虚构安娜

昨天二刷了一遍《虚构安娜》，想通了很多第一次看时模模糊糊感觉到的东西。

很多人最初只期待看到一个类似《猫鼠游戏》似的底层人混成假名媛似的传奇故事，但是被剧里面大篇幅记者和律师的片段弄得一次又一次地失望和快进，甚至非常想不通为什么，这样一部剧，要画蛇添足用记者作为主线来串联，为什么要去描摹记者和律师跟安娜的互动。

除了这些人物都来自现实，这个剧这么设计是因为它有更大的野心。

因为剧作团队，在听了现实安娜的叙述之后，想通过这个故事来指出我们生活的世界有多悲哀、荒谬、令人愤怒又无能为力。

采访安娜的记者薇薇安，第一次理解安娜，是在采访和安娜有过交集的一个女富豪的故事。

那个女富豪说，她第一次和安娜认识，是在一个艺术画展上。

当时安娜一个人盯着一副抽象画欣赏，于是女富豪走了过去，因为那幅画正是女富豪准备拍下的。

她问安娜有没有什么意见，对于这幅画。

安娜耸耸肩。

女富豪说：“oh，你就像其他人一样夸夸这幅画就好了，毕竟我马上就要买下它。

”安娜耸耸肩说：“如果我是你，我就根本不会买下它。

它一文不值。

或者说，整个这个展，所有都一文不值。

除了那个。

”女富豪跟着安娜走到一副很小的黑白自拍像前面。

那是艺术家Cindy Sherman的。

女富豪不明白。

她对安娜说，好吧，就算Cindy Sherman很有名，但这也只是她自己瞎玩乐自拍的作品，在她那么多的作品不值一提，为什么会值钱？

安娜说：“这是她随意玩乐的作品？

这是她第一次走进自己摄像机的作品。

在这幅作品之前，Cindy Sherman不过是一个普通的工作人员，她坐在摄像机后，听着其他那些男摄影师们的安排，设计布景。

但是有一天，她突然有了想法。

她走进了自己的摄影机。

她不再是那个工作人员。

她开始成为了Cindy Sherman。

这就是这张照片的意义。

这就是它为什么值钱。

”这段话给女富豪留下了很深的印象。

在她眼里，安娜成了一个艺术品味很高，非常聪明，能力超绝的德国女富二代。

即便之后安娜和男友滥用了她朋友的游艇，她也觉得是安娜为了迁就男友。

这是女富豪对于安娜的虚构。

但是对于女记者薇薇安来说，这个故事让她迈出了理解安娜的第一步：她在安娜身上看到了Cindy sherman的影子。

安娜不想接受上天给她的安排，以一个普通人的身份，通过自己的奋斗，得到上层的认可。

安娜要走到自己的摄影机前面。

她要成为用想象力铺汇的自己。

她要让世界接受它，而不是适应这个世界。

Cindy Sherman，安娜评论的作品在女富豪之后，薇薇安又一步步找到了与安娜有过交集的所有人：高定服装设计师Val，女慈善家Nora，酒店前台Neff，高级私人教练Kacy，《名利场》编辑Rachel，前男友兼科技企业老板Chase，《名利场》的摄影师Noah，安娜的投资经理人……让薇薇安好奇的是，为什么这么多的上流人物，从来没有怀疑过安娜的身份。

