Anna Delvey, fake heiress, slams 'DWTS' for exploiting her: "Used me to drive up ratings"

Anna Delvey feels she wasn't given a “fair chance” on Dancing With the Stars.

After her elimination from the ABC reality show on Tuesday, she discussed the criticism she faced over her casting and the unexpected way she exited the competition.

“I feel that the show so obviously used me to drive up the ratings, that they never had any plans to give me any chance to grow and only cared about exploiting me for attention,” Delvey told NBC News in an interview published Friday.

“It was predatory of them to try [to] make me feel inadequate and stupid all while I did get progressively better yet they chose to disregard that.”

Earlier in the week, Delvey, 33, was eliminated after performing a quickstep routine with her partner, Ezra Sosa, to KT Tunstall’s “Suddenly I See.”

“It felt like I was never really given a fair chance by the viewers or some of the judges’ given their nonsensical scoring,” she told NBC News — one week after performing a cha-cha to Sabrina Carpenter’s “Espresso,” earning a score of 18 out of 30 points.

“It’s supposed to be a dance competition and not a popularity contest.”

When Delvey was eliminated from DWTS, co-host Julianne Hough asked her what she would take away from the experience. “Nothing,” she replied simply, followed by a laugh.

On Wednesday, she told Good Morning America that her favorite part of the experience was “getting eliminated.”

When ABC initially announced Delvey’s participation in the show’s 33rd season, many people urged the network to reconsider. Delvey said the backlash surrounding her casting made her realize “how easily people will judge you without getting to know you or the true facts of your story.”

Delvey, a convicted felon, was found guilty in 2019 by a New York state court of three counts of grand larceny, one count of attempted grand larceny, and four counts of theft of services, among other charges, after defrauding numerous individuals and businesses.

She deceived New York City’s elite, along with hotels and banks, out of hundreds of thousands of dollars by posing as a wealthy German heiress.