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Inventing Anna spoilers incoming.
There is something extremely captivating about true scammer stories. Inventing Anna is the latest Netflix dramatised real-life story to have us all hooked on how a young woman in her early twenties managed to swindle New York elite circles and American banks out of $275,000 with the intent to borrow $22 million for her dreamworld members club, by making them all think she was a rich German heiress with a $60 million trust fund.
You may already be familiar with the story. Jessica Pressler, a journalist for New York Magazine, wrote a feature on Anna back in 2018; or maybe you read the bestselling book by a Vanity Fair photo editor Rachel Williams — and former friend of Anna's – titled My Friend Anna: The true story of the fake heiress of New York City.
The miniseries about infamous New York City scammer Anna Delvey arrives tomorrow, and it's so good.
If you have now binge-watched the whole series, you will be thinking: ‘No way did that happen’. No way did she manage to go on an unpaid private jet trip without permission, stay in lavish hotels without paying, fake statements to secure multi-million dollar loans, or even cheat her friends into buying her first-class flights when her alledged fraudulent cheques bounce.
So we don’t blame you for now digging the internet to find how much of the show is real and how much of it is fake. At the beginning of every episode, a note pops up on-screen reading: "This story is completely true. Except for all the parts that aren't." So, which ones are true, and which ones actually aren't?
Yes. Anna did indeed take a private jet to fly to Warren Buffett’s conference/soirée in Omaha, Nebraska without paying the $35,390 fee upfront, by forging a wire transfer confirmation slip.
Sadly, we don’t have much evidence that this part of the story is true. There is no record of her lingering on a friend-of-a-friend's yacht for days after everyone else left, and that may have been part of what the writers used to dramatised for the show. When asked about this at an interview with Insider, Sorokin said that the plotlines about her overstaying her welcome on a yacht "doesn't ring a bell."
Pressler has said that Peter W. Hennecke “seems to have been a fictional character”. On the series, we are able to see how Sorokin faked his voice on phone conversations with the banks, by using a voice distortion app, which made her sound like an older German man. The girl thought of everything!
This is very true. So much so that Rachel Williams wrote all about it in her book. The duo, plus two other friends, took an outlandish trip to Marrakesh, inspired by the Kardashians, staying in one of the most expensive resorts in the world, which left one of Sorokin’s friends, Rachel Williams, in debt to the tune of $62,000, some of which got credited straight out of her Conde Nast company card.
She did! After that chaotic trip to Marrakesh, Anna felt stuck and didn’t know who would fund her trip back home. So, she did indeed call a friend in tears to help her secure that airfare home and then processed to request a first-class ticket. Although her friend didn’t bite the bullet, at least she tried.
A big part of the storyline of the series follows Vivian Kent working at ‘Manhattan’ magazine, who was inspired by journalist Jessica Pressler at New York Magazine, as she works towards two huge deadlines – the Anna Delvey story, and her baby’s due date.
Pressler has revealed that she was in fact pregnant while working on Sorokin’s story, via the Recode Media Podcast in June 2018. Although we can’t confirm her baby's due date, social media does suggest that she gave birth weeks, possibly months, after her finished article. So the scene where her waters broke in the office almost certainly didn't happen IRL.
To a certain degree, yes. Jessica Pressler did write an article in late 2014 about a high school student rumoured to have made millions in the stock market. The student had given Pressler what she thought was sufficient evidence to prove his eight-figure net worth, but after the story went to press, his family revealed that it was all fake and New York Magazine accepted full responsibility for printing the lie. Pressler did have an offer from Bloomberg on the table at the time, but it was retracted due to this incident.
However, Pressler went on to publish a story about a group of strippers which became wildly popular, and then the film rights to the article were quickly snapped up and turned into the 2019 Hustlers movie which starred Jennifer Lopez. So it's fair to say that Jessica's journalistic integrity didn't solely rely on the Anna Sorokin story.
We’re unsure if this actually happened, although the series suggest that she faked it, as we see her take too many pills and wash them down with wine, while Instagramming the entire thing and ordering bottle service to her room, leaving the door open, waiting to be found. This all suggests that she was bluffing her way through a psych evaluation, to get herself checked into rehab, and grant her more time in America as her visa was about to expire. All very calculative but Pressler’s article doesn’t say much about an attempt. All we know is that she was arrested in LA outside a rehab facility.
On the show, we see Anna requesting an expensive celebrity stylist Anastasia Walker to dress her for every single court appearance. At one point, she even refused to attend court because she didn't have the right outfit. Her friend Neff then created an Instagram account featuring all her looks – and this Instagram account does exist IRL, dating back to March 2019. But we can’t confirm the creator and the user handle is slightly different from what it is in the show.
Instagram content
In the fourth episode, we see Anna staying at a party pad, doubling up as Magnises owned by Billy McFarland (whom you may recognise from Fyre Festival) who scammed investors out of approximately $26 million. This did happen in real life. Sorokin actually turned what was meant to be a few days' stay (as a favour) into four months. Sources say that McFarland hinted at her to leave, but eventually, the company moved to another location. We cannot confirm if the move was intentional.
And yes, she really did know Martin Shkreli and yes, he did play the unreleased Lil Wayne album "Tha Carter V," he notoriously bought the masters for. Pressler reached out to Shkreli and he confirmed it in a letter he sent from prison.
The actor and convicted fraudster appear to be mates.
Rachel Williams was left with a tab of $62,000 from that infamous trip to Marrakesh. After many attempts to try and recoup the money from Anna – calling her, showing up at her hotels, contacting the police multiple times – she was left with no choice but to co-operate with them as an informant and help them set up a sting to catch Anna outside the LA rehab center she was staying at. This was all true. Williams writes in her book that when Sorokin failed to show up in court, the assistant district attorney asked if Williams would text Sorokin and it all played out similarly to how it did on the show.
Reports and former friends say yes. The original article by Pressler reads that Sorokin would often peel off $100 notes one after the other, in order to attempt to take the hotel’s concierge attention away from other guests, so she wouldn’t have to queue to be attended to. Clearly, she was well and truly living the life she intended to. Her insolence is reported to have kept many around her captivated and it feels almost on brand for someone that rich to just be so out of touch with reality, so in many ways, the character Anna Delvey played by Anna Sorokin herself was ill-mannered and brash and people around her clearly couldn't get enough of it.
And that is why we are all hooked!
For more from Glamour UK Beauty & Entertainment Assistant Shei Mamona, follow her on Instagram @sheimamona