他们的回答都是，安娜看起来就是上流。

她有最时尚的穿衣品味，她有超绝的艺术审美，她甚至会七门外语，里面包括了中国普通话。

她有很强的投资计算能力。

甚至，她可以过目不忘。

但是这给弹幕里面很多人留下了直到结束也没能解决的疑问，包括很多影评：安娜能力这么强，会这么多东西，为什么她不能好好找个工作。

她这样的，随随便便也能混得很好啊。

但其实这正是这个剧探讨的东西。

在第一次开庭前，安娜的律师托德找到了负责起诉安娜的女检察官。

他们曾经是同学。

托德带着自己的小孩在公园散步，顺便堵住了检察官。

女检察官说，她是不可能撤诉的，这个案子很重要，并且她认为意义重大。

这个案子反映了当代社会问题。

什么社会问题呢？

年轻人们贪慕虚荣，留恋享受，为此撒下弥天大谎，只为了花天酒地。

这是女检察官认为安娜所反映的东西。

律师托德说：“是，这个案子反映了当代社会问题。

因为安娜是当代罗宾汉。

”很多，很多人以为，律师托德这里把安娜比喻成绿林好汉罗宾汉，是因为安娜在欺骗富人。

所以很多人驳斥说，安娜骗来的投资并没有劫富济贫，很多还自己花了。

所以她根本就不是罗宾汉。

但不是的，律师托德的意思不是这个意思。

绿林好汉罗宾汉是什么故事？

诺丁汉郡长占了罗宾汉家里的土地，甚至还想强占罗宾汉的妻子玛丽安。

所以罗宾汉舍去了理查王治下的公民身份，他走进了舍伍德森林，他成为了一个小偷，一个强盗。

他不再接受他生来如此的身份。

他选择成为了一个小偷向这个社会抗议。

这就是律师托德将安娜比喻成罗宾汉的原因。

安娜拒绝接受社会给她安排的身份和命运。

她选择创造一个新的命运。

这也是安娜的故事之所以很震撼的原因：因为过去的故事，统统都是在讲一个英雄，一个主人公，如何努力抗争自己原本的命运，经历重重磨难之后创造新生。

但是安娜不，安娜开始质问：“凭什么？

凭什么我生来就要有这样的命运？

这样的命运是天定的，还是人定的？

有谁和我商量过吗？

我不接受它。

所以更别提让我反抗它。

”这回答的是那个问题：为什么安娜能力这么强，她却不愿意好好工作？

因为好好工作，努力奋斗就是接受原本的命运，就是和原本的命运抗争。

安娜选择无视她的命运。

因为她不接受这就是她的命运。

律师托德和记者薇薇安在最后深深地理解安娜，关心安娜，就是因为他们深深感触了这一点。

他们知道这个社会是不公平和不正义的。

其中最大的不公平，就是社会要求一个人接受自己天生的命运，接受自己站到自己应该站到的位置上。

这也是一个人最大的无能为力。

薇薇安第一次在监狱会见室里见到安娜，安娜认为薇薇安没有通过媒体专用通道，没有申请到单独访问室，代表了薇薇安带了先入为主的想象，并没有期待从安娜口中听到不一样的故事，所以安娜故意说，她准备考虑签认罪认罚书了，这样可以少判很多年。

薇薇安劝她不要。

安娜说：“那你给我一个理由。

”薇薇安说：“如果你签下了这个认罪书，就代表你接受了社会讲述的关于你的故事，代表你认可了他们觉得你是一个女骗子，一个假名媛。

但你自己不认为你是这样的人。

你不要向社会的他们低头。

”安娜嘲讽地笑。

但她最后接受了这个理由。

而在倒数第二次庭审中，被安娜借信用卡刷了五万的《名利场》编辑瑞秋，坐在法庭证人席上，讲述自己和安娜的故事。

讲述安娜如何欺骗了她，如何给她带来了巨大的创伤，原本积极上进的生活，如何经历了很长一段时间灰暗期，她又如何决定鼓起勇气站在这里，讲述自己经历，将勇气传递给每一个人。

