While Anna Delvey is extending her 15 minutes of fame with a stunt casting on Dancing with the Stars, not everyone at ABC is welcoming the fake heiress with open arms. The ladies of The View were less than pleased that Delvey is joining the show, especially since she’ll be competing with a sparkly special accessory: her ICE-issued ankle bracelet (bedazzled, because what did you expect).
Whoopi Goldberg was first to express her dismay, referencing Delvey’s ongoing deportation case and the border crisis that’s become an even bigger and louder issue as election day creeps closer.
“I think back to all the families who’ve had family members arrested by ICE who have gone to the courts to get their dad or their brother or their mother back. This woman, they gave her permission to go do this,” Goldberg said, before asking, “Now, should I think there’s a reason, is there a two-tiered system here with ICE?”
Although Delvey is perhaps best known for her scammer stunts — which earned her a New York Magazine feature and later, her own Shonda Rhimes series titled Inventing Anna — she’s also landed in hot water with immigration authorities for violating the terms of her visa. As a result, Delvey has been living under house arrest in New York, but told People that she was given permission by ICE to compete on DWTS.
Delvey also brushed off any blowback to her casting while speaking with People, offering the glib defense, “It’s just not that serious. If someone is that upset about casting on a dancing show, I don’t know what to tell them.”
Sunny Hostin, though, does think it’s just that serious. She said on today’s episode, “If you think about it, [Delvey] defrauded so many people and then spent about two years in prison, and then had to spend another 18 months in prison for overstaying her welcome and overstaying her visa, so she committed another crime. And what is the, I don’t know, consequence of it? A bejeweled ankle monitor, a federal bejeweled ankle monitor and a spot on a television show.”
As Sara Haines made the obligatory Donald Trump remark, quipping, “We have a felon running for president. Why are we surprised?” Hostin replied, “I like a come-up, but when are there consequences to peoples’ actions in this country?”
When it was Goldberg’s turn to speak again, she said she was puzzled that Delvey got to stay in the country while so many others are deported. Joy Behar, blunt as ever, told her, “Because she’s pretty, that’s why.”
But Goldberg wasn’t going to leave it at that.
“Well that’s a little bit of a piss-off!” she exclaimed. “I have to tell you, and you know, I like pretty people too. But I gotta say, I’m listening to people bitch about what’s going on at the border, and I listen to people bitch about all these people who shouldn’t be here. Well what the hell, man! How does this work?
“And we gotta support the network, I get all of that,” she continued, referring to The View and DWTS‘s shared home at ABC. She then slammed the casting as disrespectful to “a lot of people who’ve been trying to make their way back to this country, and families torn apart.”
The View airs weekdays at 11/10c on ABC.