Anna Sorokin is under house arrest on a weekday morning. She lives in a New York apartment building that has been shut down because it poses an immediate threat to life. So she’s doing the most common thing she can think of to get outside attention and stop being bored: she’s starting a show.
Anna Sorokin recently told The Associated Press in her East Village apartment, “So many people got famous for bad things and were able to turn it into something else.”
She said of “The Anna Delvey Show”: “The main idea of my podcast is breaking rules in a way that is useful.”
For now, she wants to change how people see her so that they don’t think she is a con artist or liar.
“I have to stay home all the time. “I can only leave for my parole check-ins, my ICE check-ins, or if I have to go to the hospital,” she said. Behind her is a life-size cutout of her made by artist Kenny Schachter. Like Sorokin, it has a device on its ankle to track its movements.
Using the name Anna Delvey, she pretended to be a German princess and lied about having a $67 million trust fund. She did this to get loans, run up debts and get a historic building for a private arts club. She said she was the daughter of a minister or an oil baron, which was not true. She was arrested at the end of 2017 and found guilty of multiple counts of theft and larceny in 2019. She stole $275,000 from banks, hotels, and rich New Yorkers.
She was given a prison term of four to twelve years. After Sorokin, a German citizen, served three years in prison, about half of which was at the Rikers Island jail complex, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement took him into custody. Later, in the autumn, she paid a $10,000 fee and was allowed to go home until a deportation hearing.
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Now that she has more time at home, she is using it to start a weekly podcast series with expert and celebrity guests that she thinks will tell her side of the story. The podcast company Reunion Audio says that Sorokin’s talks with Emily Ratajkowski, Julia Fox, “Pharma Bro” Martin Shkreli, and Ottessa Moshfegh will be on future episodes.
Based on a story in New York magazine, the Netflix show “Inventing Anna,” which has been nominated for an Emmy, is about Sorokin’s fraud case. Julia Garner, who has won three Emmys, played Sorokin. She said that she was a consultant on the show, but that she didn’t have “any control” over the end product.
“If I said I was fixed, I would have to accept that I was broken, to begin with. I mean, I was young. I made some mistakes,” she said. “I’m trying to take something from them. My crime case is up for direct review.”
“Inventing Anna” was based on real events, but every show had a disclaimer saying that the story was true except for the parts that were made up.
Sorokin said, “I know for sure that some of the things did not happen.” “But it’s not really up to me to sit here and go over the series piece by piece, because it’s a Shonda Rhimes interpretation.”
While Sorokin was in jail, the number of people who liked her grew. They even put together a “Free Anna Delvey” art show with some of her drawings and works by other artists. She has tried to sell pencil pictures for up to $25,000 since then.
The show gives her a chance to regain some control over the story, which is something she’s been thinking about for a while.
“I wanted to start recording in jail, over the jail phone, because, you know, some singers record whole albums while they are in jail. I thought, “Why not make a podcast?” Sorokin said.
She was never able to do it because, according to the podcast company, it was “logistically difficult” to record episodes.
Sorokin called her time in jail a “transformative experience,” saying that she is not the same person she was when she was arrested in 2017.
“I’ve been in jail for a little bit more than five years now. So, I just like — I changed. She said, “I learned so much.” Her ankle band is easy to see because she is wearing a white blouse, her signature black ribbon tie, and dark pants.
She lifts her pant leg to show it off and even explains how it works.
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Anna Sorokin said, “Sometimes you see the banks all doing the biggest fraud on a huge scale, but if you bounce a $500 cheque, for example, that’s fraud.”
On “The Anna Delvey Show” this week, Sorokin’s guest was model and rocker Julia Cumming of the New York City band Sunflower Bean.
Cumming says that Sorokin’s effect on the city makes her a real New Yorker when they talk about what it means to be a real New Yorker.
“You are the first person I’ve ever hung out with who was under house arrest,” she said. “So that’s a really big deal.”
Sorokin agreed that she had never met anyone who was under house arrest.
“It’s like you and Lindsay Lohan,” Cumming said. Lohan was put under house arrest in Los Angeles more than ten years ago.
Sorokin thinks that her fame makes it easy for her to get people to come on her show.
Anna Sorokin was very sure of herself when she said, “I can get pretty much anyone up here.”
But she won’t be able to get Elizabeth Holmes, the founder of Theranos. She just started an 11-year jail sentence for running a blood-testing scam that became a story about greed and arrogance in Silicon Valley.
“I really want to talk to Elizabeth. Sorokin said, “I think she’s a very interesting person.” “I can relate to you more because we’re both women trying to build something,” she said.
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Anna Sorokin might also have U.S. Rep. George Santos on the show, but she doesn’t think they have much in common. The New York Republican who ran for Congress by pretending to be a wealthy Wall Street dealmaker was recently charged with 13 crimes, including fraud, money laundering, and theft of public funds.
Sorokin said about the things written about Santos, “I’m sure some of it is true and some of it isn’t.”
She also said, “I get so many calls to give George Santos jail advice or some other kind of advice. I stayed away from that kind of thing.”
So, for now, the person who is the focus of the “Inventing Anna” series has to wait to see if people listen to the podcast, which will be available this week on all major platforms, and if her plan to change herself works.
FAQs
Anna Delvey, whose real name is Anna Sorokin, is a German-born con artist who posed as a wealthy heiress in New York City. She was able to defraud banks, hotels, and other businesses out of millions of dollars before she was eventually arrested and convicted.
Sorokin started her con in 2013 when she was 22 years old. She moved to New York City and began telling people that she was a wealthy German heiress with a net worth of $60 million. She used this lie to get access to luxury hotels, expensive restaurants, and private jets.
Sorokin’s con eventually came to an end in 2017. She was arrested by the New York Police Department after she failed to pay a bill at a hotel. She was later charged with grand larceny, theft of services, and other crimes.
Sorokin’s story has captured the attention of the public because it is so fascinating. She was able to con people for years, and she did it all while living a lavish lifestyle. Her story is also a cautionary tale about the dangers of social media and the importance of being careful who you trust.