陪审团的很多人都感动了。

安娜一回到候审室就崩溃了。

她对律师托德歇斯底里说：“瑞秋那个婊子。

陪审团都相信她的bull shit了。

我们完了。

她比我好看，她比我演得好。

他们现在都相信她了。

但我不是什么女骗子，假名媛。

我不是骗子。

我差一点点就拿到投资了。

我差一点点就真的成功了。

”她说什么也不肯再继续出庭，然后和同样崩溃的律师吵了一架。

最后两个人坐在地上，律师托德说服了安娜相信自己。

因为他相信安娜。

他相信安娜不是他们认为的“女骗子”。

安娜只提出了一个要求：“辩护的时候必须把我辩护成差一点点就成功的女企业家。

哪怕我因此要做很多年牢。

”律师同意了。

但他一开始准备的辩护策略就是，把安娜的行为辩护成，离犯罪还差得远呢。

那些拙劣的伎俩根本就没骗到Fortress的投资经理人们，所以根本谈不上犯罪。

所以在最后辩护陈词的时候，律师做出了选择。

他对陪审团的人说：“如果你们认为安娜的计划如此幼稚、拙劣，那么你们同样也必须得认为，安娜离犯罪还远着。

同样，如果你们认为安娜犯罪了，那么也代表承认，安娜差一点就成功得到了那么多的投资。

”他说完这段话很忐忑。

因为这不是安娜的意思。

所以在审判结果公布之后，他和妻子走出大门，准备打车去机场开始去度假。

他对妻子说，不好意思，他必须要回去看安娜。

就算妻子威胁他要和他离婚，他也要回去看安娜。

很多人也不懂，为什么这个律师还放不下安娜。

觉得这就是安娜所说的“利用他人的愧疚”，律师被安娜利用和控制了。

但其实不是的。

律师回去，只是因为他觉得对不起自己的良心。

他没有按照安娜的意思做，更没有按照他自己相信的信念去做。

他为了让安娜少一些刑期，做了相反的事。

他不是在为安娜辩护。

他是在为自己相信的信念，相信这个世界不应该是这样而辩护。

在筹划安娜辩护的整个期间，时间一拖再拖，最后律师的老婆在家里和他大吵一架。

律师的老婆说她不理解，为什么律师对安娜这么上心。

如果律师和安娜有一腿那还好了，她可以理解。

但是律师和安娜之间什么都没有。

为什么律师对安娜这么关心。

律师说：“因为当年我也是这样一个人来到纽约……”他说了一半就没说了，只留下痛苦，愤怒，却不知如何表达的表情。

他说：“说了你也不会懂，你不会懂。

你从来就不用经历过。

”当律师在审判结束后，抛下老婆来到候审室，看到安娜靠在墙上崩溃地大哭。

他试着去安慰安娜，但是安娜最后崩溃大哭说：“没关系了，没关系了。

他们看见了。

他们判我对诈骗峰堡的投资有罪，对瑞秋的信用卡5万美元无罪。

他们知道我不是一个花天酒地的女骗子。

他们知道差一点就成功了。

他们看见我了。

判决传出去，整个世界也知道了。

我不是一个女骗子。

我差一点就成功了。

”这也是这个剧最终落脚的地方。

刨除所有人对安娜的虚构，真实的安娜是什么？

是一个来自于德国偏远穷苦小镇的普通人，她不接受自己既定的命运，更不屑于和这样的命运耗上十几年抗争。

她直接向整个世界和社会宣战。

她要得到她认为自己应得的命运。

而她差一点点，差一点点就成功了。

dangerously close。

这就是安娜。

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”。

“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?

