虚构安娜

评判安娜索沃金不是一件容易的事情。

评判任何人都不是一件容易的事情。

或者说，上天从未赋予过我们这种权利。

我们可以因为安娜伪造了她的身份而很轻易地将她的所作所为定义为诈骗，但是这样的评价同样可以被很轻易地推翻。

因为“身份”本来就是被创造的：父母构造了它，家族构造了它，我们出生的地方，我们的教育背景，我们居住的街道，我们所处的社会，他人对我们的认识，我们对自己的认识。

而当安娜自己完成了这一切时：她用语言塑造了一个无所不在、无所不能的父亲，构造了一个神秘富有、来自异国的家族，重新加工美化了她年少的移民经历和居住环境，运用从时尚杂志里接触到的艺术知识包装自己的教育背景，然后利用这些建立了那些名流们对她的认知，从而不断加固她对自己“构造”的新“身份”的认同。

可以说，安娜构造了一个社会，一个只属于她自己，只关于她自己的社会，就像她那位“科技家”男友说的那样：when a person dream, it’s a dream ,when people dream, it’s the reality. 这位男友并没有将他的构想变成事实，但有趣的是，安娜记住了这句话并且make it come true. 安娜把她脑海里对自己的构想变成了所有人认识并承认的事实，她个人传奇的经历完全可以成为这句话的完美注解。

我们不可能不对此感到惊奇，没有人能够在听到这些之后不提出那个问题：“她是怎么做到的！

” 我们无法真正探寻他人的内心世界，但我们可以通过剧中给出的信息猜测，那可能只有一个答案：信念。

“信念”这个词在现在这个社会已经逐渐和“成功”捆绑在了一起，就像那些富商在他们的演讲里说的那样，强大的信念会引导人们最终走向成功。

安娜也不例外。

我们如果想解读安娜，就必须先理解她对“成功”的渴望。

剧中的安娜一直有一个痛点，是她绝不承认和妥协的，那就是将她的所作所为定义为诈骗。

她说她宁可死在监狱里也拒绝向公众承认自己是个为了奢华生活而骗取他人钱财的骗子。

她始终坚信自己的AFD会是全世界最顶尖的艺术俱乐部，她会成为一个建造全球艺术顶峰殿堂的女企业家，她注定与众不同，注定要让她的名字成为纽约的传奇。

或许的确如此，她天生不同，拥有非凡的眼光和使他人信任的能力，她的话语仿佛具有某种令人眩晕的魔力，令她周围的人无一不陷入她所构建的美梦漩涡里。

不论男女，无论老少。

人人都曾认为自己生而不凡，但我们并不具备那种支撑自己这种想法的能力。

然而安娜不同，她的能力就是她相信自己与众不同的佐证，并且一直被佐证。

她想到什么，她就去实施它，可巧的是，她总能得到她想要的结果，仿佛世界听命于她。

这种能力与幸运交织的错觉好像一只无形的推手，推动她一步步逼近幻梦崩塌的那一天。

那么安娜想要的成功是什么呢？

ADF俱乐部究竟是什么呢？

她为什么会觉得这个俱乐部的建成就是她想要的成功？

即便安娜不断否认她利用他人钱财维持自己奢华享受的指控，她对奢侈生活的迷恋和追求也是无可回避的事实，这也是她最初踏上这条浮华的原因。

对于一个自命不凡的人来说，区别于普通人的奢靡生活是最好也是最简单的证明。

剧里安娜第一次见到薇薇安时，她不断强调她需要一个正式的媒体探访，一个区别于其他人的探视方式，一间单独房子，一张不设隔板的桌子。

这一切都是为了彰显她的特别。

她告诉薇薇安，这个世界上到处都有隐形的VIP通道，找到它们就可以到达任何想去的地方。

精致的打扮，设计好的谈吐，都是进入这个通道的凭证。

她可以为这份凭证随时做好准备，即便身处牢狱，也能保证每天的衣着搭配和发型。

安娜窥见到了这个世界得以运转的另一面，一个隐藏在规则之下的规则，她找到了开启这个秘密世界的钥匙，这就是她征战这个世界的秘密武器，在我们看来，她从此所向披靡，无往不利。

而当我们把目光转向她费尽一切想要到达目的地时，我们还是会感到困惑。

安娜所有的努力都是为了成功地建造她梦想中的顶尖俱乐部：ADF，一个以她的名字命名的消费殿堂。

安娜用了很多精美的图片和雄阔的语言去描绘这个她无比渴望的作品，但事实上，这就是一个高端的消费的场所。

先锋意义的艺术品，花费无数工时的华服，汇聚世界食材的高档餐厅，豪华泳池和休闲设施，安娜把这些称为“艺术”。

而对普通人来说，这是一个大把金钱流动和蒸发的地方，这是一个用无尽物欲填补内心空虚的巴比伦花园。

而安娜把这一切认为是，成功。

她在不断追寻这样的生活，她认识了需要这种生活的人群，然后她找到了会支持这种生活的人群。

因此安娜一定会出现，安娜一定要成功，安娜一定会成功。

打入上流社会对于安娜这样出身普通的人群来说是她实现成功最快捷的方法，而变得“有名”对于安娜来说又是融入上流社会最快速的方法。

因此“有名”就成了安娜最执着的方向。

在她混迹于名流社交活动时，她伪造神秘的富二代身份并用具有技巧性的谈话吸引目标人物的注意力，而当她锒铛入狱时，她又需要媒体对她的无限度曝光来达到在普通人中人尽皆知的目的。

她清醒地知道，只有赢得他人对自己的认可与尊重才是维持奢华生活的长久保障，所以她既不会轻易地投入任何一个富商的怀抱使那些合作方就此轻视她，也绝对不会承认自己的事业是一个虚幻的骗局以至于失去大众对她的支持和好奇。

回观安娜的每一步，她大胆又谨慎，执着又冒险，她几乎具备一个创业家所必备的特质。

她有最能适应现在这个社会的品质，像这个时代教导我们的那样，野心勃勃，不放过任何一个机会，敏锐地感知圈层的流动，聪慧地洞悉那些人心和规则的空隙，在这个惊险的地雷游戏里活跃地如鱼得水。

最重要的，她始终铭记社会教给她的最重要的一点：成功。

当薇薇安作为一个记者，刨根问底地想要找出造就安娜的人物、经历和转折点时，她找不到答案。

安娜说，她一直如此。

薇薇安曾经以为，或许是流言里安娜背景非凡的父母造就了她，或许是校园里不知名的霸凌事件造就了她，或许是潜藏在资料里被人忽略的某个细节造就了她，甚至怀疑过是自己的报道让安娜在媒体的推动下变成了一个可怕又冷漠的怪物。

但是她最终找到的答案是那样苍白无力、普通寻常：没有人，没有事件，安娜生而如此。

在当下的社会，人的成长不再只来自于父母的言传身教。

海量的信息把我们包围，往往我们还未来得及分辨这波浪潮，下一轮浪潮就已经到来。

有的人也许还在吃力地挣扎在海面上，企望获得一瞬间的喘息，有的人已经放弃了呼吸，就此下潜，顺着最深的洋流，沉溺在信息的海洋里。

安娜就是不断下潜的那个人，她比大多数下潜者都更有力量，更有毅力，她接近了那个海底的亚特兰蒂斯，却在看清这个骗局的前一刻耗尽了最后一口氧气。

同处于这片浩瀚的海洋，不难理解为什么安娜的辩护律师会说每个人心里都有一个安娜。

没有人能说自己不向往成功，但是当我们像追问安娜的追求那样去追问自己时，很难说我们得到的答案是不是和安娜追求的ADF俱乐部一样虚无。

这是第一部让我看完结局非常无语让我觉得纯纯浪费时间的美剧 开头几集其实拍的还不错 展现了安娜的野心和她的社交魅力 但是最后两集可以说是败笔中的败笔 第一点我实在不明白为什么女记者和律师以及nef这些人在明白安娜完全就是在骗人之后居然变本加厉的支持她 甚至要帮她开脱罪名 拜托 即使是她聪明 她就是盗刷了别人的信用卡甚至害的朋友因此背债 而她本人就是一个彻头彻尾活在自己幻想里的精神病骗子 而且看到最后我完全不觉得安娜有多大的魅力让大家这么支持她 她就是一个装阔但是无时不刻信用卡都刷不出一分钱的假名媛 而且一旦出了点事情就开始破口大骂情绪崩溃的精神病 老实说看到最后我觉得她很烦人 特别是她非得要在法庭上穿的跟女明星一样然后不停发脾气责怪律师的那一段 给我看的火冒三丈 但是莫名其妙女记者和律师即使要抛弃自己的家庭也要去支持她努力帮她开脱罪名 简直就是把观众的三观按在地板上摩擦 这是在公开支持犯罪吗？

老实说 如果它多花一些part去好好展现安娜是如何利用自己的社交魅力打动那么多富豪圈里的人 那这部剧其实还是有看点的 但很可惜它展现的一直是安娜不停的刷不出钱而出糗 只会一点一点把安娜在观众心目中的形象不断拉低 原本以为是一个社交名媛玩转名利场 没想到是给我们看一个拙劣的精神病骗子 全剧被她耍过的人都跟弱智一样 不检查自己的信用卡账单 收不到钱照样给她办事 通过几个电话就能肯定她的信托基金 看到她每次都刷不出卡还能坚信她是一个富婆 只是偶尔爸妈的钱没跟上。。。

看到我真觉得我的智商被侮辱了 还有他们最后打击瑞秋的那一段更是让我三观崩塌 瑞秋相信她把自己的银行卡甚至连公司的卡都抵押给酒店 还被她刷了个精光 害的瑞秋失去自己的工作债台高筑 而剧里面竟然把她描述成一个假惺惺的骗子 我的天被刷了六万美金的是瑞秋不是你们这些旁观者。。

人家把自己的受骗经历卖给出版社好像是什么大罪一样 一开始安娜请她吃请她穿不也是安娜自愿的？

剧里面把所谓的朋友定义成即使被盗刷了钱也要忍气吞声支持她真是给我看笑了 然后安娜到最后谎言全被拆穿之后居然还是不知悔改 我只能说她病的太重了 已经完全深陷在自己的幻想里 以及剧里面似乎想要给她一些什么渴望亲情的人设 但是实际上我支持她的父母 因为她就是一个眼高手低 不懂的什么是法律边界 不懂的什么是别人财产的疯狂骗子 她活在自己想象里 这样的人谁能叫的醒她？

剧里面应该是想展现她的口才和说服别人的能力 但是每次有关这部分的剧情我只看到了一个刷不出钱的骗子在非常局促不安竭斯底里的逃避 转移话题 试图画一些大饼来让别人认同那些狗屁设想理念 而她这样苍白无力的狡辩被剧里面大多数人接受了才是最令人无语的一点 大家都像没有带上脑子一样跟她相处 并且在发现自己上当受骗后的第一反应竟然是觉得自己丢人疯狂给自己找面子 我只能说现实里的富豪即使表面上装作不在意但是背地里怎么可能放过你？

老实说 这部剧的原型故事其实非常有看头 原型人物确实有很强的能力手段 她的故事是真的很精彩很不可思议但是这部剧里完全把安娜这个人物形象给毁了 编剧将一个精明 善于利用他人信任 有着庞大野心并也为此付出努力 游刃有余周旋在富豪圈里的安娜摧毁成了一个耍小聪明 有点脑子但不多 总能时时刻刻把事情搞砸出糗 然后再苍白无力的狡辩 情绪极度不稳定 看起来好像很强大其实什么都不做好 一边大谈特谈自己要独立 一边又拿着所谓的信托基金这种空头支票到处骗人的傻缺心机女形象 非常失败的人物塑造 加上演员本身也没有展现出安娜的魅力其次整部剧女记者的这个视角非常冗长 剧名叫虚构安娜 但我看完觉得不如叫薇薇安的职场复仇计划 铺垫了不少薇薇安职业上的挫折 提到了好几次她之前文章里的失误 但最后居然就是一笔带过 那为什么要提这件事情 展现女记者的懦弱？

不敢出来道明真相？

不能理解的一些剧情出现了 而且作为一个女记者最后去支持一个诈骗犯 我觉得真的很离谱还有就是最后两集提到了安娜的家人 一开始以为有什么惊人转折 毕竟是电视剧 还真以为编剧把她爸爸改编成一个起码能扑腾点水花 结果整了那么多悬念 最后人家就是个普通人并且跟安娜断绝关系 看完也不知道该说他符合现实呢还是为了凑时长硬编呢 这个所谓的家人完全没有出现的必要 到律师请他来出庭一次都不肯 这个人物角色出现的意义我只能看出来一点：政治正确 俄罗斯人 外国人受到德国人排挤 纯纯的政治正确工具 就跟那个nef不停的强调自己是个黑人一样全剧结尾非常仓促败笔 安娜直到最后都没有从自己的幻想里走出来 记者和律师被她PUA成了她的脑残粉 无视法律 真正的受害人成为了众矢之的 只有她被判的刑符合常理从头到尾大谈特谈所谓的美国梦 所谓的为了自己的梦想努力 以及试图展现了一个年轻女孩的梦想和她的独特魅力 实际上就是给我们展现了一个拙劣的骗子和她脑残的受害人 主角有一种没见过钱所以有钱的时候一定要大手大脚疯狂挥霍 等到没钱了又开始疯狂抓瞎的脑瘫感 说实话看到豆瓣评分还能上7分是有被震惊到的 我只能说可能很多人没有看完或者看完了也是稀里糊涂 以为自己看了部跨越阶级的大爽剧 其实被编剧霸凌了智商和三观 还有被演员们夸张的表演尴尬到的眼睛 我真的被整部剧里的演员演技给无语到了 不是挤眉瞪眼表情浮夸油腻 就是抓狂大叫发癫 最好的就是保持面瘫 只能说整部剧的水平非常平均 就是烂到家了

看完美剧《虚构安娜》（Inventing Anna），故事改编自真实事件，震惊了！

咁都得？！

故事讲述一个假扮德国贵族，亿万身家继承人的女骗徒，假装创业，成立基金会，骗取纽约市，众多上流社会名人、银行家，律师，记者的信任，住最好的酒店的总统套房，偷私人飞机，坐别人的私人游船游玩…不用付一分钱！

震惊的是，这些都是高智商，高收入的名流，专业人士，是什么让他们不知不觉上钩的？

Anna用的策略，是否有你觉得似曾相识？

全身名牌时尚搭配，让人感觉有钱…奢华的挥霍，让人感觉有钱…虚构自己是贵族继承人，让人感觉有钱…她会讲虚构故事，说富豪爸爸跟自己关系不好，断了自己的经济来源，扮抑郁自杀，扮真诚流露，说哭就哭，扮可怜博同情……她貌似拥有高尚的梦想，立志成为独立的年轻女性创业家，让人感觉自信，积极进取，让很多人爱上自己，甚至成为脑残粉！

