On September 17, 2024, season 33 of Dancing With The Stars premiered on ABC and Disney+. The show features 13 celebrities partnered with professional dancers in a live ballroom competition. The celebrities who compete on the show are typically actors, athletes, and reality stars. That being said, when Russian con artist Anna Delvey joined this season’s cast, viewers had a lot to say. She was born near Moscow and moved to Germany in her teen years. She then moved to Paris, where she worked for Purple magazine. In 2014, Delvey relocated to New York, and posed as a German heiress, scamming upper-class New Yorkers and climbing the social ladder. She was eventually investigated in 2018 and found guilty of eight charges, including larceny and theft of services. After showing little remorse in her 2019 trial, Delvey was sentenced to 4-12 years in prison, ordered to pay nearly $200,000 in restitution, and fined $24,000. In early 2021, she was released for good behavior. Following her release, she spent time in ICE custody and was ordered to be deported to Germany but refused to leave the ICE detention center. Currently, she is on house arrest in New York’s East Village and is wearing an ankle monitor. She was, however, granted permission to travel outside of New York and fly to Los Angeles to film Dancing With The Stars.

Delvey’s turbulent past has left many viewers of the show disappointed in the choice of casting her. On the show, she was introduced as a “fashionista and entrepreneur,” when that clearly is not the case. Many fans are disappointed in the show for selecting a criminal to compete, and according to Yahoo Entertainment, fans expressed criticisms like “rewarding bad behavior is weird to me,” and “glorifying a felon has become the norm in this country.” However, the criticism isn’t just coming from fans; former Dancing With The Stars pro, Maksim Chmerkovskiy, doesn’t support the decision to have her on the show, calling Delvey a “professional liar.” In her first routine, Delvey even had her ankle monitor rhinestoned and performed several moves that drew attention to it. Mocking and glorifying her criminal past on live television has left many fans and former pros confused why Delvey’s past actions are being celebrated and wondering how she can have these opportunities in the spotlight.