说几点仅代表我个人的观剧感受……1.安娜个人感觉就是一个反社会人格精神病，骗子总是可恶的，如何定义她这种“反社会”，前几集感受是就是她破坏秩序，破坏所谓文明商业帝国的“基石”，作为一个讲信用的契约社会，每个人付出的劳动，服务，甭管他值不值那个价钱，在一场交易中你都应该pay the bill，而不是从根上虚构自己没有的资产来诈骗……后面虽然很多人从中受益，却不曾想破坏，社会裂痕在慢慢发生，也影响和改变了很多人的生活，我想大部分是人的生活是受影响变坏了……2.可以看出美国人对工作的负责，真是有目共睹，律师，记者都是just do her or his job，至于后几集表现的他们被精神控制，pua ，反而让人感到恶心🤢……工作和生活没有分开，也不算是一个有专业精神的工作人……3.从中也窥探到了美国精神的没落，一个没有正确价值观的社会，让人觉得可悲；故事，拍摄，演员的表演都很棒，这部剧的出现体现了一定的美国这种开放，供人讨论的氛围，可是这是一个十足的骗子，就这么简单，当然，我们不否认安娜的人格的构成有她的复杂性，社会环境的复杂性，可是一个让社会稳定向前运行的好的价值观是不允许辩论或者叫“陪审团”的，如果被资本主义，消费主义里存在的达摩克利斯之剑那部分坏的部分毒害社会的秩序，正义，即使当前美国的创新，科技还领先，还进步，它的文明感觉在后退，定性的问题不容讨论……4.我想举个我听到的小例子，一个盗窃账号伪装朋友去以帮忙救济为名义诈骗朋友掏很多钱买机票的骗子，他伤害了受害者的善良，也让受害者忍受心理折磨，如果这部分钱从家里拿的，他作为孩子也不敢告诉家长，怕被打是一方面，怕让父母伤心生病是更重要的，骗子是不承受受害者的痛苦和代价的，所以为何同情骗子？

善良的人即使身处困境也不会诈骗，至少会维持这个良知，诈骗犯无论何种类型，各种方式，都不值得原谅与同情……5.现实中安娜也被释放，并且还上了电视采访，赚了钱，还了债，被诈骗的信用卡，酒店啥的也因为担忧自己的名声而采取了其他的措施，总觉得是追不回来浪费的各种价值和工作成本了，一个生活自律银行家，投行的金融大鳄都被骗，可见制度有待完善，但是你不能以人性弱点来责备，因为一个是人性弱点-趋利很难改变，想变得有名，想获得更多的尊重，名声，不能因这些指责。

还有一点是在他们所处的高度社会商业文明中，金融业的服务人员需要先敞开心扉，表现出good heart，不可能展现出过于明显的歧视穷人，年轻的女性，不能以恶意来揣测来寻求投资的人，因为这样会丧失好的机会，也会授人以柄破坏女权，大家都不会想到一个精神病会胆子大到这种程度，当然这也是给骗子以可乘之机……6.最后，感谢以内容为王的Netflix ，放出这样的剧给人以警醒……尽管可能Netflix 以此，以一个诈骗犯的故事也获益不少……

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。

“她们都不觉得自己在骗人，因为所有的谎言都只不过是还未兑现的诺言。

”标题摘自短评区一则热门影评安娜真的心理素质贼强大，好几次我尴尬得不得不按暂停退出播放，安娜还能淡定自若，并由于种种原因，顺利度过难关。

当然这样未免也太奇幻了，原型就这么好运气吗?一个短评“so many wealthy well educated people，没有人怀疑，事后也出于reputation考虑，并不追究，Anna正是深知这点，才能如此光明正大行骗。

令人讽刺的是，富人被盗刷信用卡的钱，和身为联邦信贷CEO的闺蜜打个招呼钱就回来了，而普通人Rachel被公司、银行逼到到处躲藏，最后美国运通为了避免成为新闻热点主动清除了这笔债务。

🤔”这点值得思考同时，安娜自信心爆棚，富有野心。

口才也好，深谙丛林法则，擅长利用人际关系牵线搭桥，必要时心也够狠。

某种意义上，安娜算是坚定地坏，毫不怀疑地坏，从而坏出魅力、坏出风采的“恶女角色”。

律师、记者和安娜相处时的耐心真的令人肃然起敬，面对安娜种种刁难和鄙视，还能冷静处理、继续交涉。。。。

太拼了。。。

换我就一起发疯了。。。

安娜和Rachel的关系也很错综复杂。

剧中花了一定的篇幅描写Rachel因为公司的卡被安娜刷爆，无论事业还是情绪都受到创伤，使观众先入为主同情Rachel，但Rachel用这段经历出书赚了几百万、安娜曾经请Rachel吃喝玩乐两年而不用Rachel买单，这几件事混在一起使得一切变得微妙而杂乱。

