![]() In 2017, Sorokin invited Williams on a posh trip to Morocco. ![]() She also scammed Williams out of $62,000, money Williams spent years (and untold anxiety) trying to get wiped from her credit-card bill. Posing as a German heiress, Sorokin scammed hotels, restaurants, even private-jet operators out of hundreds of thousands of dollars using a check-kiting scheme (writing checks to transfer one amount to another account before the checks bounce due to insufficient funds). Sorokin was quirky and glamorous, maintaining a fabulous lifestyle that consisted mostly of A-list restaurants and hotels, all of which she funded through an alleged (read: nonexistent) trust fund of 60 million euros. “Seven little words that in one fell swoop stripped me of my agency, accomplishments, and truth,” Williams wrote in Time.If you gobbled up every last detail of the Anna Sorokin “Fake Socialite” trial this spring (and really, who didn’t?), your addictive summer beach read has arrived: “ My Friend Anna: The True Story of a Fake Heiress” by Rachel DeLoache Williams (Gallery Books.) Williams, a former photo editor at Vanity Fair, met Sorokin - “Anna Delvey” - in a nightclub in 2016 and the two became friends. Williams explained in Time that the characterization felt jarring - particularly the line that credits Anna for the success she found after their friendship. “But while her relationship with Anna is her greatest regret, the woman she becomes because of Anna may be Anna’s greatest creation.” “A natural-born follower whose blind worship of Anna almost destroys her job, her credit, and her life,” the site’s description of Rachel read. Because Williams was not involved with the show (she’d sold her book rights to HBO for a series that’s no longer in development), she found out about it “at the same time as the rest of the world.” She also had no input about Netflix’s portrayal of her. In her essay for Time, she recalls receiving a link about Inventing Anna from a friend in October 2019. My Friend Anna, which also features real text messages between Williams and Sorokin, landed on Time’s list of 100 must-read books in 2019.Īfter publishing My Friend Anna, Williams described feeling a “sense of closure.” But it was short-lived. When Sorokin’s history of scams and unpaid bills came to light, Williams found herself “helping to bring down one of the city’s most notorious con artists.” She ultimately testified against Sorokin during her 2019 trial, and the bulk of her credit card debt was forgiven. Willams spent weeks chasing down Sorokin to pay her back before eventually contacting New York’s district attorney. In all, Williams racked up more than $62,000 in credit card debt - more than she made in a year.Īstrid Stawiarz/Getty Images Entertainment/Getty Images ![]() According to Williams, Sorokin’s credit cards “mysteriously stopped working” once they were there, forcing her to front the cost of meals, shopping sprees, and their $7,500-per-night private villa. ![]() But things took a turn when Sorokin asked Williams to join her on the fated “all-expenses-paid” trip to Morocco’s five-star La Mamounia hotel. Initially, Sorokin treated Williams to everything from lavish dinners to infrared sauna sessions and workouts with a celebrity personal trainer. “It was destabilizing to have been so wrong about someone I trusted,” Williams explained in a recent piece for Time.“ I began writing to process what had happened, so I could learn from it and hopefully leave it behind.”Īfter a New York magazine reporter contacted her in 2018, Williams realized her “involvement with Anna would soon become public.” Writing the Vanity Fair article helped to give her back a sense of control, and she later parlayed the story into a book: My Friend Anna, published in July 2019.īilled as “ Sex and the City meets Bad Blood and Catch Me If You Can,” the book chronicles Williams and Sorokin’s rollercoaster friendship. Williams, who’s played by Katie Lowes in the series, wrote about her encounters with Delvey in a 2018 essay for Vanity Fair, where she’d been working as a photo editor at the time. Her rise and fall is documented in Netflix’s new scripted drama Inventing Anna, but it’s far from the first time Delvey’s story has been told. Sorokin, of course, was later convicted on multiple charges of grand larceny for defrauding numerous banks, hotels, and New York party people under the guise that she was a wealthy German heiress named Anna Delvey. Sorokin promised to pay her back as soon as they returned to New York. In 2017, Rachel DeLoache Williams fronted her then-BFF Anna Sorokin $62,000 while on a trip to Morocco.
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