How DWTS addressed Anna Delvey's past in season 33 premiere: 'Let's all give this a chance'

Anna Delvey is ready to reinvent herself... again.

The fake heiress and con woman (whose real last name is Sorokin) made her Dancing With the Stars debut on Tuesday night's season 33 premiere, but the show didn't cha-cha past her previous crimes.

Delvey was last to perform with her partner Ezra Sosa in the premiere episode, and the pair danced to the house band's rendition of "Espresso" by Sabrina Carpenter. As judge Carrie Ann Inaba pointed out after the routine, "there was a shift in the energy in this room" as soon as the "socialite" stepped on stage.

"I would just like to say, let's all give this a chance, because I can imagine that this was scary for you," Inaba said. "And I'm not pro or for anything that you've done, but this is about your dancing here. Let's all give her that space, please."

Inaba's fellow judges had relatively positive feedback for Delvey, as Bruno Tonioli joked that she was "reinventing Anna yet again" and Derek Hough was left speechless by her potential.

Delvey herself didn't shy away from the ankle bracelet-sized elephant in the room. In her intro package, she said, "In 2017, I was accused of multiple kinds of grand larceny. I did serve my time. And Dancing With the Stars is a way for me to show people a different side of me. My prior history shows I'm pretty determined. It's a quality to channel into something positive."

She also acknowledged her monitor, adding, "I overstayed my visa, because I was in jail, so it was hard to leave."

"I hope that everybody who feels negatively about me, that I will be able to turn their opinion of me around," she said. "I've reinvented myself many times, and this time, I'm going to be a ballroom dancer." After her performance, when cohost Julianne Hough asked her what she hopes people take away from her doing the show, she answered, "I hope that America will get a chance to see a different side of me."

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Delvey and Sosa ended up with a score of 18 out of 30, which placed them around the center of the pack. Asked her reaction to the score, Delvey deadpanned, "I feel happy that I don't have to do this dance again."

Delvey's story of deception first went viral in a 2018 New York Magazine article, and was later turned into a limited series on Netflix starring Julia Garner. Delvey was convicted of grand larceny in 2019 for scamming multiple people out of hundreds of thousands of dollars, and served nearly four years in prison before being released on good behavior. Shortly after her release, however, she was taken into ICE custody for overstaying her visa (she is a German-Russian citizen). Since her release in 2022, Delvey has been under house arrest in New York, but was granted permission to travel to California for Dancing With the Stars. The specifics of her travel restrictions remain unclear.

Dancing With the Stars airs Tuesdays at 8 p.m. ET/PT on ABC.