The High Society Illusion of Anna Sorokin – The Heiress Who Never Was

The night sparkles—but not with stars. It glitters with champagne, sequins, and secrets. Welcome to Manhattan.

In this episode of GBRLIFE Of Crimes, we peel back the velvet curtain on the life and lies of Anna Sorokin, the infamous con artist who lived as Anna Delvey, a fake German heiress. She didn’t just fool a few people—she conned New York’s elite, top hotels, financial institutions, and even close friends, all while living a life most people only dream of.

How did she do it? And more importantly… why?
Join me as we explore:

• The psychological makeup of Anna Sorokin—narcissist, sociopath, or just a master manipulator?
• Her carefully constructed image of wealth and power in a world obsessed with appearances.
• The deeper question: Was Anna a criminal—or a product of a society that values wealth over truth?

From her sharp cheekbones and effortless smirk to the lies that dripped like honey from her tongue, this is a story about power, privilege, and the illusion of success.

✨ Join me as I explore not just what happened, but why it happened.

Chapters

• 0:00 The Illusion of Anna Delvey
• 1:08 A Life of Lies
• 3:01 The Rise to High Society
• 5:03 The Cracks Begin to Show
• 6:30 The Spectacle of Trial
• 7:33 The Aftermath and Reflection

Transcript

0:00

The night sparkles, but not with stars. It glitters with champagne, sequins, and secrets. Welcome to Manhattan. A city where wealth isn't whispered. It's flaunted. Where appearances are everything, and if you look the part, no one asks questions. And Anna Sorokin looked the part. The sharp cheekbones. The effortless smirk. The accent that hinted at boarding schools. And private jets. She wasn't born into the elite. She built herself into one, or at least built the illusion. Because Anna wasn't Anna Delvey. She wasn't a German heiress with a trust fund waiting in the wings. She was the daughter of a Russian truck driver, and everything else, a performance. Welcome to GBRLIFE Transmissions. I'm your host, Kaitlyn, and you're listening to GBRLIFE of Crimes, where we explore not just what happened in crimes committed by women, but why they happened and the psychology behind them. Today, we're diving into the twisted and fascinating story of Anna Sorokin, the con artist who didn't just steal money, she stole status, admiration, and belief. Anna was born on January 23, 1991, in a working-class town outside of Moscow. Her early life was painfully ordinary. Her father was a truck driver. Her mother ran a small shop. There was no private jets, no European boarding schools, only the quiet ache of being ordinary in a world obsessed with extraordinary. When she was 16, Anna's family moved to Germany. She struggled to fit in. She was quiet, withdrawn, but she watched, she learned, and most of all, she began to despise the invisibility that came with being average. Psychologists call this social identity theory, the idea that we derive our sense of worth from the groups we associate with. Anna wasn't satisfied with the group she was born into, so she decided to create a new one. After a failed attempt at art school in London, Anna landed an internship at Purple Magazine in Paris. There she found that she was surrounded by the elite of fashion and art. She saw what she wanted influence power and presence. And she realized something profound. If you look the part, no one asks questions. By the time she arrived in New York in 2013, Anna Sorokin had vanished, and her place stood Anna Delvey. She didn't sneak into high society, she stormed it. With nothing but style, boldness, and an uncanny ability to mirror the elite, Anna embedded herself in the upper crest of New York's art and finance world. She claimed to be an heiress, a German heiress, worth 60 million euros. She tossed around names of fictional financial advisors and promised wire transfers that never came. She lived in luxury hotels like 11 Howard and the W Hotel. She dined at the most expensive restaurants and attended exclusive galas, always on someone else's dime. The brilliance of Anna's con was that she never asked outright. She suggested, she hinted, she allowed others to make the assumptions that she needed for them to believe. The Anna Delvey Foundation was a centerpiece of her dream. She envisioned a cutting-edge private art club housed in, in a historic building on Park Avenue. She had pitched the deck, the architect, the menu. What she didn't have was the money. So she lied. She fabricated documents from Swiss banks. She forged emails from legal teams. She submitted false financials to banks like City National and Fortress, attempting to secure a $22 million loan. Fortress even flew her and a legal team to Omaha for due diligence. But when they pushed for hard proof, Anna backed out, claiming a delay in funds. Meanwhile, her hotel tabs ballooned. Staff were bribed with $100 bills. Her friends were enchanted. No one questioned the myth of Anna Delvey until the cracks spread too far to ignore. In May 2017, after overstaying her welcome at the 11 Howard Hotel, she was evicted. Her accounts were overdrawn and banks began investigating. But still she moved on, scheming, bluffing, floating checks from one bank to another in a carefully timed shell game. Then came Morocco. Anna invited Rachel Williams, a Vanity Fair photo editor, on what she claimed would be an all-expenses trip. They stayed in a $7,000-a-night resort, but when the hotel demanded payment, Anna's cards failed. Staff began threatening arrest. Rachel, terrified, paid the $62,000 bill using her personal and corporate credit cards. Anna assured her it would all be reimbursed. It never was. And Rachel? She went to the police, helping them set up the sting that led to Anna's arrest at a rehab facility in Malibu. By then, Anna had defrauded banks, hotels, luxury retailers, and friends for a total of nearly 275,000. Her trial in 2019 was a spectacle. Anna arrived each day dressed by a stylist, wearing high fashion like a true heiress. She showed no remorse. She sometimes rolled her eyes in court. She was part defendant, part celebrity. Ultimately, she was convicted on eight counts, including grand larceny in the second degree and theft of services. She was sentenced to four to 12 years in prison, ordered to pay restitution of nearly $200,000 and fined $24,000. She served just under four years and was released in 2021. Only to be detained by ICE for overstaying her visa. And in 2022, she was released to house arrest, where she remains still curating her public image. Netflix acquired the rights to her story for $320,000. She painted from jail. She launched a podcast. She is still in the spotlight. So let's ask the harder questions. Was Anna a criminal or a cultural critic who used society's own shallow standards against it? Her actions were calculated, deliberate. She shows signs of narcissism, grandiosity, manipulation, lack of empathy, the whole of it. But did that make her evil? She didn't force money out of people. They handed it over, believing she belonged. Because in a world driven by appearances, she looked like she did. If Anna had been a man, would we call her a hustler, a visionary, a disruptor? What if her story had ended with Anna Delvey Foundation becoming real? Would she have been praised for her ambition? We celebrate scammers all the time when they wear suits and disrupt tech industries. Think about it. Anna's crime wasn't just in what she took. The whole of her crime was in who she dared to pretend to be and the people that she so easily fooled. This has been GBRLIFE of Crimes, part of GBRLIFE Transmissions. I'm Kaitlyn reminding you that understanding the darkness helps us appreciate the light. Join me next time as we uncover another case that challenges everything we thought we knew about the criminal mind.