Anna Delvey and Her Bedazzled Ankle Monitor Debut on Dancing ...

More than 30 seasons into Dancing With the Stars, ABC’s hit competition series reached a dubious milestone during Tuesday’s premiere: the first dance to feature an ankle monitor. Cameras zoomed in on Anna Delvey’s bedazzled, legally mandatory device as the convicted con artist began her cha-cha to Sabrina Carpenter’s “Espresso” alongside partner Ezra Sosa.

The reason for her unconventional accessory? Delvey was convicted in 2019 on eight charges, including grand larceny, for posing as a German heiress to scam financial institutions and friends out of hundreds of thousands of dollars. She was released from prison in 2021, sent to an immigration detention facility for the next 18 months for allegedly overstaying her visa, then released on bail in 2022 to house arrest as she fights her deportation case. According to CNN, Delvey now seeks asylum in the US, as “there is evidence that demonstrates she would be deported from Germany to Russia and be persecuted,” said her attorney John Sandweg. She said she was granted permission from the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement to be a part of DWTS, granted that the ankle monitor stays on.

Delvey was introduced as a New York “fashionista and entrepreneur” before delivering the premiere’s final dance. “I did serve my time, and Dancing With the Stars is a way to show people a different side of me,” she explained during her intro package. “My prior history shows I’m pretty determined,” she continued, adding with a giggle, “I overstayed my visa because I was in jail. It was hard to leave.”

While previous routines were met with laughter and applause, there was an unmistakable charge when Delvey took to the dance floor. A few of her friends, including reality TV’s “boss from hell” Kelly Cutrone, known for MTV’s The Hills, The City, and her own short-lived Bravo spin-off, Kell on Earth, sat in the audience. Delvey and Cutrone recently collaborated together during New York Fashion Week and were briefly housemates, as Cutrone told Vanity Fair, “We were like frontline soldiers together. We’re bonded now in trauma and dreams and redemption. We became like Ab Fab meets Thelma & Louise meets Batman and Robin.”

Following their dance, judge Bruno Tonioli declared, “Reinventing Anna yet again—and it could be working,” a reference to Inventing Anna, Netflix’s dramatization of Delvey’s crimes from showrunner Shonda Rhimes, starring Julia Garner. Judge Carrie Ann Inaba chastised the audience for their lackluster reaction to Delvey’s dance. “There was a shift in the energy…. Let’s all give this a chance,” she said. “This is about your dancing here. Let’s all give her that space, please.” The judges award her 18 points, placing Delvey in the middle of the pack.

Delvey and her partner have downplayed her court-ordered ankle monitor in promotion of the season. “It’s not like an ankle weight,” Sosa told the Associated Press post-premiere. “It’s not like 20 pounds. It’s like literally less than a pound and it’s not a big deal.” Meanwhile, Delvey told E! News, “I repaid my restitutions and I served my time. I should be afforded a chance to move on,” adding, “This is a dancing show, so hopefully I’m not going to be reincarcerated for dancing badly.”

The show’s first elimination takes place during next week’s episode on September 24.

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