成年人的人际关系都这么复杂的么……唉:-(……安娜在喝醉的情况下不小心对Neff说出真话，那一刻无意中流露出的脆弱很动人。

她们的关系也很复杂，有互相利用，有真心帮助，安娜果决的行事风格一定程度上也帮助Neff踏出了实现导演梦的第一步。

安娜和记者在剧中都很美，两种不同气质的美:前者是娇矜、傲慢、略带神经质，后者也暗暗憋着一口气，但也许是摔过跟头，更稳重踏实些。

剧的节奏很快，情节跌宕起伏，大量场景赏心悦目，感觉适合下饭用。

剧中安娜有好几次提到女权主义:成功说服金融从业者帮她拉贷款时，靠的是抓住社会对年轻女性创业者不宽容以及对方有个和她差不多大的女儿两点；吐槽社会对男性犯罪者比对女性犯罪者宽容多了，以此动摇了记者的偏向。

这些问题的存在不可否认，但义正言辞的安娜真的关心女性创业者和犯罪者所受到的不公平对待吗?不，这只是她用于达成目的的手段。

从始至终，她最关注的只有自己。

所以，我不认为这是碰瓷女权，更像是对安娜的讽刺。

看完《虚构安娜》的最后两集，我还是觉得精彩的。

安娜并不在乎自己被判了多少年，只在乎自己是否真的成功——成功销售了自己的商业理想，离融资一步之遥。

即使要在监狱里呆一辈子，她也需要告诉世界she made it.看到最后一集我一直在想一个问题，安娜这种行为真的可以被称之为gaslighting或者我们所熟悉的PUA吗？

一般意义上来说，PUA应该是对受害者施加的情感虐待和操控，让受害者逐渐丧失自尊，产生自我怀疑，无法逃脱。

但是本剧中，我认为安娜对朋友、女记者、律师都doesn't give a shit，她真的没有花费过多的时间去PUA别人，她在非常认真的创造自己臆想中的王国，她是极度自恋的Narcissus，而这些人只是恰好经过她建造的虚拟世界，被她制造出的幻象、她的胆量、她的真实身份所吸引，从而心甘情愿为她付出，为她着迷而已。

换句话来说，PUA是有意为之，但是从旁观者来看，安娜并不是有意操控这些人帮她，反而是这些人为了自己的利益在接近安娜，利用安娜的故事使自己成名获利，他们都在安娜创造的谎言里分了一杯羹。

最典型的就是瑞秋，前期与安娜做朋友的两年时间里，她白嫖了无数的晚餐奢侈品，最后因为不得不自己支付度假的六万美金，所以崩溃了，联合警察把安娜抓了，大卖受害者人设，通过卖这个受害者视角的故事狠狠赚了六十万美元。

