The First Inventing Anna Teaser Asks: Who the Hell is Anna Delvey?

Who is Anna Delvey? Well, you should know by now—she’s the con artist who scammed the downtown New York art scene and grifted a hotel out of thousands of dollars. After being released from jail earlier this year, she is currently in ICE custody and facing deportation, but how did she get there? Those are the questions posed by Inventing Anna, the highly anticipated Netflix series from the mind of Shonda Rhimes, and starring Julia Garner as the titular scammer.

Adapted from “How an Aspiring ‘It’ Girl Tricked New York’s Party People—and Its Banks,” Jessica Pressler’s New York magazine investigation into the subject, Inventing Anna will tell the tale of Anna Sorokin, who became Anna Delvey, the fake heiress. She befriended some befuddled downtown types, flew them all out to Morocco, and left them to foot the $7,000-a-night bill. She also conned the staff at 11 Howard hotel in New York City’s SoHo neighborhood into believing she could afford to live there, sneaked her way into fashion shows and art parties, and generally lived life with an attitude that led others to just assume she belonged wherever she went. It’s all in Pressler’s story, and will be dramatized for the screen in Rhimes’s show.

Anna Chlumsky takes on the role of the journalist who breaks the story, while Laverne Cox, Shondaland vet Katie Lowes, and Alexis Floyd play a few of Delvey’s duped pals. The nine-part limited series was first announced in June 2018, so it’s been a long time coming—and with a premiere date of February 11, 2022, there’s still quite a bit more time to wait. In the meantime, feel free to familiarize yourself with Pressler’s article (as well as the dueling story published in Vanity Fair) or Emma Corrin’s stage version of the heiress until the show is released.