Dancing With the Stars pro Ezra Sosa has said that convicted con artist Anna Delvey was found sobbing in the bathroom after her debut on the dance floor.
The duo are paired up on the ABC dance contest but the fact that Delvey—aka the Fake Heiress—is a contestant has angered some fans. Delvey, a Russian-born German citizen, gained notoriety for scamming thousands of dollars while pretending to be a wealthy socialite in New York. She was convicted on counts of grand larceny and theft of services in 2019 and was released in 2021. She is now wearing an ankle monitor as she fights deportation from the U.S.
Delvey and Sosa made their DWTS debut this month, with Delvey’s ankle monitor bejeweled for the occasion. And now the dancer has defended his partner, posting a video message on Instagram saying Delvey “deserves a second chance.”
“During that whole day, it was just truly the best day ever,” Sosa said of starting their DWTS journey. “In the sense, I felt so much love from literally every single person. Including my partner. On my end, I was feeling so much positivity. On my partner’s end, she wasn’t receiving the same.”
Ezra Sosa and Anna Delvey on Dancing With the Stars. Sosa has told how Delvey cried after appearing on the show.
Andrew Eccles/Disney
Looking tearful, he went on: “I think the hardest part of my day was after press line she was reading the comments and we couldn’t find her. They finally found her in the bathroom. She was crying.”
“I’ve never seen her like that and it broke my heart,” he added, wiping away a tear. “As her partner, I wanted to give her the best experience she possibly could. And knowing that that’s not the case, it really did break my heart.”
Sosa said Delvey—whose story inspired the Netflix series Inventing Anna—deserved another shot.
“I know what she did was really controversial and was not right, and I can never justify that for her and for anyone in her life,” he said. “It’s really hard for me because this person that I truly am just falling in love with every single day in rehearsal isn’t the person that everyone sees in the media.
“No one deserves the amount of hate that she’s getting right now. She deserves a second chance.”
He added that Delvey had “stepped up” in the competition and that he couldn’t wait for fans to see how much she has improved.
“Hoping everyone gives Anna some grace,” Sosa captioned the clip. “She’s working so hard to start fresh, and we’re only just getting started…”
Newsweek reached out to representatives for Sosa and Delvey for comment.
