Anna Delvey makes controversial debut on Dancing With the Stars with ankle monitor

More than 30 seasons into Dancing With the Stars, ABC’s popular competition series hit a controversial milestone during Tuesday’s premiere: the first dance featuring an ankle monitor. Cameras focused on Anna Delvey’s sparkling, legally required device as the convicted con artist performed a cha-cha to Sabrina Carpenter’s “Espresso” with partner Ezra Sosa.

The reason for her unusual accessory? Delvey was convicted in 2019 on eight charges, including grand larceny, for pretending to be a German heiress to defraud financial institutions and friends of hundreds of thousands of dollars. After her release from prison in 2021, she was placed in an immigration detention center for 18 months due to allegedly overstaying her visa. She was later released on bail in 2022 under house arrest while she contested her deportation case.

According to CNN, Delvey is now seeking asylum in the US, with her attorney John Sandweg stating, “there is evidence that demonstrates she would be deported from Germany to Russia and be persecuted.” She mentioned that US Immigration and Customs Enforcement granted her permission to participate in DWTS, as long as her ankle monitor remained on.

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

While earlier performances were met with typical applause and laughter, Delvey’s appearance on the dance floor created a noticeable tension. A few of her friends, including reality TV’s notorious “boss from hell” Kelly Cutrone, who is known for her work on MTV’s The Hills, The City, and her own Bravo series, Kell on Earth, were present in the audience. Delvey and Cutrone recently collaborated during New York Fashion Week and were briefly roommates. 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.”