Anna Delvey doesn’t feel she was given a “fair chance” on “Dancing With the Stars.”
Following the ex-con’s exit from the ABC reality show on Tuesday, she opened up about the backlash she received over her casting and the surprising way she left 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 this 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 further told NBC News — one week after she performed a cha-cha dance to Sabrina Carpenter’s “Espresso” and scored 18 out of 30 possible points.
“It’s supposed to be a dance competition and not a popularity contest.”
When it came time for Delvey to leave “DWTS,” the show’s co-host Julianne Hough asked what she’d take away from the experience. “Nothing,” she simply replied before laughing.
On Wednesday, she told “Good Morning America” that her favorite part of the experience was “getting eliminated.”
When ABC first announced Delvey would be competing during the show’s 33rd season, many begged the network to reconsider. Delvey said the backlash over 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 felon, was convicted 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 crimes, after she defrauded various people and businesses.
She conned New York City’s upper class, plus hotels and banks, out of hundreds of thousands of dollars by pretending to be a wealthy German heiress.
She served two years in prison and was released on parole in February 2021.
Shortly thereafter, she was taken into custody by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) for overstaying her visa. She was detained until March 2022 and has worn an ankle monitor since.
“I’m trying to start a new chapter moving past mistakes I made and regret when I was much younger,” Delvey told NBC News.
“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.”
Delvey, who said she doesn’t watch TV and won’t keep up with the show as it continues, hopes “Family Matters” star Reginald VelJohnson will win.
“Dancing With the Stars” and ABC did not immediately responds to Page Six’s request for comment.