事实证明，陪审团都讨厌这样的伪君子，以至于最后安娜对瑞秋的诈骗这一罪名并不成立——考虑到她前期的获利或许都不止度假的这六万美元。

在我看来女记者，律师，安娜的朋友都和瑞秋大同小异，是自愿参与到这场骗局中的，没有人是真正的PUA受害者，大家都在参与这场狂欢。

非要挑毛病，安娜女主演的演技略显拙略， 我没有看出她的人格魅力，反而更像一个精神病患者。

郊区的监狱里，有一位女子，与周围格格不入。

她戴着黑框眼镜，逻辑清晰，谈吐优雅。

有人嗤之以鼻，她就是纽约第一女骗子；也有人坚信不疑，她家财万贯，是上亿资产的继承人。

而她自己却说，钱对我来说不是问题，信不信由你。

她就是——虚构安娜

*以下内容为真实事件与剧情相结合，少部分为剧集杜撰她叫安娜·索罗金，另一个更广为人知的名字，叫安娜·德尔维。

她是“德尔维”家族的继承人，父亲希望她能自力更生，便在她名下设立了6000万欧元的信托基金。

只要她年满26岁，就能自由支配这笔钱。

而安娜的社交平台，也充满着富二代的奢靡气息——游走时尚秀场，穿梭艺术画廊，跨界名流峰会。

无处不在的高端奢侈品，数不尽的上流派对，还有与她亲密合影的富豪贵族、时尚名流，甚至不乏商界大拿的身影。

整个纽约的富豪名流圈里，似乎就没有安娜不认识的人，走到哪里都能听见她的名字。

安娜还和一般只会挥霍玩乐的富二代们不同，她有着自己的事业：以自己的名字来命名的基金会。

在基金会初创阶段，安娜凭借广泛的人脉，组建了基金会的核心成员。

并通过详细的商业计划书，成功说服银行投资人为她作担保，向国家城市银行申请了2200万美元的贷款，并且拿到了高达20万美元的信贷额度。

从始至终，没有一个人怀疑过安娜的真实身份，直到她因为涉嫌诈骗锒铛入狱。

为了挖掘安娜的故事，《曼哈顿》的女记者耗费了几个月的时间，从社交平台到辩护资料，再到安娜住过的酒店、交往过的人群进行详细的采访取材。

这位传奇女子的神秘面纱，终于被揭开——令人大跌眼镜的是，安娜并不是什么坐拥上亿遗产的富二代。

她的父亲是货车司机，母亲是家庭主妇，家中还有一个弟弟，非常普通的家庭。

作为俄罗斯移民，16岁才到德国生活学习的她，并不受待见。

传闻中的那些富豪身世，全都是假的！

实在让人震惊。

安娜到底是怎么融入纽约名流圈，又是怎样让富豪名流们对她的满口胡言深信不疑，甚至心甘情愿被骗的？

这一切都离不开最关键的两个字，“人设”。

从小，安娜就流露出对时尚的兴趣与关心，在高中毕业之后，便到伦敦中央圣马丁学院进行学习。

然而待了没多久，安娜就从圣马丁退学，在柏林的一家公关公司实习。

随后，她又辗转去了巴黎，拿到了在法国时尚杂志《Purple》实习的机会。

也正是在《Purple》实习的那段时间里，让安娜有了接触时尚、艺术和名流的机会。

现实中安娜·索罗金的日常在最能够一眼辨别暴发户和网红的时尚人士看来，安娜的品味是独一无二的。

她总能很精准地抓到“品味”的精髓，不管是穿着、谈吐、行为举止，甚至细节到去哪里吃什么样的菜，该点什么年份区域的红酒。

安娜浑身上下散发着“上流社会”的气息。

在真正的名媛眼里，安娜和她们就是同一类人。

“不试图给人留下深刻印象，不畏惧，不在乎，而且对艺术很有品味。

”