她会跟你说，你有能力，我让你入我的董事会…她会跟你说，一个人的梦只是梦，一个团队才能把梦实现…她会跟你说，我已经汇款给你了，银行系统太烂，超级慢……（“我已经在解决问题了，由于XXX太烂（暗示不关我事），慢点而已，又不是不解决”…）她会跟你说，（我没有衣服穿出庭），这是你要解决的问题，你解决不到是你能力有问题，You're fired！

……她会让人产生一系列的幻想，产生认知偏差…她有一种操控别人的能力，运用人的情绪弱点，用爱与内疚去操控！

银行家的女儿，面临社会独立又毫无目标的困境…困扰着银行家，Anna运用父亲对女儿的爱与内疚，用自己25岁年轻女创业家艰辛而积极上进的表现获取银行家的信任，银行家把自己对女儿的爱，投射到Anna身上…瑞秋，《名利场》记者，贪慕虚荣，跟Anna一起去旅游，住最高级的酒店及套房，结果把自己的公司的银行卡也砸进去了，她是输了官司的那个…人的业力，很可怕，报道出来以后，名流们都有很强烈的羞耻感，不愿意再提起此人，不愿意告诉大家“我被骗”了，“Anna是好人，Anna是我爱的闺蜜，Anna入狱我很内疚”其实，都是不愿意承认自己“已经被骗”的事实！

最常见的认知偏差，会让人容易上当受骗…疏忽事实，容易相信别人的故事…以偏概全，看到小小的事件就以为是真相…缺乏逻辑，受情绪左右，激动失去理智…思想肤浅，无知的代价很大…贪慕虚荣，贪恋所谓的头衔，贪钱的欲望，最容易被利用受骗…逃避亏损，不想亏损，就不止损，像赌徒一样继续「赌博」…太急怕烦，懒，期待有人帮自己搞掂一切，最后亏损的是自己…你看到自己的业力吗？

我看到了，继续修炼，踏实做人做事…

这个故事让我联想到中学课堂上英语老师放的《百万英镑》，主人公亨利拿着一张不能兑现的百万支票，无需从自己的口袋里掏出一分现钱，就过上了奢侈的生活，跻身上流社会，拥有了自己的产业，最后甚至抱得美人归。

这和安娜很像。

区别在于，格里高利尚且有一张实打实的支票，而安娜什么都没有（除了早年受过的艺校熏陶和过人的艺术天赋）。

她的信托基金是假的，她的德国巨头老爹是假的，甚至连Delvey这个透着贵族气息的德国姓氏也是假的。

这是空手套白狼的极致。

金钱的作用通常是驱使他人为自己服务，而安娜更上一个台阶，用金钱营造出“信心”。

第七集总结安娜的时候，编剧没有把原文用完全，所以显得有点跳脱，我看的时候也有点感觉衔接不上，不太连贯。

原文写得太好了，贴一下：Maybe it could have happened. In this city, where enormous amounts of invisible money trade hands every day, where glass towers are built on paperwork promises, why not? If Aby Rosen, the son of Holocaust survivors, could come to New York and fill skyscrapers full of art, if the Kardashians could build a billion-dollar empire out of literally nothing, if a movie star like Dakota Johnson could sculpt her ass so that it becomes the anchor of a major franchise, why couldn’t Anna Delvey? During the course of my reporting, people kept asking: Why this girl? She wasn’t superhot, they pointed out, or super-charming; she wasn’t even very nice. How did she manage to convince an enormous amount of cool, successful people that she was something she clearly was not? Watching the Rikers guard shove Fast Company into a manila envelope, I realized what Anna had in common with the people she’d been studying in the pages of that magazine: She saw something others didn’t. Anna looked at the soul of New York and recognized that if you distract people with shiny objects, with large wads of cash, with the indicia of wealth, if you show them the money, they will be virtually unable to see anything else. And the thing was: It was so easy.

“Maybe She Had So Much Money She Just Lost Track of It” Jessica PresslerIt started with money, as it so often does in New York. A crisp $100 bill slipped across the smooth surface of the mid-century-inspired concierge desk at 11 Howard, the sleek new boutique hotel in Soho. Looking up, Neffatari Davis, the 25-year-old concierge, who goes by “Neff,” was surprised to see the cash had come from a young woman who seemed to be around her age. She had a heart-shaped face and pouty lips surrounded by a wild tangle of red hair, her eyes framed by incongruously chunky black glasses that Neff, an aspiring cinematographer with an eye for detail, identified as Céline. She was looking, she said in an accent that sounded European, for “the best food in Soho.”

