Netflix’s Inventing Anna, fact vs fiction: did Anna Sorokin steal a jet? Did she really know Fyre Festival’s Billy McFarland and Martin Shkreli? And does she really talk like that?
- Fact: Sorokin was pals with Fyre Festival’s Billy McFarland and Pharma Bro Martin Shkreli – she even lived in the headquarters of McFarland’s credit-card company
- Despite Sorokin’s many scams and frauds, aspiring filmmaker Neffatari Davis continues to support her, saying ‘Anna is my friend and always will be’
Spoiler alert! Contains plot details from Netflix limited series Inventing Anna (now streaming).
Scammer season is in full swing. Hot on the heels of Netflix’s The Tinder Swindler, with shows about Elizabeth Holmes (Hulu’s The Dropout) and WeWork (Apple TV+’s WeCrashed) coming next month, another miniseries that is captivating viewers right now is the stranger-than-fiction story of Anna Sorokin.
Sorokin is the subject of Netflix’s Inventing Anna, a partly fictionalised retelling of how a young Russian woman posing as a German heiress named Anna Delvey conned New York’s elite out of hundreds of thousands of dollars. Produced by Shonda Rhimes, the nine-episode series is based on a 2018 New York Magazine article by Jessica Pressler, who is renamed Vivian Kent and played by Anna Chlumsky (of Veep) in the show.
Under the guise of starting a new business – the so-called Anna Delvey Foundation, an exclusive private arts club – Sorokin (played by Ozark star Julia Garner) convinced banks and countless associates to foot the bill for expensive restaurants, hotels, trips and events, all with the promise that she’d repay them. She was eventually arrested and found guilty of grand larceny and theft of services in 2019, and was released from prison last year. (Sorokin, 31, is currently in ICE detention and faces deportation to Germany.)
Here are a few of our biggest questions after binge-watching the series:
Did Sorokin actually steal a jet?
Throughout the season, Vivian races against the clock to finish reporting the Sorokin story before she gives birth (a plot that was partially exaggerated for the show, Pressler told InStyle). She enlists the help of veteran journalists in the fictional Manhattan magazine’s newsroom – nicknamed “Scriberia” – to aid in Sorokin’s investigation.
Midway through the season, the Scriberia reporters are shocked to learn that Sorokin once “stole a plane”. Although this is technically true, it wasn’t some Mission: Impossible-style feat where she swiped a jet off the tarmac and piloted it herself.
As depicted in the show, Sorokin was introduced socially to Rob Wiesenthal, CEO of Blade, a company that offers private and shared charter flights. Seeking to attend Warren Buffett’s annual investment conference, Sorokin booked a US$35,000 jet from New Jersey to Omaha, Nebraska, “by sending them a forged confirmation for a wire transfer from Deutsche Bank”, according to Pressler’s reporting. The payment never came.
Blade’s chief financial officer, Kathleen McCormack, testified during Sorokin’s trial that the company thought she was good for the money, according to Rolling Stone.