Fake Heiress: The Anna Delvey scandal

Summary

The rise and fall of Anna Delvey: mixing drama with documentary to tell the incredible story of one of the most infamous impostors of our time

Wealthy heiress Anna Delvey was one of the international jetset. Her Instagram account was a window on a glamorous world, filled with art launches, champagne brunches, VIP parties and stays in high-end hotels. Due to come into a $67m trust fund on her 26th birthday, she planned to establish the Anna Delvey Foundation, a multi-million dollar visual-arts centre in the heart of New York, and wined and dined the city’s wealthy elite to secure investment for her project.

It all sounded amazing – but it was all a lie. Anna Delvey the heiress was actually Anna Sorokin the magazine intern. Through name-dropping, networking and sheer chutzpah, this ordinary twentysomething had reinvented herself as a multimillionaire socialite – conning businesses and friends out of thousands of dollars in the process.

But how did she manage to live a life of luxury for so long? How did she make anyone believe her story? And how did she get people to trust her enough to give her their money?

In this gripping docudrama, journalist Vicky Baker and playwright Chloe Moss dig deeper into the scandal that shook New York, exploring how she successfully scammed high society, and what ultimately brought about her downfall. Bella Dayne, who played Helen of Troy in the BBC series Troy: Fall of a City, stars as Anna.

Cast and credits
Reporting by Vicky Baker
Drama by Chloe Moss
Directed by Sasha Yevtushenko

Starring Bella Dayne as Anna
Other parts played by Chris Lew Kum Hoi, Heather Craney, Will Kirk, Scarlett Courtney, Neil McCaul, Clive Hayward, Ian Conningham, Lucy Reynolds, Adam Courting, Greg Jones, Laura Christy, Jessica Turner, Ikky Elyas and Sinead MacInnes

First broadcast BBC Radio 4, 16 December 2019