Anna Delvey Just Released a Country Song for Her New Podcast
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Anna Sorokin, the 32-year-old con artist otherwise known as Anna Delvey, is back in the headlines. Not because of her legal saga, nor TV projects like Inventing Anna, which is based on her life. Instead, Delvey just released her first song—from house arrest.
Delvey worked with Brooke Butler, a country artist popular on TikTok, on the single “What The Hell?,” Deadline reported. Butler sings lead vocals while excerpts of one of Delvey’s recorded phone calls from prison pepper the track. “What The Hell?” is featured as the intro and theme song to Delvey’s new podcast The Anna Delvey Show. The podcast started in June.
The 2022 hit Netflix series Inventing Anna launched Delvey’s name into the mainstream. Actor Julia Garner starred as Delvey in the Shonda Rhimes–produced miniseries, which documents the rise and fall of the fake heiress and how she defrauded wealthy friends, banks, hotels, and more.
Since being released from prison in 2021, Delvey has been ensnared by a lengthy deportation case. She was in U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody for a year, before being released to house arrest in the fall. Here’s exactly what Delvey is up to now.
Who Is Anna Delvey Really, and What Did She Do?
Delvey was born Anna Sorokin in a Moscow suburb in January 1991 and later moved to Germany with her family in 2007. She then relocated to Paris, where she started going by Anna Delvey, a ruse she kept up when she traveled on to New York City in 2014. While in New York, she conned her way into an extravagant lifestyle, skipping out on hotel bills and rubbing shoulders with the city’s elite—and stealing from them.
On October 3, 2017, Anna Delvey was arrested by the Los Angeles Police Department, in a sting operation planned by the Manhattan District Attorney’s office. Rachel DeLoache Williams, who alleged she was swindled out of more than $60,000 by Delvey during a trip to Marrakesh, was involved in the sting. (Williams has accused Netflix of “running a con woman’s P.R.” with Inventing Anna.) Delvey was soon transferred to Rikers Island, where she was held without bail. Three weeks later, she was indicted for stealing approximately $275,000 through multiple scams.
“This defendant’s alleged criminal conduct spans from check fraud to six-figure stolen loans and includes schemes that resulted in a free trip to Morocco and travel on private planes,” Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr. said in a press release.
In June 2018, Delvey and her lawyer attempted to make a plea deal, but Judge Diane Kiesel rejected it, saying Delvey showed “no remorse.” Her case went to trial, and in April 2019, Delvey was convicted of eight charges against her, including second-degree grand larceny, theft of services, and first-degree attempted grand larceny. She was found not guilty of two charges: one of attempted grand larceny in the first degree and one of larceny in the second degree (related to the alleged stealing of $62,000 from Rachel Williams in Marrakesh).
On May 9, 2019, Delvey was sentenced to four to 12 years in prison, fined $24,000, and ordered to pay restitution to her victims. “I am stunned by the depth of the defendant’s deception,” Justice Kiesel said in handing down the sentence. She added that Delvey was “blinded by the glitter and glamour of New York City.”
“The thing is, I’m not sorry,” she told the New York Times a day after her sentencing. “I’d be lying to you and to everyone else and to myself if I said I was sorry for anything. I regret the way I went about certain things.”
Where Is Anna Delvey Now?
Delvey was released from prison on good behavior on February 11, 2021, after serving nearly four years. In March 2021, six weeks after her release, she was taken back into custody by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) for overstaying her visa, and she remained in ICE custody in upstate New York for a year.
In an essay she wrote while in custody for Insider, Delvey said “it doesn’t look like I’ll be watching Inventing Anna anytime soon. Even if I were to pull some strings and make it happen, nothing about seeing a fictionalized version of myself in this criminal-insane-asylum setting sounds appealing to me.”
On March 14, 2022, Delvey was set to be deported to Germany. German paper Der Spiegel reported that her deportation failed when she refused to leave the ICE detention center to go to the airport. Delvey’s lawyer told the New York Post that a motion to stay the deportation was filed.
“I spoke to Anna this morning. She was confused and a little concerned,” her lawyer Manny Arora told the Post. “It’s hard [for her] to understand all the bureaucracy, especially given she’s locked up in jail for 20-plus hours a day and doesn’t have control. When you don’t know what your future holds, when you can’t call people when you want to to get information, it makes you anxious and frustrated. She’s staying positive, but it’s hard on her.”
As of June 2022, she remained in ICE custody in Orange County Jail, waiting on a Board of Immigration Appeals to make a decision on her case, and hoped to stay in New York. She told NBC News’ Savannah Sellers:
“It’s pretty, it’s very boring. It’s just like absolutely nothing to do in here. And once a day, I have my tablet. So that’s how I keep in touch with everybody. So I’m just trying to keep busy with all the projects that I have going on. And hopefully I’ll be out of here very, very soon. And my lawyers are working on finding a way to get me out of here as soon as possible.”
In October 2022, Delvey was released from the Orange County ICE facility—on the conditions that she had to post $10,000 bail, remain in 24-hour home confinement, and not use any form of social media, according to Bloomberg. She is awaiting a deportation hearing.
As of July 2023, she remains currently under house arrest in her East Village apartment. In January, Anna threw a “Club House Arrest” party, asking attendees to sign nondisclosure agreements and donate to Access Justice Brooklyn, an organization dedicated to providing pro bono legal service.
