The “Dancing with the Stars” family is getting all worked up over a whole lot of “nothing.”
Fake German heiress and convicted con artist Anna Delvey, whose real name is Anna Sorokin, competed on the dancing competition show wearing her ankle monitor. She and Tori Spelling were the first celebrities to get booted from the 33rd season of the ABC competition on Sept. 24.
Virtually all of the contestants get voted out, sans the winner, but Delvey’s one-word response after being eliminated has rocked the boat.
So, what exactly did she say? Read on to learn about her now-viral response, how the show’s judges, hosts and stars are reacting and how Delvey is defending her singular word.
How did Delvey get eliminated?
Delvey and her pro partner, Ezra Sosa, scored 17 out of 30 points for their quickstep, set to KT Tunstall’s song “Suddenly I See.” That score, combined with viewer votes, was enough to oust them from the show.
How did Delvey react to being booted from the show?
Ah, this is where the controversy comes in. Delvey, who was the subject of Netflix’s Emmy-winning series “Inventing Anna,” was asked what she would take from the experience of being on “Dancing with the Stars.”
Her response? “Nothing.”
That terse response has been met with a tidal wave of shock on social media — and from within the “Dancing with the Stars” community itself.
What do the judges, host and stars of “Dancing with the Stars” think of Delvey’s answer?
Judge Carrie Ann Inaba was especially disappointed by Delvey’s reaction, telling Entertainment Weekly she was “taken aback” by it.
“That was dismissive not only of the opportunity she was given, of her wonderful and supportive partner Ezra in his debut season, but also of all of us who work on the show-from the dancers to behind the scenes to the creative team,” she said in an interview published on Sept. 25.
“We all put in the effort to give her a fair opportunity. But I don’t think she could see that and it’s a shame. A little gratitude could have changed the narrative.”
Co-host Julianne Hough posted the video of the moment on her Instagram page.
“There you have it….. ICONIC ????☠️,” she captioned the clip.
Delvey’s dancing partner, Sosa, echoed Hough’s “iconic” sentiment.
“I knew she going to say something very iconic and something very Anna Delvey with her exit. Of course, she has to. It’s very typical. We would expect nothing less of her,” Sosa told “Extra” after the show aired.
Co-host Alfonso Ribeiro tried to unpack the complexities of what Delvey did.
“I think there was a lot of shock in the room. Obviously not an answer that any of us would be expecting,” he said while appearing on “The Talk” Sept. 25
Ribeiro joked that she was a “a trendsetter,” but also noted that Delvey was in a tough spot.
“For her and her journey, it’s really difficult in that situation because you’re being told, ‘Bye, you stink, you’re not good enough, we don’t want you here,’ and at the end of the day you have to react to that,” he said.
“She spent the entire time getting destroyed on social media. It was an honest answer, ‘What am I going to take away from this? Hurt, pain, suffering.”
Ribeiro also said he pulled Delvey aside the day before she was eliminated and told her she has the ability to be a good dancer, but she “has to show us that you want it” and said she looked like she was starting to enjoy herself.
“It’s sad because whatever the reasons for doing the show, she didn’t get to show any of that because she was stuck in her head,” he said.
Why did Delvey react the way she did?
On the Sept. 28 episode of the “Misspelling” podcast, when discussing her one-word response after getting eliminated, Delvey defended her blunt answer.
“Because that was the truth,” she said.
“I think like, well you guys told me what I’m supposed to do, I tried to do it, and then I still was rejected,” she added. “Nothing is what I’m taking away from it. Because your advice was worthless. The advice that you gave me, it did not pay off for me, even though I tried to follow it. And this is how I felt.”
Delvey said that she meant “nothing” in the literal sense, despite what others might have interpreted it as.
“I know people were trying to interpret my answer in a different way, but no not really, I really did not take away much from this experience other than …”
“Than that you got to meet me,” Spelling finished.
What else has Anna Delvey said about her being eliminated?
In the Sept. 28 episode of Spelling’s podcast, the two bonded over being the “biggest losers” of the competitive dance show.
“We are like the biggest losers ‘Dancing with the Stars’ has ever seen,” Delvey told Spelling, who burst out into laughter.
She added, laughing, “They thought the blondes have the most fun, and they were like, ‘Just get them out of here.’”
“I honestly did not expect to go home the first show,” Spelling responded, with Delvey adding, “I did not expect you to go home either.”
“Like, nothing would surprise me in my situation because I’m such a wild card,” Delvey continued. “But I was trying, and I was like, ‘Oh, I kind of improved.’”
During the podcast episode, Delvey also explained that she thought the show’s older audience could have impacted her run.
“At first, I had concerns to be on the show because I was thinking what it’s going to do to my image because obviously, none of the older audience can relate to me because of my past,” Delvey said. “So I’m like, everyone who’s a fan of me, they’re on the younger side.”
“It’s not the kind of people who watch live TV necessarily or who know about ‘Dancing with the Stars,’” she added.
NBC News published an exclusive interview with Delvey on Sept. 26, during which she expressed her feelings about the dancing competition after getting eliminated.
“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,” Sorokin wrote in an email to NBC News.
“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.”
NBC News reached out to representatives for “Dancing With the Stars” but did not immediately hear back.
