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Dancing With The Stars: Anna Delvey joins the line-up
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Dancing With The Stars: Anna Delvey joins the line-up

Con artist Anna Delvey, whose life story inspired the Netflix series Inventing Anna, has signed up to contestant on Dancing With The Stars, the American version of Strictly Come Dancing.

In recent years, Delvey, whose real name is Anna Sorokin, has become notorious for the crimes she commits while posing as a wealthy, well-to-do New York woman.

This year’s Dancing With The Stars cast also includes two U.S. Olympic team participants: rugby player Ilona Maher and bronze medalist Stephen Nedoroscik, and Beverly Hills, 90210 actress Tori Spelling.

Also taking to the dance floor will be Oscar nominee Eric Roberts and Real Housewives of Atlanta star Phaedra Parks.

Sorokin will collaborate with professional dancer Ezra Sosa in the show.

The fraudster was found guilty in 2019 of theft of services and grand larceny, after stealing more than $200,000 (£145,000) from banks and luxury hotels.

She told people she had a $60 million (£46 million) trust fund and an ambitious project to set up an arts foundation of the same name.

But in reality, she was a recent intern at the magazine, from an average family of Russian immigrants living in Germany.

By staying in expensive hotels and showing off her jet-setting lifestyle on Instagram, she managed to make others believe in her fantasy and pay her bills.

Her story gained international attention in 2018 after writer Jessica Pressler wrote an article in New York Magazine.

It was then adapted by Shona Rhimes, the creative force behind Grey’s Anatomy, Bridgerton and Scandal, into a Netflix series in which Sorokin was played by Julia Garner.

Sorokin received $320,000 (£230,000) from Netflix for Inventing Anna, but she was unable to keep all of Netflix’s money because of a New York law that prohibits criminals from profiting from their notoriety.

“I never asked Netflix to buy my story, it just happened,” Sorokin told the BBC in 2021, after her release from prison. “And everything around it, it just spiraled out of control.”