安娜时常辗转于各大画廊艺术展中，在无意中与名流大家们分享自己对于艺术的见解。

一旦碰上同道中人，便很快能与对方结成友谊。

对于时尚与艺术的独到见解，是安娜跻身名流社会的第一块敲门砖。

当安娜拥有了这些“人脉”与“朋友”，便要最大程度地利用这些资源。

首先是社交平台。

安娜通过社交平台留下了与各种名流的合影，并亲密地标记对方的名字，不断对自己是贵族继承人的形象进行印象加深。

与此同时，社交平台上也不乏各种艺术展览、旅游度假的照片，甚至搭乘私人飞机、豪华邮轮，让越来越多的人对她编造的身世深信不疑。

人设已经搭建成功，安娜便开始了自己的新一步扩张。

通过“我和某某名流认识”、“某某名流是我的朋友”这样的搭桥牵线，安娜开始挤进更高层次的圈层。

她有了一个新的名号：创业。

安娜不断地利用女性崛起和创业热情来大做文章，强调家族虽然有钱，但是希望她能够独立自主，所以她需要靠自己的努力来创业，获得更多人的支持与引荐。

和其他只懂得享受的富二代不同，安娜对于创业的热情，吸引了一部分投资人的青睐。

与此同时，当时安娜的男友蔡斯正处于创业失败阶段，她利用了蔡斯的失败，向蔡斯的引荐人诺拉告发，将诺拉的资源顺到了自己的阵营里。

之前因人际网络不够庞大而四处碰壁的安娜，顺利地将建筑师、收藏家、地产大亨都纳入了自己创业团队中，形成了一份“完美”的商业计划。

要想启动这份计划，便需要通过融资贷款来实现。

起初，她也和所有创业人士一样，提交商业计划书，试图说服投资人艾伦为她担保贷款。

但不管她说得再怎么天花乱坠，艾伦从她的项目里看不到利益，也无法对这样一个年轻人产生信赖，便拒绝了她。

多次碰壁之后，安娜找到了新的出路：先改变自己的形象，她不再是一个出入时尚派对的富二代，而是头脑清晰的女企业家。

戴了眼镜，换了更为深沉的色调搭配，摇身一变商界人士。

接着，她试图寻找着艾伦身上的弱点：他有一个女儿。

好巧不巧，艾伦的女儿就跟所有纨绔子弟一样，不学无术，天天只想着花家里的钱。

安娜对创业充满热情的姿态，逐渐点燃了艾伦的生活激情。

当然最重要的，还是利益。

安娜施加了一些简陋的伎俩，像是购买虚假电话卡、变声装备，为她的假身份提供更为真实的验证，让艾伦相信她所提供作为担保物的信托基金没有任何问题。

甚至在承销商要求交出10万美金的保证金时，艾伦用自己的判断作为担保，替安娜向国民城市银行申请到了20万美金的信用额度。

艾伦坚信，这是一笔“能够吃到死”的生意，在做到全球扩张之前，他就能吃下超过两亿美元。

就算现在安娜无法马上拿出钱来，但也都是迟早的事。

故事看到这里，不禁让人有了一种错觉：这不是一个女骗子的行骗故事，而更像是一个女企业家的血泪创业史。

然而，最关键的问题在于——安娜的钱都从哪里来的？

她用了一个很聪明的办法，以小博大。

一开始，安娜刚踏入名流社交圈时，豪掷千金，用高奢衣服和消费来包装自己。

就连给小费，一般人最多10美金，但安娜都是100美金起步。

当认识的有钱人越来越多，安娜便以自己只有现金、或者只能汇款为由，让对方提前帮自己刷卡垫付。

和男友蔡斯恋爱时，住酒店、吃饭、逛街，刷的都是蔡斯的卡；

帮诺拉到买手店取衣服、记账消费、招待朋友时，将自己的消费记在诺拉名下，或者直接刷诺拉交给她的信用卡。

就连预约私人飞机，也是借用投资人的名号，一分钱都没付，敷衍几句赶时间便坐上了私人飞机。

也正因为她骗的都是有钱人，有钱人们都理所当然地觉得，安娜没有理由会欠他们钱不还，便心安理得地替她先行付款。

就算发现被骗了，有钱人们也碍于面子，而选择不了了之。

甚至其中还有不少人直到安娜入狱，他们才意识到自己被骗了。

唯一一位不停向安娜追讨欠款的，是《名利场》的一位女记者瑞秋。

和安娜成为朋友之后，为了表现出自己的阔绰，大多数时候，安娜都不会让瑞秋付钱。

不管是美容、购物还是吃饭，安娜都会主动为瑞秋掏腰包。

