I Would Let Anna Delvey Scam Me Out of My Last Cent

I have no choice but to stan America's recently incarcerated grifter queen

anna delvey
I saw Anna Delvey staying at the NoMad and going to Sephora, so I stayed at the NoMad and went to Sephora.
TIMOTHY A. CLARY/AFP via Getty Images

Have you heard the news? Anna Sorokin, alias Delvey, is a free(ish) woman. After serving nearly four years in prison on fraud and larceny charges related to an elaborate scam in which she posed as a millionaire German heiress, the former Rikers Island inmate has been released on parole back onto the streets of Manhattan, where she once conned her way into a life of luxury among a wealthy circle of Big Apple elites.

Since her early release for good behavior, Delvey has wasted no time getting back to business. She’s been busy making a new Twitter account under her faux-heiress alias, staying in swanky Manhattan hotels where she lounges around wearing oversized sunglasses in bed and going to Sephora — all of which she’s been documenting in an attempt to reclaim her own narrative.

“I’m just kind of filming everything I’m doing right now and I’m going to see what to do with it later,” Delvey told Insider of her latest project, Anna Delvey TV. “It’s me like getting all this stuff from Sephora, me opening a bank account as soon as I get permission from my parole officer. I’m going to see my parole officer Tuesday for the first time. Things like that. It’s a way to control what I want to tell. So many people, I see, are trying to tell my narrative. I just decided to do something on my own.”

Indeed, Delvey’s narrative has been covered extensively by the media since the 2018 Vanity Fair and New York magazine features that made her famous. Her story is now set to become a Netflix limited series produced by Shonda Rhimes, and even that recent Sephora trip made a New York Post headline. It makes sense that Delvey, who has said she is also working on a book about her experience in prison, would want to regain control of her narrative.

Of course, some might argue that Delvey only has the opportunity to reclaim her narrative and cash in crime for celebrity thanks to her privilege as a white woman. This is probably true. But I, a woman who has recently rebranded as an Anna Delvey stan because I don’t have much else going on right now and I’m attracted to chaos and destruction, would just like to state for the record that I support Anna Delvey and her grifting schemes unconditionally. As Jezebel’s Emily Alford noted, the cultural conversation surrounding Delvey’s crimes seems to have shifted a bit in the years since they were committed:

Years ago, when we were all a bit more naive, Sorokin’s actions may have seemed deserving of punishment. However, nearly one full year into America’s rapid descent back into Grapes of Wrath-level widespread despair, as desperate citizens have been given a grand total of $1,800 apiece to compensate for months’ worth of lost wages, I hope Sorokin walks into the first high-rise building she sees and steals everything that isn’t nailed down.

Fortunately, it would seem Delvey/Sorokin wouldn’t necessarily rule out returning to her grifty ways at some point. While the celebrity scammer told Insider she considers jail “a huge waste of time,” she also noted that it’s “not so bad as to act as a deterrent for any future crimes.”

In the days since Delvey’s release, I too have found myself cheering her on like a starstruck simp. Delvey, who stole from the rich and gave to herself, embodies a certain Gatsby-like opportunism that inevitably appeals to those of us who’ve drunk the American Dream kool-aid. A Bonnie and Clyde-like anti-hero, her notoriety, far from ruining her, has elevated her to celebrity status.

As Delvey herself put it in a recent tweet, “Going to trial is the new sex tape.” When I think about Anna Delvey, I feel like the high schoolers in Mean Girls heaping their mockumentary-style praise on Regina George. I saw Anna Delvey wearing sunglasses in bed, so I want to wear sunglasses in bed. Anna Delvey tweeted that she writes, “better shit from a prison cell in a day than some of these bitches with fifty editors do in a year,” and I was like, wow, she’s right. Please give Anna Delvey my job. In fact, while we’re here, just give her my life and all my earthly possessions. I’m not worth nearly enough for anyone to bother defrauding me, but I’m pretty sure I would let Anna Delvey scam me out of my every last cent.

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