“This is a [f— you] in the face of a lot of people who have been trying to make their way back to this country and families torn apart,” Goldberg said on ‘The View’
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Looks like not everybody is going to be rooting for Anna Delvey on Dancing with the Stars this season.
On Thursday, Sept. 5, the co-hosts of The View let loose about the convicted con artist’s booking on the ABC reality dancing competition series.
Their critiques come a day after Delvey’s casting was announced, and the news broke that she was given clearance by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to compete for the mirrorball trophy amid her house arrest.
That particularly didn’t sit well with moderator Whoopi Goldberg, who didn’t bite her tongue while acknowledging that DWTS and The View both air on ABC and therefore, “we gotta support the network.”
“I think back to all the families who’ve had family members arrested by ICE, who have gone to the courts to get their dad or their mother or their brother back,” she said. “And this woman, they gave her permission to go do this. Now, should I think there’s a reason. Is there a two-tiered system here with ICE?”
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Delvey, whose real name is Anna Sorkin, gained notoriety for posing as a wealthy German heiress and used her social standing to defraud wealthy people, banks and hotels. She was arrested in 2017 and convicted of grand larceny in the first, second and third degree as well as theft of services in 2019.
Her sentence included four to 12 years in prison, which was cut short when she was released in February 2021 for good behavior. Shortly after her release, Delvey was taken into custody by ICE for violating the terms of her visa. She has been living under house arrest in New York City while fighting her deportation case.
Summarizing Delvey’s legal issues, Sunny Hostin wondered “what’s the consequence” of her crimes? “A bejeweled ankle monitor — a federal bejeweled ankle monitor — and then a spot on a television show?”
“We have a felon running for president, why are we surprised?” Sara Haines said, referencing Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, who in May was found guilty on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records.
The reminder even had Joy Behar suggesting a Dancing with the Felons spinoff. “I think that would be such a hit,” she teased.
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But jokes aside, Delvey’s casting still left the co-hosts feeling frustrated.
“I’m here for a redemption arc, and not a rehabilitation arc: somebody who has owned and taken responsibility for what they did wrong,” Alyssa Farah Griffin pointed out. “I’m not convinced this person has. Con artists tend to remain con artists.”
Goldberg, who often sits back on pop culture-related topics, then jumped in again. “She still owes people money. I don’t understand why she gets to stay!” Goldberg lamented — Behar suggesting it’s because Delvey is “pretty.”
“Well that’s a little bit of a piss-off, I have got to tell you,” Goldberg responded, connecting Delvey’s casting to the larger debate around immigration. “You know, I like pretty people too, but I gotta say, I’m listening to people bitch about what’s going on at the border and I’m listening to people bitching about who shouldn’t be here — well what the hell, man? How does this work?”
“This is a [f— you] in the face of a lot of people who have been trying to make their way back to this country and families torn apart,” the EGOT winner said.
When Behar pointed out that convicted felons had been on the show in the past — including Teresa Giudice, Lil’ Kim and Tommy Chung — Goldberg noted they did it while “not wearing an ankle bracelet.”
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PEOPLE spoke to Delvey on Tuesday, moments after her DWTS casting was announced.
She alleged that it took her request to film DWTS “10 days to get through the system and get everything approved” at ICE — so much so that when that approval came in, “it was very close to the starting day so I kind of flew to LA pretty much the next day and I just decided, ‘Why not?’ “
When asked about facing potential backlash for her controversial casting, Devley said, “It’s just not that serious. If someone is that upset about casting on a dancing show, I don’t know what to tell them.”
Alongside her partner Ezra Sosa, Delvey will compete under the condition she continues to wear her ankle monitor. She told The Hollywood Reporter that her device wouldn’t hinder her ability to perform. “In what way would it affect my performance? It’s actually pretty light,” she said.
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