Anna

Vivian原型、原作者：Jessica Pressler“What’s your name?” Neff asked, after the girl waved off her suggestions of Carbone and the Mercer Kitchen and settled on the Butcher’s Daughter.“Anna Delvey,” said the young woman. She’d be staying at the hotel for a month, she went on, which Neff also found surprising: Usually it was only celebrities who came for such long stretches. But Neff checked the system, and there it was. Delvey was booked into a Howard Deluxe, one of the hotel’s midrange options, about $400 a night, with ceramic sculptures on the walls and oversize windows looking onto the bustling streets of Soho. It was February 18, 2017.“Thanks,” said Delvey. “See you around.”That turned out to be a promise. Over the next few weeks, Delvey stopped by often to ask Neff’s advice, slipping her $100 each time. Neff would wax on about how Mr. Purple was totally washed and Vandal was for hipsters, while Delvey’s eyes would flit around behind her glasses. Eventually, Neff realized: Delvey already knew all the cool places to go — not only that, she knew the names of the bartenders and waiters and owners. “This is not a guest that needs my help,” it dawned on her. “This is a guest that wants my time.”This was not out of the ordinary. Since she’d started working there, Neff, a Washington, D.C., native with a wedge of natural hair, giant Margaret Keane eyes, and a gap-toothed smile, had found herself playing therapist to all manner of hotel guests: husbands cheating on their wives, wives getting away from their husbands. “You just sit there and listen, because that’s your concierge life,” she recalled recently, at a coffee shop near her apartment in Crown Heights.Usually, these guests went back to their own lives, leaving Neff to hers. But February became March, and Delvey kept showing up. She’d bring food down, or a glass of extra-dry white wine, and settle near Neff’s desk to chat. Some of the other hotel employees found Anna deeply annoying. She could be oddly ill-mannered for a rich person: Please and thank you were not in her vocabulary, and she would sometimes say things that were “Not racist,” Neff said, “but classist.” (“What are you bitches, broke?” Anna asked her and another hotel employee.) But to Neff, it didn’t come across as mean-spirited. More like she was some kind of old-fashioned princess who’d been plucked from an ancient European castle and deposited in the modern world, although according to Anna she came from modern-day Germany and her father ran a business producing solar panels. And despite her unassuming figure — “a sort of Sound of Music Fräulein,” one acquaintance later put it — Anna quickly established herself as one of 11 Howard’s most generous guests. “People would fight to take her packages upstairs,” said Neff. “Fight, because you knew you were getting $100.” Over time, Delvey got more and more comfortable in the hotel, swanning around in sheer Alexander Wang leggings or, occasionally, a hotel robe. “She ran that place,” said Neff. “You know how Rihanna walks out with wineglasses? That was Anna. And they let her. Bye, Ms. Delvey …”Anna was preparing to launch a business, a Soho House–ish type club, she told Neff, focused on art, with locations in L.A., London, Hong Kong, and Dubai, and Neff became her de facto secretary, organizing business lunches and dinners at restaurants like Seamore’s and the hotel’s own Le Coucou. (“That’s what they do in the rich culture, is meals,” said Neff.) On occasion, when Delvey showed up while the concierge desk was busy, she would stand at the counter, coolly counting out bills until she got Neff’s attention. “I’d be like, ‘Anna, there’s a line of eight people.’ But she’d keep putting money down.” And even though Neff had begun to think of Anna as not just a hotel guest but a friend, a real friend, she didn’t hesitate to take it. “A little selfish of me,” she admitted later. “But … yeah.”Who can blame her? This was Manhattan in the 21st century, and money is more powerful than ever. Rare is the city dweller who, when presented with an opportunity for a sudden and unexpected influx of cash, doesn’t grasp for it. Of course, this money almost always comes with strings attached. Sometimes you can barely see them, like that vaudeville bit in which the pawn dives for a loose bill only to find it pulled just ahead. Still, everyone makes the reach. Because here, money is the one thing that no one can ever have enough of.For a stretch of time in New York, no small amount of the cash in circulation was coming from Anna Delvey. “She gave to everyone,” said Neff. “Uber drivers, $100 cash. Meals — listen. You know how you reach for your credit card? She wouldn’t let me.”The way Anna spent money, it was like she couldn’t get rid of it fast enough. Her room was overflowing with shopping bags from Acne and Supreme, and in between meetings, she’d invite Neff to foot massages, cryotherapy, manicures (Anna favored “a light Wes Anderson pink,” according to Neff). One day, she brought Neff to a session with a personal trainer–slash–life coach she’d found online, a svelte, ageless Oprah-esque figure who works with celebrities like Dakota Johnson.“Stop sinking into your body,” the trainer commanded Anna. “Shoulders back, navel to spine. You are a bright woman; you want to be a businesswoman. You gotta be staying strong on your own power.”Afterward, as Neff panted on the sidelines, Anna bought a package of sessions. “It was, I’m not lying, $4,500,” said Neff.Anna paid cash.Neff’s boyfriend didn’t understand why she was spending so much time with this weird girl from work. Anna didn’t understand why Neff had a boyfriend. But he was rich, Neff protested. He’d promised to finance her first movie. “Dump him,” Anna advised. “I have more money.” She would finance the movie.Neff did dump the guy. Not because of what Anna had said, although she had no reason to doubt it. Her new friend, she discovered, belonged to a vast and glittering social circle. “Anna knew everyone,” said Neff. At night, she’d taken to hosting large dinners at Le Coucou, attended by CEOs, artists, athletes, even celebrities. One night, Neff found herself seated next to her childhood idol, Macaulay Culkin. “Which was awkward,” she said. “Because I had so many questions. And he was right there. But they were talking about, like, friend stuff. So I never got the chance to be like, ‘So, you the godfather to Michael Jackson’s kids?’”Despite her seemingly nomadic living situation, Anna had long been a figure on the New York social scene. “She was at all the best parties,” said marketing director Tommy Saleh, who met her in 2013 at Le Baron in Paris during Fashion Week. Delvey had been an intern at European scenester magazine Purple and appeared to be tight with the magazine’s editor-in-chief, Olivier Zahm, and its man-about-town, André Saraiva, an owner of Le Baron — two of “the 200 or so people you see everywhere,” as Saleh put it: Chilterns and Loulou’s in London; the Crow’s Nest in Montauk; Paul’s Baby Grand and the Bowery Hotel; Frieze, Coachella, Art Basel. “She introduced herself, and she was a sweet girl, very polite,” said Saleh. “Then we’re just hanging with my friends all of a sudden.”Soon, Anna was everywhere too. “She managed to be in all the sort of right places,” recalled one acquaintance who met Anna in 2015 at a party thrown by a start-up mogul in Berlin. “She was wearing really fancy clothing” — Balenciaga, or maybe Alaïa — “and someone mentioned that she flew in on a private jet.” It was unclear where exactly Anna came from — she told people she was from Cologne, but her German wasn’t very good — or what the source of her wealth was. But that wasn’t unusual. “There are so many trust-fund kids running around,” said Saleh. “Everyone is your best friend, and you don’t know a thing about anyone.”She was wearing really fancy clothing. Some one mentioned she flew in on a private jet.After a gallerist at Pace introduced her to Michael Xufu Huang, the extremely young, extremely dapper collector and founder of Beijing’s M Woods museum, Anna proposed they go together to the Venice Biennale. Huang thought it was “a little weird” when Anna asked him to book the plane tickets and hotel on his credit card. “But I was like, Okay, whatever,” he said. It was also strange, he noticed during their time there, that Anna only ever paid with cash, and after they got back, she seemed to forget she’d said she’d pay him back. “It was not a lot of money,” he said. “Like two or three thousand dollars.” After a while, Huang kind of forgot about it too.When you’re superrich, you can be forgetful in this way. Which is maybe why no one thought much of the instances in which Anna did things that seemed odd for a wealthy person: calling a friend to have her put a taxi from the airport on her credit card, or asking to sleep on someone’s couch, or moving into someone’s apartment with the tacit agreement to pay rent, and then … not doing it. Maybe she had so much money she just lost track of it.The following January, Anna hired a PR firm to put together a birthday party at one of her favorite restaurants, Sadelle’s in Soho. “It was a lot of very cool, very successful people,” said Huang, who, while aware Anna owed him money for their Venice trip, remained mostly unconcerned about it, at least until the restaurant, having seen Polaroids of Huang and Anna at the party on Instagram, messaged him a few days later. “They were like, ‘Do you have her contact info?’” he says now. “‘Because she didn’t pay her bill.’ Then I realized, Oh my God, she is not legit.”As Anna bounced around the globe, there was some speculation as to where her means to do this came from, though no one seemed to care that much so long as the bills got paid.“I thought she had family money,” said Jayma Cardoso, one of the owners of the Surf Lodge in Montauk. Delvey’s father was a diplomat to Russia, one friend was sure. No, another insisted, he was an oil-industry titan. “As far as I knew, her family was the Delvey family that is big in antiques in Germany,” said another acquaintance, a millionaire tech CEO. (It is unclear what family he was referring to.) The CEO met Anna through the boyfriend she was running around with for a while, a futurist on the TED-Talks circuit who’d been profiled in The New Yorker.For about two years, they’d been kind of like a team, showing up in places frequented by the itinerant wealthy, living out of fancy hotels and hosting sceney dinners where the Futurist talked up his app and Delvey spoke of the private club she wanted to open once she turned 25 and came into her trust fund.Then it was 2016. The Futurist, whose app never materialized, moved to the Emirates, and Anna came to New York on her own, determined to make her arts club a reality, although she worried to Marc Kremers, the London creative director helping her with branding, that the name she’d come up with — the Anna Delvey Foundation, or ADF — was “too narcissistic.”Early on, Anna and architect Ron Castellano, a friend of her Purple cohort, had scouted a building on the Lower East Side, but it turned out to be too close to a school to get a liquor license, and soon Anna had shifted her aspirations uptown. Through her connections, she’d befriended Gabriel Calatrava, one of the sons of famed architect Santiago. His family’s real-estate advisory company, Calatrava Grace, had helped her “secure the lease,” she informed people, on the perfect space: 45,000 square feet occupying six floors of the historic Church Missions House, a landmarked building on the corner of Park Avenue and 22nd. The heart of the club would be, she said, a “dynamic visual-arts center,” with a rotating array of pop-up shops curated by artist Daniel Arsham, whom she knew from her Purpledays, and exhibitions and installations from blue-chip artists like Urs Fischer, Damien Hirst, Jeff Koons, and Tracey Emin. For the inaugural event, Anna told people, the artist Christo had agreed to wrap the building. Some people raised their eyebrows at the grandiosity of this plan, but to others it made sense, in a New York kind of way. The building’s owner, developer Aby Rosen, was no stranger to the private-club genre; a few years earlier, he’d bought a midtown building and opened the Core Club, which housed an art collection. He also happened to own 11 Howard.With the help of Calatrava executive Michael Jaffe, a former employee of Rosen’s RFR realty firm, Anna soon began meeting with big names in the food-and-beverage world to discuss possibilities in the space. One was André Balazs, who, according to Anna, suggested they add two floors of hotel rooms. Another was Richie Notar, one of the founders of Nobu, who did a walk-through of the building with Anna as she described her vision, which included three restaurants, a juice bar, and a German bakery. “Apparently her family was prominent in Germany,” Notar said, “and funding this big project for her.”But a project of this size required more capital than even someone of Anna’s apparently considerable resources could manage: approximately $25 million, “in addition to $25m existing,” Anna wrote in an email to a prominent Silicon Valley publicist in 2016. “If you think this is something you could help us with and have anyone in mind who would be a good cultural fit for this project.” But by fall, Anna had turned on the idea of private investors, in part because she didn’t want anyone telling her what to do. “If we were to bring in investors, they would say, ‘Oh, she’s 25; she doesn’t know what she’s doing,’” Anna explained later. “I wanted to build the first one myself.”To help secure a loan, one of Anna’s “finance friends” had told her to get in touch with Joel Cohen, best known as the prosecutor of Jordan Belfort, a.k.a. the Wolf of Wall Street. Cohen now worked at Gibson Dunn, a large firm known for its real-estate practice. He put her in touch with Andy Lance, a partner who happened to have the exact kind of expertise that Anna was looking for. In the past, she’d complained to friends about feeling condescended to by older male lawyers because of her age and gender. But Lance was different. “He knows how to talk to women,” she said. “And he would explain to me the right amount, without being patronizing.” According to Anna, she and Lance spoke every day. “He was there all the time. He would answer in the middle of the night, or when he was in Turks and Caicos for Christmas.”After filling out Gibson Dunn’s new-client-intake form, which included checking boxes that confirmed the client had the resources to pay and would not embarrass the firm, Lance put Anna in touch with several large financial institutions, including Los Angeles–based City National Bank and Fortress Investment Group. “Our client Anna Delvey is undertaking a very exciting redevelopment of 281 Park Avenue South, backed by a marquee team for this type of venue and space,” Lance wrote in one email, in which he explained that Anna needed the loan because “her personal assets, which are quite substantial, are located outside the US, some of them in trust with UBS outside the US.” The monies she received, he added, would be “fully secured” by a letter of credit from the Swiss bank. (Lance did not respond to requests for comment.)When the banker at City National asked to see the UBS statements, he received a list of figures from a man named Peter W. Hennecke. “Please use these for your projections for now,” Hennecke wrote in an email. “I’ll send the physical statements on Monday.”“Question: Are you from UBS?” the banker replied, puzzled by Hennecke’s AOL address.No, Anna explained. “Peter is head of my family office.”With Anna in fund-raising mode, the artists and celebrity friends at her dinners were gradually supplanted by men with “Goyard briefcases and Rolexes, and Hublot, like that Jay-Z lyric,” according to Neff, who at one point looked across the table at Le Coucou and recognized the face of infamous “pharma bro” Martin Shkreli, who would later be convicted of securities fraud. Anna introduced Shkreli as a “dear friend,” although it was really the only time they’d met, Shkreli told New York in a letter from the penitentiary; Anna was close with one of his executives. “Anna did seem to be a popular ‘woman about town’ who knew everyone,” he wrote. “Even though I was nationally known, I felt like a computer geek next to her.”As for Neff, she was not as discreet as she had been with Macaulay Culkin, tweeting after the fact that Shkreli had played her and Anna the leaked tracks from Tha Carter V, the delayed Lil Wayne album he’d acquired. Anna was furious, but Neff refused to delete the tweet. “I wanted everybody to know that I heard this album that the world is waiting on! But Anna was pretty mad. She didn’t come down to my desk for maybe three days.”In the meantime, though, Neff said she had another visitor: Charlie Rosen. Aby Rosen’s sons were generally regarded as pretty-boy trust-fund kids — a few years back, they made headlines for reportedly racing ATVs over piping-plover nests in the Hamptons — but Neff liked them, and when Charlie stopped by one evening, she dropped that she’d recently been to visit the Park Avenue building that one of the guests, a young woman, was leasing from their father for an arts club.Rosen looked confused. He didn’t appear to have ever heard of Anna or her project. “What room is she staying in?” he asked. When Neff told him, he looked skeptical. “If my dad has someone buying property from him staying here,” he said, “would she be in a Deluxe or would she be in a suite?”He had a point. A few days later, Neff broached the subject. “Why did you tell me you’re buying property from Aby but you’re not staying in a suite?” she asked.Anna looked surprised but answered immediately. “She said, ‘You ever have someone do so many favors for you, you kind of just want to pay them back in silence?’”“Genius,” Neff said.Soon it was April. Spring was poking its head through the gray New York City sidewalks, and the weather was getting warm enough to sip rosé on rooftops, one of Anna’s favorite activities, although the circle she was doing this with, Neff noticed, was smaller than it had been in the past and mainly consisted of herself; Rachel Williams, a photo editor at Vanity Fair; and the trainer, who, although she was notably older, had taken a motherly interest in her client. “I know a lot of trust-fund babies, and I was impressed that Anna had something that she wanted to do, instead of, you know, living like a Kardashian,” said the trainer. Plus, she said, Anna seemed lonely. Neff noticed the same thing. “What happened to your friends?” she asked Anna after one night out. “Oh,” Anna said vaguely. “They’re all mad I left Purple.” She was too busy for parties, anyway, she said, what with building her business.It was true that Anna was spending a lot of time working, frowning at her in-box and huffing into the phone. “She was always on the phone with lawyers,” said Neff, who would sort of listen in from the concierge desk. “They were always toning her down. Like, ‘Anna, you’re trying to make something that’s worth this much be worth that much, and that’s just not how it works.’”Back in December, City National had turned down her loan request — a management decision is how Anna framed it — and while the ever-loyal Andy Lance was reaching out to hedge funds and banks for alternate financing, executives at RFR were pressuring her to come up with the money fast, Anna said. If she didn’t, they were going to give it to another party, rumored to be the Swedish museum Fotografiska. “How do they even pay for that?” Anna fumed. “It’s like two old guys.”In the meantime, Anna was having cash-flow issues of her own. One night, Anna asked Neff to dinner at Sant Ambroeus in Soho. They were by themselves, which was unusual. Even more unusually, at the end of the meal, Anna’s card was declined. “Here,” she told the waiter, handing him a list of credit-card numbers. In Neff’s admittedly foggy memory, they were in a small book, though it may have been the Notes app on her phone. But she’s clear on what happened next. “The waiter went back to his station and began entering the numbers. There were like 12, and I know the guy tried them all,” she said. “He was trying it and then shaking his head. And then I started to sweat, because I knew the bill was mine.” While the amount — $286 — was a fraction of what Anna usually spent, it was a lot for Neff, who quietly transferred money from her savings to cover the bill. Doing so made her feel sick, but after all the money Anna had spent on her, she understood it was her turn.What happened to all your friends?” “Oh, they’re all mad I left Purple.Not long after, Neff’s manager called and asked her to address a delicate issue: It seemed 11 Howard didn’t have a credit card on file for Anna Delvey. Because the hotel had been so new when she arrived, and because she was staying for such an unusually long time, and because she was a client of Aby Rosen’s and a very valued guest, it had agreed to accept a wire transfer. But a month and a half later, no such transfer had arrived, and now Delvey owed the hotel some $30,000, including charges from Le Coucou that she’d been billing to her room.Neff wasn’t sure what to think. She was sure Anna was good for the money. The day after the Sant Ambroeus debacle, she’d paid her back triple. In cash.When Anna came by her desk the next day, Neff took her aside and told her that management had said Anna needed to pay her bill. Anna nodded, her eyes inscrutable behind her sunglasses. There was a wire transfer on the way, she said. It should arrive soon. Then, about midway into her shift, Anna came by the desk again and, with a mischievous smile on her face, told Neff to expect a package. When it arrived, Neff opened it to find a case of 1975 Dom Pérignon, with Anna’s instructions to distribute it among the staff. Neff hesitated. Gifts, especially of the liquid variety, needed to be approved by management. “They were like, ‘How do we look approving this if she hasn’t paid us?’ So they went after her. ‘We need the money or we’re locking you out.’”One morning, Anna showed up to her morning session with the trainer looking visibly upset. “Can we do a life-coaching session?” she pleaded. She was trying to build something, to do something, she went on, and no one was taking her seriously. “They think because I am young, they think I have all this money,” she sobbed. “I told them the money would be there soon. I’m having it transferred.”The trainer told her to breathe. “I feel like you are in a little over your head,” she offered. “Maybe you just need a break.”Then something miraculous happened. Citibank sent 11 Howard a wire transfer on behalf of Ms. Anna Delvey for $30,000. Neff called Anna on her cell phone. “Where you at?” she asked. Across the street at Rick Owens, Anna replied. Neff checked the clock: It was her lunch break. When she came through the door of the store, Anna was holding up a T-shirt. “Look what I found,” she said, beaming. “It’s perfect for you.” She was right: The shirt was the exact orangey red of the creepy bathroom scene in The Shining, one of Neff’s favorite movies, and the signature color of the brand Neff was trying to launch, FilmColours. It was also $400. “I’d love to buy it for you,” Anna said.A few weeks later, Anna told Neff she was going to Omaha. “I’m going to see Warren Buffett,” she announced, grandly. One of her bankers had gotten her on the list to Berkshire Hathaway’s annual investment conference, and she’d decided to bring the executive from Martin Shkreli’s hedge fund, who was fun and a friend of his, on the private jet she’d rented to take them there. “I’ll be back,” she promised Neff.But there was still a problem with her account at 11 Howard. Despite being repeatedly asked by hotel management, she still hadn’t given the hotel a working credit card, and her charges continued to mount. Following through on their warning, hotel employees changed the code on the lock of Anna’s room and put her things in storage. Neff texted Anna in Omaha to deliver the bad news.“How can they do that?” Anna asked indignantly, although if she was truly shocked, it didn’t last long. The conference had been great, she said. The best part had happened the very last day, when, having exhausted all the opportunities for luxury Omaha had to offer, Anna and her party had taken a cab driver’s suggestion to check out the zoo. They hadn’t expected much, but then, while they were riding around on their golf carts, they’d stumbled on a private dinner hosted by Buffett for a slew of VIPs. “Everyone was there,” she said. “Like, Bill Gates was there.”For a little while, they’d watched through the glass, then they’d slipped in and mingled among them.When Anna got back to 11 Howard, she made her fury known. She was going to purchase web domains in all of the managers’ names, she told Neff, a trick she’d learned from Shkreli: “They’re going to pay me one day,” she said. Also, she was moving out — as soon as she got back from Morocco. Inspired by Khloé Kardashian, she’d reserved a $7,000-a-night riad with a private butler at La Mamounia, an opulent resort in Marrakech, and asked Neff if she wanted to join herself, the trainer, Rachel Williams, and a videographer, who she was hoping would make “a behind-the-scenes documentary” about the process of creating her arts foundation on a vacation. They’d wake up to massages, she said, and spend their days exploring the souk, lounging by the pool. Neff wanted to go, badly. But there was no way the hotel would let her take off eight days. “Just quit,” Anna said airily.For a day or two, Neff considered it. But her mom told her she had a bad feeling about it. “Nothing in life is free,” she said. So Neff stayed behind, morosely following her friend’s journey on Instagram. “I was pretty jealous,” she said.As she would find out, the pictures didn’t exactly tell the whole story. Two days in, after coming down with a nasty case of food poisoning, the trainer had gone back to New York early.About a week later, the trainer got a call from Anna, who was alone at the Four Seasons in Casablanca and hysterical. There was, she sobbed, a problem with her bank. Her credit cards weren’t going through, and the hotel was threatening to call the police. After calming Anna down, the trainer asked to speak to management. “They were like, ‘She is going to be arrested,’” she said.The trainer was torn: On the one hand, this was not her problem. On the other, Anna was her client, her friend, and someone’s daughter. Offering a prayer to the universe, the trainer gave the hotel her credit-card number and, when it failed to go through, made the requisite calls to her bank. When it still failed to go through, she went the extra mile: She called a friend and had her give her credit-card information. When that failed to work, the hotel conceded the problem might be on their end.Later, the trainer would recognize this as a substantial gift from the Universe. At the time, she promised the hotel in Casablanca that Anna would make them whole. “Trust me,” she told them. “I know she’s good for it. I just spent two days with her in Marrakech.” When Anna came back on the phone, the trainer told her she was booking her a ticket back to New York. Anna snuffled her thanks. Then she asked for one last favor: “Can you get me first class?” she asked.A few days later, a silvery Tesla pulled up in front of 11 Howard. Neff, at the concierge desk, felt her cell phone buzz. “Look out the window,” said a familiar German accent. The car’s futuristic doors slowly raised up to reveal Anna. “I’m here to get my stuff,” she said.Anna was making good on her promise to leave 11 Howard. She was moving downtown to the Beekman Hotel, she told Neff, who watched her drive away in a car that she only later realized someone must have rented to her. Moving didn’t stem Anna’s mounting troubles. Not only did she owe the hotel, but, over in London, Marc Kremers, the designer she’d hired to do her branding work, was getting antsy: The £16,800 fee Anna had promised would arrive by wire almost a year before had yet to materialize, and now emails to Anna’s financial adviser, Peter W. Hennecke, were bouncing back. “Peter passed away last month,” Anna replied. “Please refrain from contacting or mentioning any communication with him going forward.”In retrospect, her terseness was understandable. Things were rapidly deteriorating for Anna Delvey in New York. Twenty days into her stay, the Beekman Hotel, having realized it did not have a working credit card on file and having not received the promised wire transfer for her balance of $11,518.59, locked Anna out of her room and confiscated her belongings. A subsequent two-day stay at the W Hoteldowntown ended in a similar fashion, and by July 5, Anna was effectively homeless, wandering the streets in threadbare Alexander Wang sportswear.Late one night, she made her way to the trainer’s apartment and dialed her from outside. “I’m right near your building,” she said. “Do you think we could talk?”The trainer hesitated: She was in the middle of a date. But there was a desperate note in Anna’s voice. She made her way to her lobby, where she found Anna with tears streaming down her face. “I’m trying to do this thing,” she sobbed. “And it’s so hard.”Maybe she should call her family, the trainer suggested. She would, Anna replied, but her parents were in Africa. “Do you mind if I crash at your place tonight?” No, the trainer said, she had a date.“I really just don’t want be alone,” Anna sniffled. “I might do something.”The date hid in the bedroom while the trainer made a bed for her unexpected houseguest and offered her a glass of water.“Do you have any Pellegrino?” Anna asked. There was one large bottle left. Anna ignored the two glasses placed on the counter and began swilling from the bottle. “I’m so tired,” she yawned.As Anna slept, the trainer’s spidey sense began to tingle. “I mean, I’m born and raised in New York,” she told me later. “I’m not stupid.” She texted Rachel Williams, who told her about what had happened at La Mamounia: Apparently, after the trainer returned to New York, the credit card Anna had used to book the hotel was found to be nonfunctional, and when Anna was unable to produce a new form of payment and a pair of threatening goons appeared in the doorway, the photo editor was forced to put the balance — $62,000, more than she was paid in a year — on the Amex she sometimes used for work expenses. Anna had promised her a wire transfer, but a month later, all Rachel received was $5,000, and her excuses had turned “Kafkaesque.”The following morning, the trainer resolved to draw a clear boundary. After lending Anna a clean (and flattering) dress, she sent her on her way with a gratis motivational speech. But when Anna walked out the door, she left her laptop behind. The trainer was having none of it. She deposited the computer at the front desk and texted Anna that she could pick it up there.That evening, the trainer got a call from her doorman. Anna was in the lobby. He’d told her that the trainer was out, at which point she’d asked for access to her suite. When he refused, Anna had resolved to wait for the trainer to return home.“Let me know when she goes,” the trainer told the doorman.But hours passed and Anna didn’t budge. “They were like, She’s still here. She’s texting,” the trainer recalls. “I was like, Oh my God, I’m a prisoner of my own house.” It wasn’t until after midnight that Anna finally left the building.The relief the trainer felt soon turned into worry. “I started calling the hotels to see where she was staying, and each hotel was like, ‘This girl,’ she said.She found out why later that month, when both the Beekman and the W Hotel filed charges against Anna for theft of services. WANNABE SOCIALITE BUSTED FOR SKIPPING OUT ON PRICEY HOTEL BILLS, blared the headline in the Post, which referenced an incident in which Anna attempted to leave the restaurant at Le Parker without paying. “Why are you making a big deal about this?” she’d protested to police. “Give me five minutes and I can get a friend to pay.”But no friends arrived. Maybe it was all a misunderstanding, as Anna told Todd Spodek, the criminal attorney she hired to fight the misdemeanor charges. Maybe the poised young woman in the Audrey Hepburn dress who’d cold-called him on his cell phone repeatedly, insisting it was an emergency until he’d agreed to come into his office on a Saturday, really was a wealthy German heiress, he thought, as his 4-year-old pasted Paw Patrol stickers up one of Anna’s bare arms, and her credit cards had gotten jammed up, or someone had taken away her trust fund. Just in case, Spodek, whose everyday clientele includes grifters, dog-murderers, femme fatales, rapists, and cybercriminals, among other miscreants, had her sign a lien on all of her assets, one that would ensure he got paid. On her way out, Anna asked a favor. “I kind of need a place to stay,” she said. Spodek demurred. The last thing his wife wanted was for him to bring his work home with him.Anna again got in touch with the trainer, who did not invite her to stay but instead organized an intervention at a nearby restaurant, during which she and Rachel Williams attempted to get answers: about why Anna had done what she’d done, who she really was, if she’d ever planned on paying anyone back. Anna hemmed and hawed and dissembled and prevaricated and, as the women got increasingly angry, allowed two fat tears to roll down her cheeks. “I’ll have enough to pay everyone,” she sniffled. “Once I get the lease signed …”“Anna,” the trainer said, summoning her last shred of patience. “The building has been rented.”She held up her iPhone and showed her the headline: FOTOGRAFISKA SIGNS A LEASE FOR ENTIRE 45K SF AT ABY ROSEN’S BUILDING.“That’s fake news,” Anna said.Is “Fotografiska really get the building?” sighed the tiny, accented voice after the recording identifying the call as coming from Rikers Island, where Anna Delvey, a.k.a. Anna Sorokin, has been remanded without bail since October 2017.As it turned out, Anna’s hotel bills were merely the first loose threads in a web of fraudulent activity, one that began to unravel in November 2016, after she submitted documents claiming a net worth of €60 million in Swiss accounts to City National Bank in pursuit of a $22 million dollar loan. The following month, she submitted the same documents to Fortress in an attempt to secure a $25 million to $35 million loan. After that bank asked her for $100,000 to perform due diligence, she convinced a representative at City National to extend her a $100,000 line of credit, which she then wired to Fortress. Then, apparently spooked by Fortress’s decision to send representatives to Switzerland to personally check her assets, she withdrew herself from the process halfway through, wiring the remaining $55,000 to a Citibank account that she used for “personal expenses … shopping at Forward by Elyse Walker, Apple, and Net-a-Porter,” according to the New York District Attorney’s office. Then, in April, she deposited $160,000 worth of bad checks into the same account, managing to withdraw $70,000 before they were returned, which is how she managed to pay off 11 Howard and, ostensibly, buy Neff’s T-shirt and the domain names of the managers of the hotel. (“They called me down to the office. They said, ‘Neff, did you know about this?’ And I started dying laughing. I thought it was a boss move.”) In May, Anna convinced the company Blade to charter her a $35,000 jet to Omaha by sending them a forged confirmation for a wire transfer from Deutsche Bank. It might have helped that she had the business card of the CEO, whom she’d met in passing at Soho House but who says he didn’t actually know her at all. Not wanting to leave Anna homeless after their intervention last summer, the trainer and a friend agreed to put Anna up at a hotel for one night, after having the hotel remove the mini-bar and giving strict instructions not to allow her any room service. She subsequently checked in to the Bowery Hotel for two nights, sending the hotel a receipt for a wire transfer from Deutsche Bank that never came. Rachel Williams, City National, and others also received phony wire-transfer receipts, which a representative of the bank identified as forged. Anna’s “family adviser,” the late Peter W. Hennecke, seems to have been a fictional character; his cell-phone number belonged to a now-defunct burner phone from a supermarket, New York found. (A living Peter Hennecke did not return calls for comment.) Later in the summer, with her misdemeanor charges pending, Anna deposited two bad checks into an account at Signature Bank, netting her $8,200, which is how she managed to take what she said was a “planned trip” to California, where she was arrested outside of Passages in Malibu and brought back to New York to face six counts of grand larceny and attempted grand larceny, in addition to theft of services, according to the indictment. “I like L.A.,” she giggled when I visited her at Rikers this past March. “L.A. in the winter, New York in spring and autumn, and Europe in summer.”People looked over curiously. “She’s like a unicorn in there,” Todd Spodek, Anna’s lawyer, had told me. “Everyone else is in there for like, stabbing their baby daddy.” He had mentioned that his client was taking incarceration unusually in stride, and indeed, this appeared to be the case.“This place is not that bad at all actually,” Anna told me, eyes sparkling behind her Céline glasses. “People seem to think it’s horrible, but I see it as like, this sociological experiment.”She’d made friends, of course. The murderers were the most interesting to her. “There are couple of girls who are here for financial crimes as well,” she told me. “This one girl, she’s been stealing other people’s identities. I didn’t realize it was so easy.”Over the course of three months, I spoke to Anna over the phone and visited her several times, occasionally bringing her copies of Forbes, Fast Company, and The Wall Street Journal at her request. Clad in a beige jumpsuit, her $800 highlights faded and her $400 eyelash extensions long fallen away, she looked like a normal 27-year-old girl, which is what she is.Anna Sorokin was born in Russia in 1991, and moved to Germany in 2007, when she was 16, with her younger brother and her parents, who, after being independently tracked down by and speaking with New York, asked to remain anonymous, as news of their daughters arrest has not yet reached the small rural community where they live.Anna attended high school in Eschweiler, a small working-class town 60 kilometers outside Cologne, near the Belgian and Dutch border. Her classmates remember her as quiet, with an unwieldy command of German. Her father had worked as a truck driver and later as an executive at a transport company until it became insolvent in 2013, whereupon he opened a heating-and-cooling business specializing in energy-efficient devices. Anna’s father was circumspect about the family’s finances, possibly out of a not-unreasonable fear of being held responsible for his daughter’s debts, which it was suggested to New York multiple times are larger and more wide-ranging than officially documented. “She screwed basically everyone,” said the acquaintance in Berlin, who passed on the names of several individuals who were said to have had amounts large and small borrowed or stolen but were too embarrassed to come forward. (Also paranoid: “I heard she commissions these stories,” I was told more than once, after I reached out to alleged victims. “They’re strategic leaks.”)In any case, according to Anna’s father: “Until now, we have never heard of any trust fund.”That said, he went on, the family did support her to an extent after Anna graduated from high school in 2011. She moved first to London, where she attended Central Saint Martins College, then she dropped out and returned to Berlin, where she interned in the fashion department of a public-relations firm before relocating to Paris, where she landed a coveted internship at Purple magazine and became Anna Delvey. Her parents, who say they do not recognize the surname, told New York: “We always paid for her accommodations, her rent, and other matters. She assured us these costs were the best investment. If ever she needed something more at one point or another, it didn’t matter. The future was always bright.”Anna, in jail, told me: “My parents had high expectations. They always trusted me with my decision-making. I guess they regret it now.”Over the course of our conversations, Anna never admitted any guilt, although she did say she felt bad about what happened with Rachel Williams. “I am very upset that things went that way and I didn’t mean for it to happen,” she said. “But I really can’t do anything about it, being in here.”She expressed frustration about not being able to bail herself out. “If they were doubting — ‘Oh, she can’t pay for anything’— why not give me bail and see?” she challenged. “If I was such a fraud, it would be such an easy resolution. Will she bail herself out?”She was frustrated with the New York Post’s characterization of her as a “wannabe socialite” — “I was never trying to be a socialite,” she pointed out. “I had dinners, but they were work dinners. I wanted to be taken seriously” — and the District Attorney’s portrayal of her as, as Anna put it, “a greedy idiot” who had committed a kind of harebrained Ponzi scheme in order to go shopping. “If I really wanted the money, I would have better and faster ways to get some,” she groused. “Resilience is hard to come by, but not capital.”She seemed most interested in expressing that her plans to create the Anna Delvey Foundation were real. She’d had all of those conversations and meetings and sent all of those emails and commissioned those materials because she thought it was actually going to happen. “I had what I thought was a great team around me, and I was having fun,” she said. Sure, she said, she might have done a few things wrong. “But that doesn’t diminish the hundred things I did right.”Maybe it could have happened. In this city, where enormous amounts of invisible money trade hands every day, where glass towers are built on paperwork promises, why not? If Aby Rosen, the son of Holocaust survivors, could come to New York and fill skyscrapers full of art, if the Kardashians could build a billion-dollar empire out of literally nothing, if a movie star like Dakota Johnson could sculpt her ass so that it becomes the anchor of a major franchise, why couldn’t Anna Delvey? During the course of my reporting, people kept asking: Why this girl? She wasn’t superhot, they pointed out, or super-charming; she wasn’t even very nice. How did she manage to convince an enormous amount of cool, successful people that she was something she clearly was not? Watching the Rikers guard shove Fast Companyinto a manila envelope, I realized what Anna had in common with the people she’d been studying in the pages of that magazine: She saw something others didn’t. Anna looked at the soul of New York and recognized that if you distract people with shiny objects, with large wads of cash, with the indicia of wealth, if you show them the money, they will be virtually unable to see anything else. And the thing was: It was so easy.“Money, like, there’s an unlimited amount of capital in the world, you know?” Anna said to me at one point. “But there’s limited amounts of people who are talented.”

