The convicted fraudster, who made headlines with her one-word Dancing with the Stars exit response, sits down with fellow ousted contestant Tori Spelling to reveal why she feels the show let them both down, set them up for ’embarrassment.’
Anna Delvey may not have had much to say in her intro packages or during her exit from Dancing with the Stars, but she’s had plenty to say since then. On Saturday, she sat down with Tori Spelling, who was eliminate alongside her on Tuesday, to talk about their shared experience.
The convicted fraudster also unpacked her viral “nothing” reply when asked what she’d take away from the show, as well as how she felt producers misled her and ultimately may have set both her and Spelling up for ridicule and embarrassment.
It all went down when Delvey dropped by the Beverly Hills, 90210 alum’s misSPELLING podcast following their double elimination episode this week.
When asked what she was trying to say with her now famous one-word retort to Julianne Hough in the closing minutes of the live broadcast, Delvey said, per People, “Because that was the truth.”
Producer Advice ‘Did Not Pay Off’
She went on to speak as if talking directly to the show’s production team. “You guys told me what I’m supposed to do. I tried to do it and then I still was rejected. And, I’m taking away nothing,” she explained. “This is what I’m taking away from it, because your advice was worthless.”
The advice … did not pay off for me, even though I tried to follow it. And this is how I felt,” she continued. “I know… people were trying to interpret my answer in different ways, but no, not really. I really did not take away much from this experience.”
She added that the advice “did not pay off,” and pushed back against any other interpretations of her comment — like some speculating it could have been a light-hearted joke about not stealing anything from the show. “I really did not take away much from this experience,” she clarified.
‘Defensive’ After ‘Backlash’
Delvey also opened up a bit about her standoffish demeanor on the show, arguing that she “had to be on the defensive, especially after all the backlash that I received being cast on the show.”
She did credit producers for trying to defend her and her involvement on the show. This even carried into the first live broadcast, with Carrie Ann Inaba recognizing the chilly response to Delvey’s dance in the ballroom and asking the audience and viewers to give her a chance.
“I think everyone on the cast was generally very nice to me,” Delvey noted. “But in the end, I don’t know.”
In an email interview with NBC News published on Thursday, Delvey admitted to being upset after seeing the online reaction to her first performance. Her partner Ezra Sosa had told the press he found her crying in the bathroom.
“I hadn’t been on social media in over seven years,” she told NBC News, before recalling, “I felt good after my first dance but was not prepared for the hatred directed at me online and just how mean-spirited people can be hiding behind their keyboards.”
Elimination ‘A Little Unbelievable’
At another point in her interview with Spelling, Delvey went in a little more on what she was hearing from the show’s team. It’s like, oh, well, ‘Only if you smile more, only if you do like x y z, it’s going to be so much better for you,'” she recalled. “And it felt like they put so much effort trying to get me on the show, like, make me feel comfortable just to … eliminate me this early.”
As for that early elimination, Delvey isn’t super confident in the legitimacy of that, either, calling it “a little unbelievable.” TooFab has reached out to representatives for Dancing with the Stars regarding Delvey’s comments.
She suggested that her and Spelling’s early elimination was “an attempt of an embarrassment for us to get eliminated before Eric and Reginald.”
Eric Roberts and Reginald VelJohnson have received the lowest scores from judges in the first two weeks, but survived elimination (which is based on a combination of judges scores and viewer votes).
DWTS ‘A Waste of Time’
She said the whole experience “felt like a waste of time … to discard me so easily,” adding, “But it is what it is and it’s fine.” At the same time, she admitted that she found the whole experience “a bit upsetting.”
Delvey further noted, “I never had high expectations on the show for myself … It’s been mostly a negative experience, at least for me, than it was a positive one.”
She talked a bit more about that in that email interview with NBC News, where she said she felt she wasn’t “given a fair chance” by viewers or the judges.”
“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 said. “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.”
“It felt like I was never really given a fair chance by the viewers or some of the judges’ given their nonsensical scoring,” Delvey added. “It’s supposed to be a dance competition and not a popularity contest.”
As for the future, Delvey is still trying to look ahead. Even if DWTS didn’t offer her that fresh start she was looking for, the former convict, who sported a bedazzled ankle monitor on the show, is still ready for it.
“I’m trying to start a new chapter moving past mistakes I made and regret when I was much younger,” she wrote. “Not sure when people will finally afford me that second chance and stop persecuting me so I have the opportunity to move on with my life.”