Every Tuesday night at 8pm EST, episodes for ABC’s reality competition show Dancing with the Stars (DWTS) air live for the public to watch and vote. Celebrities across sports, entertainment, and pop culture are paired with professional dancers to compete in partner ballroom dancing. Through feedback from a panel of judges and the public's vote, the dancers compete to win the Mirrorball Trophy. Sixteen pairs start the show and by the end of the competition, through votes and judge eliminations, the top five couples of the season compete in the final. This season, celebrities ranged from Stephen Nedoroscik, US Men's Gymnastics Olympian, to Jenn Tran, the most recent Bachelorette. Dancing with the Stars has always been known for having one controversial celebrity pick each season, like Paula Dean (Season 21) or Carole Baskin (season 29). For season 33, they shocked the media and paired first season pro Ezra Sosa with Anna Delvey.
Anna Delvey is known for posing as a wealthy heiress who found many ways to swindle the New York upper class art and social scenes. Delvey starred in her own Netflix documentary Inventing Anna which depicted her life as a con artist. In February 2022, the miniseries aired and sparked even more discussion around her motives and criminal activity. In behind-the-scenes clips of the first episodes of the current DWTS season, viewers watched Delvey learn a Cha Cha to “Espresso” by Sabrina Carpenter for premiere night. On Oscar night, episode two, after all the couples performed their pieces and Delvey danced a Quickstep to “Suddenly I See” from the movie The Devil Wears Prada, it came down to the first eliminations of the season. Anna and her partner Ezra were eliminated, alongside Tori Spelling and her partner Pasha Pashkov. While the credits rolled, host Julianne Hough panned to Delvey and asked her what she would take out of her experience on Dancing with the Stars to which Delvey replied, “nothing.”
Viewers of DWTS took to Tiktok and Instagram discussing the response from Delvey, some saying she was rude and should have never been allowed on the show, others saying she provided entertainment that had been missing from recent seasons. Was Dancing with the Stars wrong for casting Anna Delvey? Or was it a smart move on their part? All that can be said is that for the first time in DWTS history, audiences watched a contestant dance ballroom in a bedazzled ankle monitor. She really was a felon on the dance floor.
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