Exactly 77,310,000 hours have been spent by Netflix users following the ambitious journalist digging into Anna Sorokin’s scams. A daughter of Russian immigrants, disturbingly, she successfully convinced a large group of wealthy people in New York that she was the heir to the enormous German fortune of Queen Instagram. Thanks to a false identity, she visited the salons of the New York elite, lived in luxury hotels, ate in the most expensive restaurants, flew private jets and went on exclusive vacations. And she framed a lot of people to finance her whims. Ultimately, she was convicted of extorting $ 275,000, but the momentum was much greater.
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The legendary Shonda Rhimes took on the production of “Who is Anna”. It is not without reason that she is called the “queen of American television” – from her hand, among others, such titles as “The Surgeons” (the series has a subtle 19 seasons), “Method for Murder” and “Scandal”. The main role was played by Emmy Award-winning actress Julia Garner, who met Sorokin in prison. In an interview with Entertainmet Weekly, she explained that she wanted to understand how the whole story was viewed by cheating people – she did not necessarily want to take this perspective as her own:
I disagree with a lot of the things she did, but I wanted people to see what put her in this situation. (…) Anna is relentless. This is her big advantage, but it is also her weakness. (…) On the other hand, in some respects it resembles a delicate flower. It’s very confusing and a bit scary at the same time. He can also tell hilarious things. No wonder people were so eager to spend time with her.
The script was based on the article “How Anna Delvey Tricked New York’s Party People” by Jessica Pressler, which was published by New York magazine in 2018. The journalist launched a private investigation into a woman who had so successfully deceived the public: she robbed banks, restaurants, hotels and even her closest friends from 2013 to 2017.
In addition to Julia Garner, the cast included, among others Anna Chlumsky Katie Lowes, Laverne Cox and Alexis Floyd. he also made sure that the series was credible. During the preparation for production, the creators consulted Anna Sorokin herself, who received 320,000 dollars for it (the money was used to pay compensation, penalties and salaries of the lawyers who defended her in court). The combination of a sensational plot, a note “based on a true story”, a loud producer’s name, a good cast and a perfect sense of the moment, took hold. The series has been available on Netflix since February 11 – just over a week after the premiere of the acclaimed documentary “The Tinder Cheater” about Shimon Hayut, who claimed to be the son of an Israeli entrepreneur called “the king of diamonds”.
Who is Anna?
Anna Sorokin (or Anna Vadimovna Sorokina) was born on January 23, 1991 in the satellite city of Moscow, Domodedovo. Her father was a truck driver, her mother ran a grocery store before devoting herself to housekeeping. The whole family moved to Germany in 2007 – Anna was then 16 years old. She graduated from school there and got her first job as an intern in a German PR company. Soon after, she went on an internship to Paris, where she got the opportunity to work in the fashion magazine “Purple”. It was there that she began to introduce herself as Anna Delvey.
A business trip to New York Fashion Week turned out to be the beginning of her several-year stay in New York. Sorokin decided to set up a club and an artistic foundation there. As she failed to convince investors, she chose other ways to raise funds.
Claiming to be the heiress of a fortune of 60 million euros, she presented false documents to banks, on the basis of which she wanted to take out a loan of 22 million dollars. However, City National Bank employees became aware of the inaccuracies in the data provided by it. They decided to contact a Swiss bank where Delvey allegedly deposited the previously mentioned 60 million euros. Anna quickly canceled her loan application to avoid major problems. But she did not stop living the life of a German heiress. She forged bank statements, issued uncovered checks and, like Simon Leviev, argued that she had a temporary problem with access to her credit card. By exuding an aura of luxury around herself, she deceived several hotels, restaurants, an airline company and friends, including she took on a “paid” trip to Morocco (after all, her companions had to pay 62,000 dollars for the stay themselves).
She was arrested in 2017, and in December 2018, Anna Sorokin was brought before a New York court. During the trial that lasted several months, the accused could, for example, refuse to come to the trial because she did not want to appear in prison clothes and her everyday clothes were not ironed. The line of defense consisted, inter alia, of on describing Sorokin as an “entrepreneur” and standing up for her “agility”. Ultimately, the woman was sentenced to imprisonment, which she was serving until February 2021. Soon after, she was detained again – this time because her visa had expired. At the moment, he is waiting for deportation to Germany.
It can be said that her career is booming: thanks to the Netflix series she gained notoriety, HBO is working on its screen adaptation of her story, a play about her was staged in the theater, she gives interviews and writes articles for various websites, and more and more people are also following her Instagram account. (at the moment it is 286 thousand. fans). Embittered by this is Rachel DeLoache Williams, who was friends with Sorokin and was pulled over $ 62,000 for a luxury vacation. The court acquitted Anna because it found that Rachel had previously enjoyed the luxuries of her relationship with the fraud.
Williams published the book “My Friend Anna: The True Story of a Fake Heiress” in 2019. In it he writes: “Anna Delvey almost ruined my life. Now she is rewarded for her crimes (…) The series, created by one of the most popular TV women with an Emmy-winning actress, is a guaranteed hit. Anna will be introduced to millions as a complex anti-heroine. fighting her personal demons and a world that still underestimates young women. “
Source: Gazeta
Tristin is an accomplished author and journalist, known for his in-depth and engaging writing on sports. He currently works as a writer at 247 News Agency, where he has established himself as a respected voice in the sports industry.