Rachel 和 AnnaRachel在名利场发表的原文：“AS AN ADDED BONUS, SHE PAID FOR EVERYTHING”: MY BRIGHT-LIGHTS MISADVENTURE WITH A MAGICIAN OF MANHATTANBY RACHEL DELOACHE WILLIAMSShe walked into my life in Gucci sandals and Céline glasses, and showed me a glamorous, frictionless world of hotel living and Le Coucou dinners and infrared saunas and Moroccan vacations. And then she made my $62,000 disappear.According to my closest friends and various suspect Internet sources, turning 29 on January 29, 2017 marked my golden birthday. At the time, I wasn’t sure what that meant, but I had a gut feeling about my 30th year: it was going to be special; it was going to be good.It was a total disaster.It began with Anna. In her signature black athleisure wear and oversize Céline sunglasses, she sat beside me in the S.U.V., pecking at her phone. Seemingly everything she owned was packed into Rimowa suitcases and stacked in the trunk, just behind our heads. We were running late. Anna was always late. Our S.U.V. hummed along the cobblestones of Crosby Street as we drove from 11 Howard, the hotel Anna had called home for three months, to the Mercer, the hotel Anna planned to move into when we got back from our trip. The bellhops at the Mercer helped us to off-load her bags (all but one), and they checked them away to await Anna’s return. Our errand complete, we climbed back into the car and set off for J.F.K. two hours before our flight: we were Marrakech-bound.Anna taking an iPhone photo during a daytrip to Kasbah Tamadot Sir Richard Bransons resort in Moroccos High Atlas...Anna, taking an iPhone photo during a day-trip to Kasbah Tamadot, Sir Richard Branson’s resort in Morocco’s High Atlas Mountains. Anna returned for a stay at Kasbah Tamadot after leaving La Mamounia. I first met Anna the year prior, in early 2016, at Happy Ending, a restaurant-lounge on Broome Street with a bistro on the ground floor, and a popular nightclub past the bouncer one flight down. I was with friends in the lounge downstairs. It was a group that I saw almost exclusively on nights out, fashion friends, whom I’d met since moving to the city in 2010. We walked in as the space was kicking into gear, not empty but not crowded. Young men and women made laps through machine-pumped fog, scouting for action and a place to settle in, as they sipped their vodka soda through plastic black straws. We made our way to the right and back, where the fog and people were denser and the music was louder.I can’t remember which arrived first: the expectant bucket of ice and stack of glasses, or “Anna Delvey”—but I knew that she had appeared and with her came bottle service. She was a stranger to me, and yet not unknown. I’d seen her on Instagram, smiling at events, drinking at parties, oftentimes alongside my own friends and acquaintances. I’d seen that @annadelvey (since changed to @annadlvv) had 40K followers.The new arrival, in a clingy black dress and flat Gucci sandals, slid into the banquette. She had a cherubic face with oversize blue eyes and pouty lips. Her features and proportions were classical—almost anachronistic—with a roundness that would suit Ingres or John Currin. She greeted me and her ambiguously accented voice was unexpectedly high-pitched.Pleasantries led to discussion of how Anna first came into our friend group. She said she had interned for Purple magazine, in Paris (I’d seen her in photos with the magazine’s editor-in-chief), and evidently traveled in similar social circles. It was the quintessential nice-to-meet-you-in-New York conversation: hellos, exchange of niceties, how do you know X, what do you do for work?I CAN’T REMEMBER WHICH ARRIVED FIRST: THE EXPECTANT BUCKET OF ICE AND STACK OF GLASSES, OR “ANNA DELVEY”—BUT I KNEW THAT SHE HAD APPEARED AND WITH HER CAME BOTTLE SERVICE.“I work at Vanity Fair,” I told her. The usual dialogue ensued: “in the photo department,” I elaborated. “Yes, I love it. I’ve been there for six years.” She was attentive and engaged. She ordered another bottle of vodka. She picked up the tab.Not long after we first met, I was invited to join Anna and a mutual friend for dinner at Harry’s, a steakhouse downtown, not far from my office. The vibe at Harry’s was distinctly masculine, fussy but not frilly, with leather seating and wood-paneled walls. Anna was there when I arrived, and the friend came a few minutes later. We were shown to our table, and my company ordered oysters and a round of espresso martinis. Conversation went along, as did the cocktails. I’d never had an espresso martini, but it went down just fine.Anna told us huffily that she’d spent the day in meetings with lawyers. “What for?” I asked. She lit up. She was hard at work on her art foundation—a “dynamic visual-arts center dedicated to contemporary art,” she explained, referring vaguely to a family trust. She planned to lease the historic Church Missions House, a building on Park Avenue South and 22nd Street, to house a night lounge, bar, art galleries, studio space, restaurants, and a members-only club. In my line of work, I had often encountered ambitious, well-off individuals, so though her undertaking sounded grand in scale and promising in theory, my sincere enthusiasm hardly outweighed a measured skepticism.For the rest of 2016, I saw Anna every few weekends. As a visiting German citizen, she’d explained, she didn’t have a full-time residence. She was living in the Standard, High Line, not far from my small apartment in Manhattan’s West Village. Anna intrigued me, and she seemed eager to be friends. I was flattered. I saw her on adventure-filled nights out, for drinks and sometimes dinner, usually with a group, but occasionally just the two of us. Towards autumn of that same year, Anna told me she was returning to Cologne, where she said she was from, just before the expiration of her visa.Nearly half a year later, she came back.On Saturday, May 13, 2017, we landed in Marrakech. Our hotel sent a V.I.P. service to greet us at the airport. We were escorted through Customs and taken to two awaiting Land Rovers. After a 10-minute drive, we pulled up to a palatial compound and entered through its gates. At the front entrance, we were welcomed by a host of men wearing fez caps and traditional Moroccan attire. We had arrived at our singularly opulent destination. Miss Delvey, our host, opted for a tour of the grounds for her and her guests. We proceeded directly, not having any need for keys or a traditional check-in procedure, since our villa was staffed with a full-time butler and, according to our host, all billing had been settled in advance.The vacation was Anna’s idea. She again needed to leave the States in order to reset her ESTA visa, she said. Instead of returning home to Germany, she suggested we take a trip somewhere warm. It had been a long time since my last vacation. I happily agreed that we should explore options, thinking we’d find off-season fares to the Dominican Republic or Turks and Caicos. Anna suggested Marrakech; she’d always wanted to go. She picked La Mamounia, a five-star luxury resort ranked among the best in the world, and knowing that her selection was cost-prohibitive for my budget, she nonchalantly offered to cover my flights, the hotel, and expenses. She reserved a $7,000/night private riad, a traditional Moroccan villa with an interior courtyard, three bedrooms, and a pool, and forwarded me the confirmation e-mail. Due to a seemingly minor snafu, I’d put the plane tickets on my American Express card, with Anna promising to reimburse me promptly. Since I did this all the time for work, I didn’t give it a second thought.Anna also invited a personal trainer, along with a friend of mine—a photographer—whom, at a dinner the week before our trip, Anna had asked to come as a documentarian, someone to capture video. She was thinking of making a documentary about the creation of her art foundation, and she wanted to experience what it felt like to have someone around with a camera. Plus, it’d be fun to have video from the trip, she said. I thought this was a bit ridiculous, but also entertaining, and why not? The four of us stayed in the private villa together. Anna and I shared the largest room.We spent our first day and a half exploring all that La Mamounia had to offer. We roamed the gardens, relaxed in the hammam, swam in our villa’s private pool, took a tour of the wine cellar, and ate dinner to the intoxicating rhythms of live Moroccan music, before capping our night with cocktails in the jazzy Churchill bar. In the morning, Anna arranged for a private tennis lesson. We met her afterward for breakfast at the poolside buffet. Between adventures, our butler appeared, as if by magic, with fresh watermelon and chilled bottles of rosé.Anna was no stranger to decadence. When she returned to N.Y.C. in early 2017, after months away, she checked into 11 Howard, a trendy hotel in SoHo. Her routine dinner spot became Le Coucou, winner of the James Beard Award for best new restaurant that same year, which was on the ground level of her hotel. Buckwheat fried Montauk eel to start and then the bourride: her dish of choice. She befriended the staff, and even the chef, Daniel Rose, who, upon her request, obligingly made off-the-menu bouillabaisse just for her. Dinners were accompanied by abundant white wine.Her days were spent at meetings and on phone calls, often in her hotel. She regularly went to Christian Zamora for $400 full eyelash extensions, or $140 touch-ups here and there. She went to Marie Robinson Salon for color, Sally Hershberger for cuts. She toured multi-million-dollar apartments with over-eager realtors and chartered a private plane for a weekend trip to Berkshire Hathaway’s annual shareholders meeting in Omaha. All things in excess: she shopped, ate, and drank. Usually wearing a Supreme brand hoodie, workout pants, and sneakers, she embodied a lazy sort of luxury.Anna checked into 11 Howard on a Sunday in February and that same day invited me to lunch. She’d texted me occasionally while she’d been gone, excited to get back and eager to catch up. I wondered if she kept in touch with other friends that way. She had a directness that could be off-putting and a sort of comical overconfidence that I found equal parts abhorrent and amusing. She isolated herself, and I felt privileged to be one of the few people whom she liked and trusted. Through past experiences, both personal and professional, I was casually accustomed to the lifestyle and quirks of moneyed people, though I had no trust fund or savings of my own. Her world wasn’t foreign to me—I was comfortable there—and I was pleased that she could tell, that she accepted me as someone who “got it.”I met her at Mamo, on West Broadway. Anna had settled into the L-shaped booth closest to the door. Above her hung an oversize illustration of Lino Ventura and Jean-Paul Belmondo, both holding guns, floating above a dark cityscape. “ASFALTO CHE SCOTTA,” it read, in caps-locked Italian. She had come directly from the Apple Store, where she’d purchased a new laptop and two new iPhones—one for her international number and one for a new local number, she said. She ordered a Bellini, and I followed her lead.When we finally left, it was almost five o’clock. We walked towards Anna’s hotel and she invited me in for a drink. We passed through 11 Howard’s modern lobby, heading straight for the steel spiral staircase to the left, which swooped twice around a thick column, rising to the floor above. On the second level, we entered a large living room called the Library.The room’s design had distinctly Scandinavian overtones. My eyes scanned the setup and paused on a photograph that hung in a frame across from the concierge desk, a black-and-white image of an empty theater—part of a series by Japanese photographer Hiroshi Sugimoto. Light emanated from a seemingly blank, rectangular movie screen, casting its glow out from the center of the composition onto the empty stage, seats, and theater. Sugimoto used a large-format camera and set his exposure to be the full length of a film, hoping to capture a movie’s thousands of still frames within a single image. The result was otherworldly. Looking at his work always reminded me of Shakespeare, a play within a play. It captured kinetic energy, portentous and alive with emotion and light. The viewing experience was meta and inverted: I was the audience, looking into an empty theater, beneath a blank screen. Anything was possible, or maybe it’d already happened. Maybe it was all already there.After that day in February, Anna and I became fast friends. The world was charmed when she was around—the normal rules didn’t seem to apply. Her lifestyle was full of convenience, and its easy materialism was seductive. She began seeing a personal trainer and invited me to join. The sessions were her treat, as she generously insisted that working out was more fun with a friend. We went as frequently as three or four times a week, often ending our sessions with a visit to the infrared sauna.I saw Anna most mornings. During the day, she’d text me frequently. After work, I’d stop by 11 Howard on my walk home. We’d regularly visit the Library for wine before going downstairs to Le Coucou for late dinners.Anna did most of the talking. She held court, having befriended the hotel staff and servers, with me as her trusted adviser and loyal confidante. She would tell me about her meetings with restaurateurs, hedge-fund managers, lawyers, and bankers—and her frustration over delays with the lease signing. (She was set on the Church Missions House.) She mused about chefs she’d like to bring in, artists she esteemed, exhibitions that were opening. She was savvy. I felt a mixture of pity and admiration for Anna. She didn’t have many friends, and she wasn’t close with her family. She said that her relationship with her parents felt rooted more in business than in love. But she was strong. Her impulsivity and a sort of tactlessness had caused a rift between Anna and the friends through whom I’d met her, but I felt that I understood her and would be there for her when others were not.Anna was a character. Her default setting was haughty, but she didn’t take herself too seriously. She was quirky and erratic. She acted with the entitlement and impulsivity of a once spoiled, seldom disciplined child—offset by a tendency to befriend workers rather than management, and to let slip the occasional comment suggesting a deeper empathy. (“It’s a lot of responsibility to have people working for you; people have families to feed. That’s no joke.”) In the male-dominated business world, she was unapologetically ambitious and I liked this about her.She was audacious where I was reserved, and irreverent where I was polite. We balanced each other: I normalized her eccentric behavior, as she challenged my sense of propriety and dared me to have fun. As an added bonus, she paid for everything.It was late on Monday afternoon, after almost two full days in La Mamounia’s walled palace. It was time to venture out. Anna wanted two things: piles of spices worthy of an Instagram photo and a place to buy some Moroccan kaftans. La Mamounia’s concierge arranged everything: within minutes we had a tour guide and set off with a car and driver. Our van came to a stop and we stepped out one by one, fresh from our sheltered resort life, into the dusty warmth of the medina’s mysterious maze.“Can you make this dress, but with black linen?” Anna asked of a woman in Maison Du Kaftan. Before the woman could reply, Anna continued, “I’ll take one in black and one in white linen and, Rachel, I’d love to get one for you.” I scanned the store’s racks as Anna tried on a bright red jumpsuit and a range of gauzy sheer dresses. I tried on a few things but, wary of the iffy fabric content and high prices, I soon joined the videographer and trainer in the shop’s seating area for glasses of mint tea. Anna went to pay. Her debit card was declined.“Did you tell your banks that you were traveling?” I asked. “No,” was her reply. Then I wasn’t surprised that such a purchase would be flagged. Anna asked to borrow money, promising to reimburse me the following week. I agreed, careful to keep track of the receipt. We wandered the medina until dusk. Back in the van, we went directly to La Sultana for dinner. I paid for that, too, adding it to my “tab.”On Tuesday, we were walking through La Mamounia’s lobby, leaving for a visit to the Jardin Majorelle, when a hotel employee waved Anna to a stop. “Miss Delvey, may we speak with you?” he said, as he tactfully pulled her aside. “Is everything O.K.?” I asked, when she rejoined the group. “Yes,” Anna reassured me. “I just need to call my bank.”The next morning, I, too, was stopped as I passed through the lobby: “Miss Williams, have you seen Miss Delvey?” I sent Anna to the concierge. She was agitated by the inconvenience. You could always tell when Anna was agitated: she made almost comical huffy noises (“ugh, why!”) and typed furiously on her phone. She left the villa and came back shortly after, ostensibly relieved that the situation was being resolved.We set off on a day trip to the Atlas Mountains and returned to Marrakech after dinner that same evening, re-entering La Mamounia through the main lobby. Two men stepped forward as Anna approached. They pulled her aside and she sat down to make a call, as the videographer and I lingered awkwardly to the side. (The trainer was sick in bed for the second day in a row.) As we waited, an employee mentioned that someone had been fired because of the trouble with our villa’s payment. A functioning credit card should have been on file before we’d arrived, he explained.The men followed us back to our villa, as Anna spoke clipped phrases into her phone. They stood ominously on the edge of our living room. I offered them chairs, but they declined. I offered them water, smilingly trying to diffuse the tension. They declined. Anna sat in front of them, intensely focused. I excused myself, feeling the embarrassment of the situation, and thinking it best to give Anna some privacy since there was nothing I could do to help.In the morning, I awoke to a text message from the trainer. Still feeling sick, she wanted to go home and needed help making arrangements. She gave me her credit card and I booked a flight. As she packed, I called the concierge to request a car to take her to the airport.Instead of the car, five minutes later the two men from the night prior reappeared in the villa. I left the trainer and went to wake up Anna. She indignantly resumed her post in the living room, cell phone back to her ear. I called the concierge again. “Hi, can you please send that car? No, we’re not all leaving; we have one sick traveler who needs to make her flight. The rest of us are staying.” A car came and the trainer left. The rest of us sat in gridlock.Anna was no longer making calls. She sat there blankly. The men insisted that a functioning card was needed for a block on the reservation’s balance only, not to be charged for the final bill, which could be settled later. First Anna, and then the men, pressured me to put down my credit card for that block while Anna sorted out the situation with her bank. I was stuck. I had exactly $410.03 in my checking account. I had no alternate transportation from the hotel. I wanted to go home. And most importantly, I was told that my card would not be charged.Later that day, when American Express flagged my account for irregular spending activity, I went to the concierge desk to see why the “block” was registering as actual charges. I was told that credits for the same totals would appear in my account. I’ve been to many hotels and was familiar with that process: the way, when you check in, your card is often pre-charged for some amount that’s later credited back to your account. I rationalized this as the same thing. At least I knew Anna was good for the money. I’d seen her spend so much of it. You learn a lot about someone when you travel together.I left Marrakech early the next day, before Anna and the videographer. As I arrived at my destination, I received a text from Anna promising that she’d forward a wire confirmation as soon as possible. She’d checked out of La Mamounia and taken a car to Sir Richard Branson’s Kasbah Tamadot, a destination hotel in the foothills of Morocco’s High Atlas mountains. “I’ll wire you 70,000 [U.S.D.], that way everything’s covered,” she said. I suddenly understood that she intended to leave the hotel charges on my account, to add that amount to the total she owed me from expenses outside the hotel. The balance was more money than I net annually. It suddenly felt like a foregone conclusion.Anna stayed in touch daily, but in the following week I did not receive the wire as I’d been promised. I attributed her delay to disorganization and a failure to grasp the urgency of my situation. I was frustrated, but not surprised by her ineptitude, and I assumed the international wire transfer was just taking longer than expected.Her texts became increasingly Kafka-esque: assurances of incoming reimbursements through varying methods of payment that never materialized. She spun a web of promises that grew increasingly self-referential and complex. I thought there was an issue with her trust-fund disbursement, and I resented her unwillingness to be straight with me.When she got back to New York, she checked into the Beekman. (The Mercer was sold out, she said.) It was comforting to know that she was physically nearby, not far from my office in the World Trade Center. At least I knew where to find her. Bafflingly, she invited me to join our usual visits to the personal trainer. I declined.Seeking reimbursement from Anna became a full-time job. Stress consumed my sleep and fueled my days. My co-workers saw me unravel. I came to the office looking pale and undone.At last, a month after I’d left Marrakech, Anna claimed to have picked up a cashier’s check. She had been upstate dealing with a “work emergency,” but had made it to a bank before closing time and would deposit the check into my account in the morning, she said. This news should have incited a wave of relief, but instead, I remained skeptical.I showed up at the Beekman unannounced the next morning and rang Anna from the concierge desk. She answered, sounding groggy. “Hey, I’m here. What’s your room number?” I asked.Her room was a mess. Papers were everywhere. Her suitcases lay open and overflowing. Her black linen dress from Morocco hung in dry cleaner’s plastic from an open closet door. “Where’s the check?” I questioned, trying to make the transaction simple. She shuffled through piles of papers, looked under clothing, and dumped out various bags before claiming to have left the check in the Tesla she’d driven back from upstate. Of course, it couldn’t be easy. Of course, there was a problem.She called the Tesla dealership, and then her lawyer’s office. (“He must have it,” she said). I refused to leave. Anna said the check would be dropped off, so I waited. I went with her to Le Coucou, where she met with a different lawyer and a private-wealth manager. I followed her back to the lobby in the Beekman, where she ordered oysters and a bottle of white wine. I sat in silence, sending work e-mails from my phone, largely ignoring Anna, but keeping a watchful eye and asking periodically for an update. To prove a point, I stayed until 11 P.M. I left angrily, telling her I’d be back at 8 A.M. so we could go together to the bank. She agreed. “I hope you had fun, at least,” she chirped, with an impish grin. “No, this was not fun. This is not O.K.,” I stammered incredulously.The next morning, I arrived at the hotel on time. Anna was not there. I was livid. Her overt evasion confirmed what I had feared most: Anna was not to be trusted.Finally—why had it taken me so long?—I began to investigate on my own. I reached out to the friends through whom I’d met Anna and was referred to a guy who’d once loaned her money. He was German, like she was, and had known Anna since she lived in Paris. He told me a story that was alarming and reassuring in equal measure. He said that, after weeks of pestering, he had gotten his money back by threatening to involve the authorities, since Anna always maintained she was afraid of being deported. “Her dad is a Russian billionaire,” he said. “He brings oil from Russia to Germany.” The details obviously came directly from Anna, but they didn’t add up—Anna had told me that her parents worked in solar energy. He said that Anna had told him that she received around $30,000 at the start of each month and blew through it, and that she stood to inherit $10 million on her 26th birthday, the previous January, but because she was such a mess, her dad had arranged for the inheritance to be delayed until September of the same year, just a few months away.I knew that something wasn’t right. I searched for a way to reach Anna’s parents, but could find none. On the week of July Fourth, while I was in South Carolina with my family (who knew nothing of the situation), I received a text from the trainer. She told me that Anna was asleep on her couch. Did she not have another place to stay? Two days later, Anna texted me, too, asking if she could stay at my apartment. I said no.A day later, Anna called me crying. “I can’t be alone right now,” she pleaded. I offered to meet at her hotel. “I had to check out. Can I come to you?” she asked. I said no and hung up. Then my conscience got the better of me. I called her back: “You can come by, but you can’t stay here.” She was at my door within the hour. I didn’t have the energy to engage, so I said very little. My tiny studio apartment was in terrible disarray, the physical manifestation of my mental state: piles of papers, boxes, clothing, and stuff. I apologized for the mess. “You don’t need to apologize to me,” she said. She was right. I made a conscious decision to turn the proverbial cheek. I ordered two salads and put on Bridget Jones’s Diary. When she asked to sleep on my couch, I was hardly surprised.ANNA CALLED ME CRYING. “I CAN’T BE ALONE RIGHT NOW,” SHE PLEADED. I OFFERED TO MEET AT HER HOTEL. “I HAD TO CHECK OUT, CAN I COME TO YOU?” SHE ASKED. I SAID NO AND HUNG UP.Even this far down the road, I tried to maintain an optimistic view of the situation: my friend had run into an unimaginable spell of bad luck; any day it would be resolved. This optimism was one of my defining characteristics, an Achilles’ heel. It’s what allowed me to befriend Anna in the first place: a willful suspension of judgment, an earnest filtration that looked for the best in others and excused the worst.Anna could certainly be the worst. At one point, before we left for Morocco, the management at 11 Howard asked Anna to pay for her reservations in advance. She was infuriated by this irregular treatment: “No one else must do that,” she protested. As retribution, she made note of the general managers’ names. Once she checked out, she claimed, she purchased the corresponding Internet domains. She then sent them e-mails to show what she’d done. “I’ll sell them back for a million dollars each,” she told me. This was a trick she’d learned from Martin Shkreli—whom she admired, and even claimed to have met with once or twice. I tried to rationalize her affinity for his antics, even as it made my stomach turn. I’m left to grapple with that in the aftermath.On the first day of August, I walked into a police station in Chinatown. I’d had enough. I told my story to a lieutenant. He fixated on the Morocco aspect of the situation and told me there was an insurmountable jurisdictional issue. “But with your face,” he said, “you could start a GoFundMe page to get your money back.” He suggested I try the civil court. I went outside and sobbed.When I stopped crying, I went straight to the nearby civil court. I found a help center and spoke to a woman through an institutional plexiglas divider before a mousey man in khakis walked me over to his cubicle. I relayed my tale of woe. “Well, gee, I’m kind of jealous that you got to go to Morocco,” he responded. He tried to help by offering pamphlets on pro-bono lawyers and artist-defense leagues, but the money involved surpassed the financial limit dealt with in civil court, he told me. I left feeling distraught.And then came the decisive moment: an episode that unfolded like the climax of a staged drama. Anna reappeared in the lobby of the trainer’s apartment, just as I left civil court. The trainer called me immediately and we decided to confront Anna together. The trainer also invited a friend of hers—someone she thought would be helpful—and the four of us convened at the Frying Pan, a bar on the West Side Highway. Anna was crying behind oversize sunglasses. She was wearing the same dress that she’d worn for weeks (a loan from her night’s stay in the trainer’s apartment). “Have you seen what they’re saying about me?” she whined. Apparently, the night before, an article had come out in the New York Post calling Anna a “wannabe socialite.” She’d stiffed the Beekman for her stay. Her belongings had been detained. She was being charged with several misdemeanor offenses, including an embarrassing dine-and-dash incident.At an outdoor table, surrounded by young professionals boisterously enjoying after-work drinks, the four of us existed in our own little world. “We are here because we want to help you,” the trainer began. “But to do that, we need to hear some truth from you, Anna.” It was the same old song and dance: Anna stuck to her story, claiming that all she’d said was true; nothing was her fault. Anna sat across from me as the women relentlessly pressed for answers, for names, for a way to reach Anna’s family. I said very little as I watched. I seemed to float outside of my body, while tears ran down my cheeks. Against the raised voices and direct accusations, Anna’s face assumed an unsettling blankness. Her eyes were empty. I suddenly realized that I didn’t know her at all. With this epiphany came a sort of release and a strange calmness. I understood the women’s anger and disbelief; I’d had those feelings for months. But I had come through to the other side, and I knew that there was only one answer.The next day, I e-mailed the New York County District Attorney’s Office, linking to an article about Anna: “I think this girl is a con artist,” I wrote. An hour later, my cell phone rang. The caller I.D. read “United States.” I picked up the phone, as I stepped away from my desk. “We think you’re right,” a voice said.An assistant district attorney confirmed that Anna Sorokin (a.k.a. Anna Delvey) was the subject of an ongoing criminal investigation.Anna photographed in Manhattan Supreme Court where she plead not guilty to charges including grand larceny and theft on...Anna photographed in Manhattan Supreme Court where she plead not guilty to charges including grand larceny and theft on October 25, 2017. PHOTOGRAPH BY STEVEN HIRSCH.On the last Wednesday in August, I awkwardly lowered my tote bag to the floor, resting it against the wall, before turning to face the roomful of Manhattan jurors, nearly two dozen faces dotting curved tiers of seating that reminded me of a college classroom. I assumed the position of a professor, though I was hardly fit to teach the group—I, the dupe, the dope, the sorry case. And then I recalled one class I might now be qualified to teach, or at least I could be a guest lecturer, the only one for which I’d received an A+ during my time at Kenyon: “The Confidence Game in America,” an advanced-level English course taught by Lewis Hyde, who’d written a book all about tricksters (Trickster Makes This World). Well, at least the irony was gratifying.I stood behind a small wooden table in the front of the room. The court reporter sat to my left, and an assistant district attorney stood at a podium to my right, next to a projector. The foreperson, a girl about my age, sat in the center of the back row and asked from above, “Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?” I did.I was the victim of alleged grand larceny in the second degree—grand larceny by deception. “How much do you make in a year?” the assistant D.A. asked me. Beside her, on the wall behind my chair, was a projector screen, on which shone a spreadsheet of all the charges on my accounts related to Morocco. The bolded total at the bottom of the display read $62,109.29. “Would you have gone on this trip if you knew that you’d be the one paying?” the attorney continued. The idea was laughable, even while I cried.I wasn’t the only one who’d believed in Anna. At the grand-jury hearing, Anna was indicted on six felony charges and one misdemeanor charge. I realized the scope of her purported deceit as I later read the indictment. She was accused of falsifying documents from international banks showing accounts abroad with a total balance of approximately €60 million. According to a press release from the New York County District Attorney’s Office announcing the indictment, in late 2016, she took these documents to City National Bank in an attempt to secure a $22 million loan for the creation of her art foundation and private club. When City National Bank denied the loan, she showed the same documents to Fortress Investment Group in Midtown. Fortress agreed to consider the loan if Anna provided $100,000 to cover legal and due-diligence expenses.I EMAILED THE NEW YORK DISTRICT ATTORNEY’S OFFICE: “I THINK THIS GIRL IS A CON ARTIST,” I WROTE. AN HOUR LATER, MY CELL PHONE RANG. THE CALLER ID READ, “UNITED STATES.” I PICKED UP THE PHONE. “WE THINK YOU’RE RIGHT,” A VOICE SAID.On January 12, 2017, almost a month before she returned to New York, Anna secured a $100,000 loan from City National Bank by convincing a bank representative to let her overdraft her account. She allegedly promised the bank that she would wire the funds shortly to cover the overdraft (a familiar tune). She gave the borrowed money to Fortress.In February, when Anna re-entered my life, Fortress had used approximately $45,000 of Anna’s $100,000 deposit and was attempting to verify her assets to complete the loan. At that point, Anna backed out. She told me that her father had gotten wind of the deal and didn’t like the terms. She withdrew herself from consideration and kept the remaining $55,000 from the City National Bank loan, which Fortress had returned. Apparently, that’s how she paid for her lifestyle: 11 Howard, the dinners, personal-training sessions, and shopping.Between April 7 and April 11, Anna allegedly deposited $160,000 in bad checks into her Citibank account and transferred $70,000 from the account before the checks bounced. She never paid Blade for the $35,000 private plane she had chartered to Omaha in May. In August, she opened a bank account with Signature Bank and, according to the indictment, deposited $15,000 in bad checks. She withdrew approximately $8,200 in cash before the account was closed. She was, allegedly, check-kiting.The reality of Anna’s behind-the-scenes dealings, these figures flying from one account to another, remains dizzying to this day—that she was allegedly orchestrating such elaborate schemes while maintaining a believable, surface cool, wielding her debit cards to pay for dinners, workouts, beauty products, and spa treatments. She conjured a glittering, frictionless city—whatever one wanted would be bought, wherever one wanted to go was a cab ride or plane trip away. The audacity of her performance sold itself, until it collapsed under the weight of its own ambition. It’s a part of why I believed her—and continued to believe her: who would think to make up such an elaborate tale, and carry on like this for so long? Who was she? How do you know who anyone is, really? Back on June 9, Anna sent me $5,000 via PayPal. I thought she was stalling, but this gesture tugged at me. Knowing what I know now, why did she give me anything at all? Surely, she would have paid me the full amount if she could have, right?Anna was scheduled to appear in court on September 5, for the misdemeanors that had come out in the news, including her allegedly stolen stay at the Beekman, but she never appeared. I resumed communication with her via text message, not letting on that anything had changed. She had gone to the West Coast and was checked into a rehab in Malibu. In early October, when I was in Beverly Hills for V.F.’s annual New Establishment Summit, Anna and I arranged to have lunch. She never made it. She was arrested in Los Angeles on October 3 and arraigned in a Manhattan court on October 26. She is currently being held without bail on Rikers Island.IT WAS A MAGIC TRICK—I’M EMBARRASSED TO SAY THAT I WAS ONE OF THE PROPS, AND THE AUDIENCE, TOO.Contacted for this article, Anna’s attorney, Todd Spodek, had a much more pedestrian view of matters concerning Anna. “The burden rests squarely with a lender to conduct the appropriate due diligence before extending credit of any type,” he wrote, “and to document the terms of the loan. This is a civil matter, and the appropriate recourse for Ms. Williams is to sue Ms. Sorokin for defaulting on a loan, not to initiate criminal charges. I submit that Ms. Williams does not have an iota of proof to support any agreement, of any type, whatsoever.”Anna told me once that her plans were either going to work out, or all go horribly wrong. Now I see what she meant. It was a magic trick—I’m embarrassed to say that I was one of the props, and the audience, too. Anna’s was a beautiful dream of New York, like one of those nights that never seems to end. And then the bill arrives.CORRECTION: An earlier version of this story misidentified the grand-jury hearing at which Anna Sorokin was indicted. It was a hearing, not a trial.