What Else Is Anna Delvey Up To?
She signed on to a new docuseries that will pick up where Inventing Anna ends. Delvey signed a deal with Bunim-Murray Productions to star in a limited documentary series about her life after prison.
“Anna’s story is very much alive and still unfolding as we speak,” Michael Driscoll, director of development at Bunim-Murray Productions, told Deadline. “We’ve been developing this project with her for months now—and spent countless hours on phone and video calls with her. She is a complicated and fascinating character, and we are looking forward to telling the next chapter of her ever-evolving tale.”
In January 2023, news came out that Delvey is set to film a reality show, Delvey’s Dinner Club, filmed inside her East Village apartment where she’s under house arrest. The show will from from Courtney White’s production company Butternut.
“She’ll do it through what’s already become one of the hottest tables in town—invitation-only, intimate dinners at her home,” a Butternut press release said. “There, a Delvey-invited group of actors, musicians, founders, socialites, journalists and other esteemed guests will join her each week around a private-chef catered table replete with candid conversations where no topic is off-limits, including Anna’s experience within the criminal justice system, her strategy to rebuild her image, and her plans for the future.”
In a statement, Sorokin said, “There’s nothing like the experience of bringing together a curated group of friends to share life stories and enjoy a great culinary experience. I’m grateful for the opportunity to work with Wheelhouse and Butternut to bring my vision to a wider audience and share a glimpse of the real Anna Delvey.”
There are reportedly plans in the works for Delvey to speak to an MBA class at Harvard Business School.
Anna Also Launched a Podcast
While under house arrest, she launched a podcast called The Anna Delvey Show in June 2023, meant to remake her image. “It’s been five years, a bit more than five years since I got arrested. So, I just like—I changed. I learned so much,” she told the Associated Press.
The official description is as follows: “Not another show about Anna Delvey. The first time audiences hear from the actual Anna Delvey. Season One is recorded from house arrest in NYC’s east village. The Anna Delvey Show is a weekly podcast that explores the preconceived notions of rule breakers, effects of adversity, validity of existing systems and status quo in conversations with guests who are experts in their fields. Covering wide-ranging topics from intersections between art, politics, fashion, music, tech, film, law and finance, it will move beyond tired notions of what’s right and wrong.”
She’s Pursuing an Art Career
It’s not just TV and podcasts: As she awaited news of her deportation, her first art exhibition opened on Manhattan’s Lower East Side in late March 2022, titled “Free Anna Delvey.” The gallery contains works of 33 artists inspired by Delvey’s experience, along with five 22-by-30-inch pencil and acrylic drawings by Delvey herself. Each of the five drawings, according to the New York Times, are priced at $10,000.
“It’s ironic,” Devely told the Times. “How after having failed so publicly while trying to build A.D.F. a couple of years ago, people are way more interested in hearing my voice now than they were back in 2017.”
A second exhibit, her first solo show, titled “Allegedly,” featured 20 drawings by Delvey, created by pens and pencils available to her in ICE detention, was shown at New York City’s Public Hotel on May 19, 2022.
In a recorded call that played during the event, she said:
“Hi everyone, Anna Delvey, here. I hope you guys are enjoying your evening so far. I’m so very excited to unveil my first-ever art collection, titled ‘Allegedly.’ This is a collection of sketches I’ve created while in Orange County Detention. I wanted to capture some of the moments of the past years, both never-seen-before and iconic, using the limited tools I have at my disposal. Some of the pieces are straightforward, others are more abstract and will be unique in meaning and appearance to the observe. I studied fashion illustration in Paris and haven’t really sketched until my trial.”
Her art dealer values the collection in the $400,000-$500,000 range, per Variety. She concluded her message, “You’ve heard so many voices already, but this is the beginning of me telling my story, my narrative from my perspective. I hope you guys enjoy the show.”
In June 2022, she shared she started to get involved in NFTs, as a way to connect with her fans. She’s launching 10 NFTs that will grant holders “exclusive access” to her, including one-on-one phone calls.
“I’m very excited to like connect with everybody who has been supporting me, and I’ve been receiving so many letters and like people have been reaching out to me through the messaging system on this channel,” she told NBC News. “And obviously, I have like very limited opportunity to communicate with people and only have access to my social media. So I’m very excited about this project.”
In December 2022, Anna’s art debuted at a party during Miami Art Week presented by The Locker Room, and she made an appearance via Zoom.
“Gaming the system reveals the system itself. Unapologetically acting in pursuit of her goals, Anna is a divisive and disruptive figure. Call her moral, immoral, scammer, or anti-hero, Anna’s existence acts a mirror, revealing one’s relationship to the disrupted institutions,” the Locker Room said in a statement. “While we don’t condone illegal activity, we sure do find it interesting. Anna’s story is compelling to us; a young immigrant female and aspiring art patron has become a representative of crime and deceit in a time of institutional mistrust and corporate theft... We are excited to be collaborating with this disruptor and visionary as she renews her dedication to her art practice.”
Anna Is Trying to Move Away from Her “Scammer Persona”
“This was never something that I was trying to [be] or I wanted to be,” Delvey told NBC News of the “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.”
She continued, “I just like hate seeing all the scammer and fake heiress headlines. So it’s not something I enjoy, like trying to lean in to promote.” Delvey said she wants a second chance: “I’d love to be given an opportunity for people not to just dismiss me as a quote-unquote scammer.”
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