Maks Chmerkovskiy Weighs In On Anna Delvey’s ‘DWTS’ Elimination

Former pro Maks Chmerkovskiypreviously expressed his thoughts on Anna Delvey being cast on "Dancing With the Stars," but his recent comments have taken many by surprise.

Delvey, who rose to fame as Anna Sorokin and is known as the “Fake Heiress,” joined this season of the show amid varied fan reactions, but she was the first to be eliminated from the show, alongside Tori Spelling.

After Anna Delvey's elimination, Maks Chmerkovskiy is back in the spotlight, and his latest comments are raising eyebrows.

Convicted fraudster Anna Delvey got the boot from "Dancing With the Stars" during the second week after taking the stage to KT Tunstall’s "Suddenly I See" alongside her pro partner, Ezra Sosa.

“I am going to have to be honest, I thought she’s not going to be the first to go, in terms of her dance ability,” Chmerkovskiy told Us Weekly at the Dancers Against Cancer 10th annual Gala of Stars Awards in Beverly Hills of. Delvey's elimination.

Chmerkovskiy then dropped hints that there were a “few others” he believed should have been sent packing before Anna Delvey, but noted that her heart just wasn’t in it. “I don’t think she embraced the moment at all,” he added, suggesting that Delvey’s lack of enthusiasm may have played a role in her elimination.

His recent comments come after he slammed her dancing skills. “I can see both sides. I can also be on the production side, and I can be on the viewer side and understand it all,” he said on TMZ's podcast last month. “But if you want an ankle [bracelet] and sort of this, ‘Damn, this is going to draw attention,’ and the scandalousness of it all – I mean, there are so many other people you can choose from.”

The former pro didn't hold back when discussing Anna Delvey, calling her “a professional liar” before criticizing her dance performance. “She wasn’t great,” he remarked, specifically referencing her cha-cha routine.

“Hold on a second — didn’t she con people into believing she was, like, fully fashion this and special like that? And that takes a lot of guts,” he continued. “It takes a lot of self-control to present yourself a certain way, even if you’re so nervous. I don’t buy this ‘she was nervous’ stuff. She’s a sh-tty dancer, and [her] personality is not really going to help her in this competition.”

In 2019, Anna Delvey was sentenced to 12 years in prison after being convicted of attempted grand larceny, grand larceny, and theft. After serving time, Delvey was released on parole in 2021 and is currently completing the remainder of her sentence under house arrest.

Delvey was taken aback by her unexpected exit from "Dancing With the Stars," especially after soaking up plenty of encouraging praise during the show's earlier rounds.

“I thought, like, ‘Well, they were building me up.’ It’s like, ‘Well, only if you smile more, only if you do X, Y, Z, it’s going to be so much better,’” she said on Tori Spelling's “Misspelling” podcast.

“It felt like they put so much effort in trying to get me on the show and make me feel comfortable, just to eliminate me this early," she continued. "I see it, yeah, like an attempt of an embarrassment for us to get eliminated before Erik [Roberts] or Reginald [VelJohnson] in a dancing competition. Even though in the end it’s not that big of a deal.”

For the record, Erik Roberts and Reginald VelJohnson were both eliminated the following week.

Anna Delvey received a tremendous amount of backlash following her casting on the show, something that her partner, Ezra Sosa, opened up about.

In a TikTok video, he expressed his appreciation for the “love” he received from fans following his Week 1 performance but pointed out that Delvey didn’t enjoy the same level of support.

“On my end, I was feeling so much positivity, but on my partner’s end, she wasn’t receiving the same,” Sosa said as he got emotional. “I think the hardest part of my day [was], after our press line, she was reading the comments and then we couldn’t find her."

Wiping away tears, Sosa added, "They finally found her in the bathroom and she was crying. As her partner, I want to just give her the best experience she could possibly could [have] and knowing that that’s not the case, it really did break my heart."

Sosa did acknowledge that Delvey's actions were “controversial” and “not right,” but still, he urged fans to offer her a “second chance.”

“I can never justify that for her or anyone in her life,” he said. “But it is really hard because this person that I am truly falling in love with every single day in rehearsal isn’t the person that everyone sees in the media.”

"Dancing With the Stars" airs simultaneously on ABC and Disney+ on Tuesdays at 8 p.m. ET.