Anna出狱后自己给insider写的稿子，关于自己对Netflix的Inventing Anna的看法和她在狱中生活的情形： Erasing Anna: From ICE detention, Anna Delvey talks about her new Netflix show and life behind barsWhile the world is pondering Julia Garner's take on my accent in "Inventing Anna," a Netflix show about me, the real me sits in a cell in Orange County's jail in upstate New York, in quarantine isolation.I am here because Immigration and Customs Enforcement decided that my early merit release from prison means nothing to them and, despite being perfectly self-sufficient when left to my own (legal) devices, I, in fact, present "a continuous danger to the community." Apparently, Daily Mail headlines are admissible evidence that override the decisions of the New York State Board of Parole and can be used to back up the Department of Homeland Security's arguments that instead of getting a job, I was "busy getting my hair done" — me and my bad ways.While I was in prison, I paid off the restitution from my criminal case in full to the banks I took money from. I also accomplished more in the six weeks they deemed were long enough for me to remain free than some people have in the past two years. My visa overstay was unintentional and largely out of my control. I served my prison sentence, but I'm appealing my criminal conviction to clear my name. I did not break a single one of New York state's or ICE's parole rules. Despite all that, I've yet to be given a clear and fair path to compliance.Did I mention I'm the only woman in ICE custody in this whole jail? Tell me I'm special without telling me I'm special."The court finds that, even if released from detention and ordered to report regularly to ICE, the respondent would have the ability and inclination to continue to commit fraudulent and dishonest acts," an immigration judge ruled. "She clearly possesses the knowledge to do so and has failed to demonstrate remorse." Sorry, am I on trial for this again?So no — it doesn't look like I'll be watching "Inventing Anna" anytime soon. Even if I were to pull some strings and make it happen, nothing about seeing a fictionalized version of myself in this criminal-insane-asylum setting sounds appealing to me.Garner as Sorokin on Rikers Island on "Inventing Anna." Aaron Epstein/NetflixI still remember the night of ABC's "20/20" episode about me in October. It was also unfortunately the night when the meds come really late, so everyone was up waiting and watched it.It's hard to explain what I hate about it. I just don't want to be trapped with these people dissecting my character, even though no one ever says anything bad. If anything, everyone's really encouraging, but in this cheap way and for all the wrong reasons. Like, they love all the clothes and boats and cash tips. I saw only the first couple minutes before I went back into my cell. I was definitely not going to sit there and watch it with everybody. And I don't need any more jail friends, thank you very much.For a long while, I was hoping that by the time "Inventing Anna" came out, I would've moved on with my life. I imagined for the show to be a conclusion of sorts summing up and closing of a long chapter that had come to an end.Nearly four years in the making and hours of phone conversations and visits later, the show is based on my story and told from a journalist's perspective. And while I'm curious to see how they interpreted all the research and materials provided, I can't help but feel like an afterthought, the somber irony of being confined to a cell at yet another horrid correctional facility lost between the lines, the history repeating itself.Admittedly, I, the ultimate unreliable narrator, have made some questionable choices that I wouldn't necessarily repeat today.Do these decisions inevitably make me a permanent threat to public safety? The government says yes.But in comparison with whom? Everything's relative.It makes no sense for me to still be here long after they have brought in and then released numerous violent offenders (robbers, rapists, would-be murderers) and people with an assortment of felony DUIs and grand larcenies. Do they not "clearly possess the knowledge" to recommit the same crimes they've been accused of before, or do different standards apply to them?Meanwhile, I spent another set of holidays followed by a COVID-19-tainted birthday in a depressing cell, which therefore logically categorized me as more dangerous than every single one of those people. In that case, it's totally understandable why I shouldn't be allowed out of my cell for weeks at a time. Who'd want to take the risk?After I finished my prison sentence and left Albion, I thought all this was over, forever, and that I'd never see the inside of another correctional institution again.Shortly afterward, I found myself in the Orange County jail by way of Bergen County Jail, where everything triggers constant flashbacks. Altogether, I've been through seven different facilities for one single case. It's like "Groundhog Day."I never complained about a lot of things. From the very beginning of my journey incarcerated in the state of New York, I thought people just wanted to see me be miserable.The same hand consistently finds its way to your knee, lingers on your calves, grabs your ankles, wrists, waist: cuffs, chains, bruises on the same spots. It's all for the sake of security, of course.Be cool. Don't be annoying. I was considered "not a regular white girl, like the rest of them here." I tried to be a "good sport," and it got me things. Not always but most of the time. Small stuff — enough to be competitive about. I got away with things others didn't. It's not that I wanted their validation. It was more that I didn't want to deal with the consequences of not having it.I didn't say anything when they brought article printouts and tearouts from papers and magazines, in a jail where the New York Daily News is being policed daily and purged of any mentions of Rikers and any of its inmates in "media review."A lot of this nonabuse is subtle, shaped by an understanding that in jail, you are a problem that needs to be dealt with.What you won't see in the Netflix show is my newly acquired habit. I have to methodically bite the skin around my nails until the nail beds slowly fill with blood from both sides, collect at the tip, which I then squeeze until there's enough to drip down the sink of the cell with opaque white-spray-painted windows I spend 91.2% of my day in. Rinse and repeat. It doesn't accomplish anything tangible, other than dulling an obsessive fixation on another wasted day that I'll never get back. And I can't just stop.In jail, I quickly gave up on the concept of privacy. How many people can really say they are fully in control of theirs, anyway?And most importantly — didn't I put myself here?Just when I thought it couldn't get any worse, on January 19, I tested positive for COVID-19.I'm sure I'll live, but I haven't been this sick in years.The jail's response to a positive test is to just lock you up. It's convenient for them. It all shall pass, no? The majority of people here quickly caught on and stopped complaining about symptoms out of fear of getting locked in. The staff insists on using the words "medical isolation," even though there's nothing medical about it. One is simply being made to sit in a cell with a hole in the door. This place is like a Petri dish for viruses and bacteria. The only fun is listening to dim-witted sergeants come up with 50 different ways to tell you no.There is always a good reason for everything. They're understaffed and tired, and there is a hundred-day backlog (Of what? No one ever specifies.), which apparently is supposed to be my problem, even though I never asked to be here. I don't recall any delays or backlogs in me getting arrested.I haven't seen a real doctor in over four years. Dismissive nurses who suspect everyone just wants to get high and would do anything to obtain generic meds don't count.It's designed this way, the jail. They take away your choices, and give you the worst, so next time you'll think twice before stabbing your neighbor — or overstaying your visa.During my latest ICE bond hearing, in October, it was the government's burden to prove I would be a danger to my community if I were released.They presented no evidence to demonstrate my alleged insatiable drive for continued criminal exposure. With eight remaining years of parole supervision apparently not being a good enough deterrent, and in absence of anything better, what they did find was an Instagram post from 2018 — an old picture of my friend Neff and me on a rooftop in Manhattan's Chelsea neighborhood, posted by her to my account with the location tagged as "Rikers Island maximum security prison" (which isn't even a thing), as a throwback joke. (Editor's Note: Neffatari Davis is Anna's friend and a consultant on "Inventing Anna," and was extensively quoted in the New York magazine story.)The picture started multiple internal and NYPD investigations, none of which yielded results. I never got as much as a written infraction.It was refreshing to find out that for an agency that thrives on flaunting all kinds of rules, ICE created very few restrictions for its own operations.It's hard to prepare or submit any evidence for the court's consideration when you find out about the hearing 10 minutes before it takes place. Is it fair to call me "unpredictable" if you never gave me a chance to create stability?The most recent twist from ICE is that I've been waiting since November for a decision "to reissue" a letter that never arrived here. It should be an easy thing to determine considering all my mail is being logged. Who knows how much longer it will take to think this over — a month, six months, a year?Such decisions can't be rushed. And as long as the threat to public safety is secured in a cell, who cares?Many of the inmates here don't speak a word of English but are released into the community without as much as an ankle bracelet or token bail. I'm genuinely glad for them. The majority I've encountered seem like kind and well-meaning people who happen to have made a couple of mistakes. But I doubt any of them meet the standards of financial stability and property ownership ICE has used to keep me in here.Most Americans think of Mexico when they hear "ICE." No wonder — the mainstream media is flooded with news where Immigration and Customs Enforcement is mentioned mainly in the context of deportations and detentions of minorities.During my time in this jail (where I'm in general population with others who are in regular criminal proceedings), I've learned that most people don't even realize ICE deals with every immigrant, not just enforcement of the southern border. I've heard numerous variations of, "I didn't realize you were Mexican. You really can't tell!" and, "It's crazy that they can hold you for this long, and you aren't even from Mexico."The revelation that you didn't have to be Hispanic to have all kinds of problems with ICE seemed to register as genuine surprise.Some go a step further and offer friendly advice: "Did you know there's an office in the city where you can renew your visa? Did you ask your lawyer?" Yes, and then I kind of got arrested at that office.Will I forever be judged by my early-to-mid 20s? Is there anything else I could possibly have done to close this chapter?Will I forever be stuck in a past not entirely of my creation without getting a chance to move on?