然而就在她们一同结伴去摩洛哥游玩的时候，安娜的信用卡刷不了了，便只好让瑞秋垫付了六万多美金的消费。

对于一般的有钱人来说，可能这并不算什么钱。

但对于瑞秋而言，这相当于她一年的工资，还刷爆了她的信用卡。

为了追讨回这一笔欠款瑞秋便把安娜骗钱的故事发表在了《名利场》上，并向警方报案。

与此同时，安娜也由于不断在各个酒店吃霸王餐、逃酒店钱，被警方正式逮捕。

安娜因被身负四项“重大诈骗”罪名，被判4到12年有期徒刑，罚款19.9万元和2.4万。

长达四年的纽约第一假名媛诈骗案，就此划下句号。

直到被保释出狱、这部以她为主人公的剧集播出，她依然在利用着世界的有钱人们。

每次庭审，安娜都精心打扮自己，甚至找了设计师为自己设计“出庭造型”，也会因为对造型不满意而拒绝出庭。

安娜在庭审上的“时装秀”，一度还成为社交平台的热门话题。

*与日本女杀人犯木嶋佳苗的“庭审搭配”如出一辙在监狱里的安娜，也忙着写自己在纽约的回忆录，还打算将自己在监狱里的生活撰写出书。

而她的这段诈骗故事，以32万美元卖给了网飞，拍成了这部剧集。

庭审中的安娜·索罗金安娜的人生，确实是一出极其精彩的戏剧。

她深谙名流社交，掌握了游戏规则，强势的气场和自信的谈吐让她在真正的有钱人们面前也显得十分突出。

她制造了一种“世界唯我独尊”的存在感，这也是有钱人们的通病。

当别人对上流社会仰望不已、俯首称臣的时候，安娜以更高贵的姿态一脚踏入，打破了名流们的固有思维习惯。

即便安娜的诈骗手法并不高级，更有着肉眼可见的漏洞百出，但“当局者迷”。

安娜的演技已经卓越到，连她自己都活在预设的虚假之中。

在被捕之前，安娜疑似服药自杀，被送入了医院。

在医院里，即便她的谎言被揭穿，她却把所有的罪责推给了自己臆想中的“原生家庭”——爸爸是黑帮，不仅家暴，自己因为是俄罗斯移民，还收受到各种歧视……等等。

然而在调查过后，平凡又普通的蓝领家庭，并不能为安娜的犯罪而背锅。

在很多残忍的案件背后，总是充斥着对原生家庭的控诉。

但像安娜这样的现实故事却在告诉我们，基因与环境，并不是让一个人“变坏”的绝对因素。

安娜的性格扭曲与自命不凡，来自于她对于命运的不服，还有对金钱与名利的偏执。

她所渴望的，早已不仅仅是钱，是那种万人拥戴、受人追捧的虚荣感。

被安娜所欺骗的人们，可以追回钱财，断绝往来；然而唯有她自己，深陷在亲手布下的骗局，永生难逃。

*本文作者：D

关于骗子，如果骗子能混到上下通达，说明她摸透了白男社会的体系，而这时大部分身在其中的人还属局外人。

像轻视剧本版安娜一样轻视骗子们，以为不过是刷不了卡大呼小叫的人，这也是骗子会希望的，没有人会意识到被猎手接近直到最后一刻。

不过以上都不重要，这部剧真正隐藏的东西恰好是人们主动轻视的部分。

还不错的爽剧，剧本故事矛盾线充足，一集刻画一个关键人物，推进的节奏到后几集反而更精彩。

安娜和女记者分析已经很多，想探讨一下剧里其他女配的角色。

女友Rachael: 律师Todd质询她前，我多少对她是同情的，Todd和Kacy的质询后，她仓惶出逃，才知道眼泪都是假装，看似弱者受害方，早就将自己故事卖了好价钱，她是演艺圈和网红圈 精致利己的多数女性形象，为了流量而经营标签，日子久了 自己也分不清是非真假；女友Kacy: 她的职业病一直让她扮演人生导师，时不时冒出鸡汤句，但从受牵连结果来看，这些鸡汤确实也是都市浮躁的速效药，锻炼冥想 划清界限 不要圣母，你就是人间清醒；女友Naff: 单纯机灵小聪明，她很适合去做网红经纪人或直播运营，她的视野格局和不够努力的性格，做导演还是差很多；富婆Norah: 应该是白手起家的暴发户，貌似热情好客，帮助有理想的年轻人找到资源；实则是填补自己被需求被认同的欲望，被自身的空虚反噬；Todd妻：嫁给凤凰男的真白富美，对伴侣有极大的涵养和包容，忍受伴侣的阶层嘲讽，别的女人费尽心机去要的地位，她与生俱来，然而爱心捂不热凤凰男的执着，门当户对确实必要。