way through New York City’s elite crowd, stealing $200,000 along the way, according to People. She was found guilty of eight charges in 2019 including grand larceny and theft of services.

Delvey was released from an upstate New York prison in 2022 but was ordered to post $10,000 bail, wear an electronic ankle monitor, remain under house arrest, and was banned from using social media. As recently as last month, Delvey had several of her restrictions pulled back in federal court due to a separate lawsuit, per Business Insider.

Netflix even purchased the rights to her story, developing it into Inventing Anna, the 2022 limited series starring Julia Garner.

The announcement of Delvey’s casting was made on Wednesday on Good Morning America. Afterwards, the con artist spoke with the press alongside her dance partner Ezra Sosa, 23, and revealed that she received special permission from ICE to participate in the show, which films in Los Angeles, California.

“I kind of been talked into doing this and I got the permission from ICE and then it was kind of too late to back out,” Delvey told the Hollywood Reporter at the 45 second mark in the video above. Sosa said on Delvey’s behalf that she had some dance experience until she was 12 years old, although he wasn’t convinced at first.

“I had her show me her first position, her plié, and then after I saw her brilliant turnout, I was like, ‘Oh, she does have dance ability,’” said Sosa. “We only had one practice so it's really hard to gauge like how much they can handle. But she did it really well. She did really good.”

Sosa also described the moment he discovered that Delvey enjoys hip-hop while filming promos for the reality TV competition.

“She was getting Brat summer until one moment. She was like, ‘I think we should listen to hip-hop,’ and she just bust down ‘Thotiana’ and she loved it,” Sosa revealed.

Delvey added that she doesn’t believe her ankle monitor, which she is required to wear during the competition, will affect her performance.

When asked what she’s looking forward to getting out of the experience, Delvey merely said, “I just wanna have some fun and maybe get in a little workout.”

On the other hand, Sosa is looking forward to for America to get to know Delvey for who she really is.

“The media has seen a representation of her that I personally think is not her. So I'm very excited for [them] to see the real Anna Delvey,” Sosa said.

Dancing With the Stars’ 33rd season premieres on Tuesday, September 17.