No.1在豪华游轮上一个很势利眼的女孩问是不是在苏荷之家见过安娜，注意看这里安娜的神态中掠过一丝不安，但随即以“觉得随便什么人他们都会给会员身份”的理由圆过去了，并且顺便立了一下自己的清高以及拥有高贵独特品味的人设，外加当时的好闺蜜在一旁应和，这个小插曲便不了了之。

要知道苏荷之家（SOHO HOUSE）是一个世界顶级俱乐部，据说金·卡戴珊申请过无数次都没能加入......而这个俱乐部内装的供应商还为英国皇室（比如哈利王子和梅根的家）提供过浴盆，所以安娜没有去过苏荷之家只能有两种可能，一是她真的不够格，二是，如她所说，她不屑于去。

显然这里第一种可能性更大。

No.2紧接着一群人在甲板上喝酒，一个大佬听出安娜的俄罗斯口音，于是用俄语对安娜和蔡斯说了祝酒辞，蔡斯一头雾水显然没有听懂，大佬转而问安娜，安娜却表示自己听不懂，但是事实是安娜的确出生在俄罗斯，按理说她不可能听不懂的，结合安娜一直声称自己是德国贵族这一点，可以推断出这里安娜又在撒谎，以掩盖自己的身世。

所以这里也为安娜的身份不明做了伏笔。

No.3接下来就是很经典的这一段，安娜付不出钱被酒店扣下行李的桥段，这里的马脚很明显，连剧里的人物都开始怀疑她，最终还是倒霉蛋蔡斯跑来把钱付了，总之这一段看得我尴尬症都犯了……

No.4蔡斯得知安娜的真名后，和刚刚shopping回来的安娜在阳台上对峙，问她的真实身份。

结果安娜花言巧语一通操作，激情描述了自己的宏伟梦想，成功化解危机。

（这里我也是很服）

No.5安娜和内芙谈心的时候无意中说起了自己小时候的事情，不小心暴露了自己曾经很贫穷的事实，结果安娜迅速圆谎，并顺势把自己塑造成了一个家有万贯财产但是偏要白手起家的励志女性。

No.6在酒店工作的内芙遇到了自己老板的两个儿子，顺便提起了安娜，可对方表示并不知道老爸在和安娜做生意，并指出了如果是老爸的重要生意伙伴，为什么只住了豪华房而不是豪华套房这个一点，内芙转念一想，有道理啊，转头去问安娜，当然，安娜又是轻描淡写，扔出了“他已经帮了我很多，我不想再麻烦他”这样听起来又别扭又合理的理由。

这里内芙是当局者迷了，就像之前的很多人一样。

住一套稍微便宜点的屋子就算是少欠一点人情了？

这怎么想都不是有钱人的逻辑吧……

一个拧巴的美剧《虚构安娜》电视剧日记_哔哩哔哩_bilibili 1. 不能说的层级固化初次接触《虚构安娜》的故事介绍时，我原以为它是一部带有猎奇性质的作品，可能会以好莱坞或欧美富豪阶层的生活为背景，讲述普通人如何对这一阶层进行猎奇探索的过程。

然而，它并非像《珠光宝气》那样的故事。

在观看至第六集末尾时，我发现它的核心立意其实聚焦在阶层固化这一问题上。

谈及阶层固化，《虚构安娜》表现得相当拧巴。

这种“拧巴”我在台湾电影如《大佛普拉斯》、《同学麦娜丝》和《老狐狸》中也有所感受，这似乎成为了台湾电影一个长久探讨的主题。

在这个主题上，想要讲述出新意其实相当困难。

但至少这些作品都表现得相当直接。

甚至在我们国产的《看不见影子的少年》中，对于有钱家庭和贫穷家庭在对待孩子问题上的差异，也表达得非常直白。

然而，在《虚构安娜》这样一部好莱坞作品中，对于富人和穷人这一问题的处理，却显得自相矛盾且相当隐瞒。

而且这种隐瞒的内容，又视听语言表现得非常隐晦，直到最后一场戏，律师在现场的一段话才揭示出了其中的难处。

但这种难处依然被处理得非常含蓄。

律师在结尾时因为前一天晚上与妻子吵架，第二天突然改变了辩护策略。

理解这一点，你就能理解《虚构安娜》整个故事的拧巴之处。

故事是这样的，律师在辩论前告诉安娜，他的辩护策略是要说她是无知的，是傻的。

安娜表示不认可，不同意将自己塑造成一个弱者形象，这直接封堵了他的辩护策略。

初看起来，我们可能觉得这种辩护策略是为了给安娜脱罪，但实际上这种变化策略背后隐藏着更深的内容：在这个故事中，有钱人为像安娜这样的外来异乡人留下的上升渠道是不存在的。

这才是他不能明说的辩护策略背后的本质。

该律师前一天晚上与爱人争吵的本质，其实源于他们生活环境的差异。

他的爱人来自一个非常富有的家庭，所向往的是两年一次的度假，在沙滩上享受Marguita的那种感觉。

然而，她根本无法理解一个想要拥有自己事业的人所需付出的艰辛和努力。

这种差异正是律师心里要支持安娜、为安娜辩护的本意。

他认为，这个社会没有给安娜留下任何上升的可能性。

因此，在这个辩护策略的前提下，安娜其实根本没有任何可能去接近那笔贷款。

当这个观点被提出时，它其实是对欧美整个社会环境的一种抨击。

但同时，这也否定了安娜个人的努力和能力。

这是一个让人觉得很微妙的点，它没有被夸大，也没有被细说或阐述，但你在看完这部电视剧后，会思考很多。

2. 截流上层浮夸今天是2024年的7月15号，我在潘家园我家楼下。

北京的天并没有35度那么热，大概只有27、28度，还挺凉爽的。

来过我们潘家园的人也非常多。

正好今天我就在这里，记录我的电影日记，本次记录的是电视剧《虚构安娜》。

看完美剧之后，刚刚提到的那个问题一直在我脑子里环绕。

我开始看这部剧的原因，其实是出于一种猎奇富人生活的心态，就像看《珠光宝气》一样。

其实前几集也是照着这个方式去写的，但是到了后面，我发现它深层次隐藏的主题越来越深。

它并不是一个简单的猎奇作品。

当你看到后面的时候，你会很明显地发现里面的人物设定与现实是不符的。

因为里面的每一个人都非常的正义凛然，没有犯任何的错误。

甚至是给安娜批贷款的那个人，他居然因为遇见安娜以后，自己跟媳妇的夫妻生活也过得越来越好，还解决了自己的女儿是啃老族的问题。

这明显是一种杜撰出来的情况。

我就不相信这个人不是为了美色去给安娜放贷款的。

而且在这个过程中，其实安娜是一个想真的做一些事情的人。

录制本视频的时候，突然下起了雨，我得赶紧往家走。

这种指望安娜能给他们带来钱的设定，其核心并不在于安娜是否在欺骗他们，而是在于他们利用安娜去欺骗所有人。

当这个骗局像连环套一样一层又一层地嵌套在一起时，安娜并非始作俑者，或者说她只是想做这件事情的始作俑者，但只有她绝对没有能力把这件事情做到这种程度，或者说想达到这样的规模。

因此，在这个过程中，真正的责任并不在安娜本身，而是在于这样的环境和架构中，大家在追名逐利的浮夸状态下，安娜的这种无知恰好符合了他们的标准。

其实，在我周围的工作环境中也遇到过类似的情况，很多事情并不是说你行就行，而是有些时候，即使你想不行也得行，这句话懂的人都懂。

哈哈，我很难去讲具体的案件，但真的很多时候就是你想不行都得行，但是你有时候想行，那你就必须得不行。

那这个时候并不是因为安娜本人的意愿，而是当你到达那个状态之后，所有的人都指望从你身上得到些什么，他们并不是期待你实现你个人的喜好，而是想通过你吹嘘出来的、虚构出来的可能会成功的一件事情中，得到一些东西。

但他们根本不是想要这件事情成功，而是要通过这件事情的过程中拿到一些东西，他们不在乎结局，而是在乎这个过程中的截流。

截流这个东西，不管是在上升期还是下降期，大家都能投机地去截到一些流，对于事情本身，其实并没有太多人关注其复杂性或者直接关联的另一件事情。

金融危机那几年出现了很多反思性的电影，《大空头》《大而不倒》都是这样的例子。

所以说，《虚构安娜》在我看来，真的是一部讲述很难打破观念和阶层的一种体现，但他这种体现很难。

3. 大事不提，只关注闺蜜战反过来，通过剧作里面的这些人非常拧巴的表现，你看起来很正派，但现在都不可能存在这么正派的一些银行家之类的事情，你就可以去自行脑补这个剧本在立项、在展现的过程中经历了多少人的干涉。

那最终，这些事情的矛头把这个剧本指向了谁？

指向了安娜的那个闺蜜，瑞秋的6万美元，成为了本剧中最大的矛盾。

但是我们在看最后念判决书的时候，那么多的大的银行，那么多的大的酒店都被卷在其中，这其中难道有这样的本事能对付那些人吗？

所以说，这个故事到头来只能讲他跟瑞秋之间的信用卡刷酒店挂账这个事情，旅游2000美元请导游这样一件事情就是很荒谬。

看到后面的段落的时候，只能说原来是这样啊，知道自己有些事情不能说，但是如何在不能说的状态下又要传达这个事情，最后就给到了律师，最后那一段因为前一天晚上跟上流的妻子吵架而来的那样一段话。

最让人觉得讽刺的是，最后那个记者在与安娜最后一次见面时说：“安娜，我觉得对不起你，我改变了你的生活。

”安娜本想用强者的口吻回击他，但记者从弱转强后，说：“我在可怜你，你现在还有什么资本来居高临下？

”这时，安娜突然改变了聊天的口吻，采取了让她自己更好受的方式应对。

实际上，这件事情怎么说呢？

通过虚构自己的故事，很多人都达到了自己的目的。

而且，达到这些目的的人在最后还要假装自己伤害了别人而感到内疚，真是得了便宜还卖乖。

那这个时候，被你们占便宜的安娜本人骂你们两句不行吗？

不行，因为你们会说：“我现在在怜悯你，你怎么可能来骂一个怜悯你的人？

你应该感谢我们给你拥有了一次出名的机会。

”好吧，安娜最后也终于学会了这个“规律”，不再跟你们硬刚，而是说：“好吧，那我就满足你们这种自我怜悯的人的虚荣内心。

你们想要做一个生活在这个襁褓里的社会巨婴，我就满足你。

”4. 下层理想的沦丧所以说，我觉得《虚构安娜》中，最后安娜的那一场戏几乎就封神了。

整个剧其实并不是在讲述一个人如何在金融圈里轻易地欺骗他人。

我们可以反思一下这个剧，它是在讲述这样的环境如何让一个心有理想的人一步一步地变得没有理想。

本质上来说，这个剧不是一部《穿普拉达的女王》，不是去讲述时尚秀场的魅力。

它其实是在讲述这样的环境下，如何一步一步地磨灭那些有过想法且愿意为自己想法付诸实践的人的上升途径。

看到最后的时候，我甚至都因为自己在职场里过度油滑而变得没有奋斗能力而对自己感到惋惜。

我要是有安娜那种明知自己很傻，明知山有虎，偏要虎山行的精神的话，有可能会死得更惨一点，但是最起码会更有意义一点。

有时候，所有人都是在虚构安娜，但是所有人都假惺惺地不承认自己在虚构安娜，同时对被抓出来的那些正在虚构安娜的人还要大肆进行抨击，真的是太虚伪了。

好吧，以上就是我对电视剧《虚构安娜》的日记。

追完剧后我迫不及待地去读了纽约杂志的原文《Maybe She Had So Much Money She Just Lost Track of It》by Jessica Pressler。

原文的一开头只是从酒店礼宾员Neff的视角出发，通过一堆奢侈品和高档餐厅的名字勾勒一个出手阔绰的名媛形象，我读了也跟Paul一个想法，这个故事有什么看点？

剧版则是从报道记者视角去切入这个故事，一开始也会很容易感到无聊，但是后面随着消息源的扩大，一个个celebrities的名字犹如报菜名般为安娜的传奇经历添砖加瓦，我会不由自主地跟着Vivian去探索安娜的诈骗史。

Why this girl? 安娜并不是个让人一眼惊艳的美女，气质也一般，甚至性格也不nice。

岂止不nice，她说话和做事的方式都比我想象的要更加bitchy，这也让我对那些大人物为什么对此买账而更加惊奇。

但是安娜对时尚的造诣确实出众，完美地包装了她，还有她巧妙的话术，让她能跻身各类名流party，受到了那么多名人的认可，这些认可看似很浮于表面，但是他们对他的感觉是对的，她真的不一样。

但是我觉得如果像网友说的那样，从安娜的视角去演绎这个故事的话，很容易变为高智商犯罪爽文，只供观众娱乐一下就完了。

而实际上安娜的内心，没人能知道，第一视角也拍不准确。

跳出来第三视角看这个故事，虽然也是诸多揣测，但是更冷静一点，更能看见其中的荒诞。

所以比起直接写安娜，编剧塑造了一个与安娜不同年龄、不同家庭、不同职业，但是又有几分相似的女记者，与安娜形成对照，把视角跳出来，放在环境里去写安娜。

Vivian这个角色很有意思，把她设计成一个孕妇我觉得有双关的意味，”conception”既有“构思”也有“怀孕”的意思，整个剧集是以她构思整个story的过程为脉络，story写成之日也是baby生产之时。

我甚至带入进了Vivian这个角色，不停地想打破砂锅问到底：Anna Delvey究竟是怎样炼成的？

Anna Delvey是Anna Sorokin虚构出来的德国女继承人，但是电视剧里的安娜又是真实的安娜吗？

也只是记者Vivian通过多方侧写，在无限接近于真相之后，再次搭建出来的人物，安娜永远是神秘的。

当然，这个故事是真实的。

今天不是Anna，明天也会是Bella、Cara、Daisy。

诚然，Anna是众多“socialite”里面的传奇人物，但也是这个环境造出来的“英雄”。

从很多细节能感受到，美国也很人情社会，办事立项目，看人（脉）而不看能力。

就像原文作者写的那样：纽约是一个“where glass towers are built on paperwork promises”的地方。

最后一集，甚至到了德国，Vivian去调查了安娜的成长史，我觉得很多观众肯定也跟Vivian想象的一样，认为肯定是原生家庭造就安娜如此，但事实却与预期不同。

尽管安娜在学校遭受的排挤，让她渴望通过改变造型来改变自己，从而得到别人的高看，但是这并不是她走上诈骗的决定因素。

观众的探索面对她平凡的家庭，只能落在她仿佛“天生坏种”的无力结论上，像她父母一样，对安娜做这些的动因let it go。

世人无法知道安娜是如何走到这一步的，正如她自己说的一样，她一开始就是安娜。

但是在她疯狂又孤独的旅途中，我们看到了她是如何一次次被爱人、朋友抛弃。

她周围的所有人都是希望从她身上获得什么，Chase想要一个有个性的漂亮洋娃娃给他在社交场上装点门面，为他拉来投资；Rachel看起来很无脑，但其实是个精明的利己主义者，与安娜来往就是图她的钱，在把公卡搭进去之后，还能把这段经历变现，再赚一笔；Neff跟安娜其实在财务上差距最大，但是她却真把她当朋友，心疼和同情仿佛让她跟安娜处在了一个平等的地位，哪怕认清安娜在骗她之后，还要“讲义气”，这就有点像是为了把自己与其他“被骗得团团转”的人区别开来，不显得那么可怜的做法，在安娜的身上找一种自我感动。

其他人就更简单了，Nora有钱但寂寞，让她住家里哪怕被坑也当花钱看个笑话；Alan把安娜当理想女儿的的投射，在她身上找对生活的新鲜感；Todd在安娜身上投射自己草根出身对上流社会的不满，以及渴望用这个案子来证明自己的价值；Vivian想挖安娜“假名媛”的故事，让自己洗脱“假新闻”记者的标签。

看起来是安娜骗了所有人，实则是所有人相互利用，没有完美受害人，所有人都是这个荒谬犯罪的共。

安娜故作的不屑，掩盖不了她想成为上流的欲望，围在她周边的这些人的欲望又投射在她身上，整个故事像一个欲望的万花筒。

下层的人为了利而出卖名，上层的人为了名而舍利。

安娜自己造名，再用名谋利。

“Anna looked at the soul of New York and recognized that if you distract people with shiny objects, with large wads of cash, with the indicia of wealth, if you show them the money, they will be virtually unable to see anything else. And the thing was: It was so easy.”在物欲横流的纽约，那些吸引人眼球的故事总是“started with money”，so what's the real story? 阶级矛盾？

女性平权？

也许都想讲，作者也身在其中看不清楚。

安娜的动因也许并不特别，你与我或许都有。

但是因为是安娜，故事有了奇妙的化学反应。

Anna is fake, but the desire is real.

这部剧把安娜如何骗过那些纽约上流人士的小心机拍的特别幼稚低级，每次遇到关键问题，剧情就稀里糊涂、蜻蜓点水划过去了，彷佛只要做个名媛人设，说一两句话就能搞定一切。

手段就是用pua的方式对待身边人，pua大佬让他投资。

剧情完全没有说服力。

看完感觉完全不过瘾，隔靴搔痒。

连小李子演的《猫鼠游戏》的皮毛都不到。

安娜主要骗到了她男朋友蔡斯，让蔡斯给她花钱，维持富裕的生活，她男朋友蔡斯也不是省油的灯，是个打着创业家旗号到处圈钱的骗子，以为安娜是个聪明有野心的家族女继承人，就在一起了。

俩人臭味相投，一拍即合，不但互相骗，还一起对外骗。

不过，安娜骗的也不多，也就一百万人民币。

道理很简单，就像你去银行贷款，开始有5000本金，能贷到两万，把两万取出来再去别的银行贷款5万、10万… 可能都很容易审批，当你贷款500万的时候，就贷不出来了，压根儿通不过银行审核。

所以你最多只能贷到10万，还款还不上，就直接over了。

没什么难的。

她就是包装一下自己，有身边上流人士圈内人做背书，再找其他有钱人借钱，有的富人好面子不差钱，不追着要而已，才能维持一阵子。

后来还是因为坑了一个穷人的钱被报了警。

咱就是说，一般正常人绝对忍受不了信用卡被拒绝，被人在公共场合质疑的尴尬样子（况且剧中安娜信用卡被拒只会装死鸭子嘴硬，一点也不酷，没有任何招数）。

正常人如果不付款，即使吃再美味的大餐，住再豪华的酒店，欠着一大笔自己根本消费不起的钱，也会寝食难安。

这压根不是享受，是一种受罪。

而安娜，无非就是比一般人脸皮厚，心理素质强。

并不是她多聪明多高智商，而是她一直走的非正常人的路线，提前预支自己的信用，花点小钱获取身边人的信任去骗更多人，打破了常规相处之道。

拆东墙补西墙，她这么做，早晚会栽。

因为一旦补不上窟窿就会露馅。

有人说，她的项目差点儿就做成了，不，肯定做不成。

没有信用，说谎成性，是做不了长久买卖的。

总之，安娜没那么牛b，这部剧拍的也很垃圾。

媒体甚至把这个女人宣扬成“Legend”，岂不是太可笑了吗？