Every episode of that show begins with a disclaimer: “This whole story is completely true. Except for all the parts that are totally made up.” It’s a tongue-in-cheek warning to viewers that fact-checking producer´s Shonda Rhimes latest show for Netflix won’t be easy. But anyone who has heard of Anna Delvey (aka Sorokin) probably already knows that. 

In 2018 New York Magazine broke the internet with journalist Jessica Pressler’s story about an alleged German heiress who was accused of stealing hundreds of thousands of dollars from banks, financial institutions, and her friends between the years of 2013 and 2017 in hopes of launching a member’s only club called the Anna Delvey Foundation.

Turns out, Sorokin was really a Russian-born, German-raised scam queen who somehow fooled New York’s super rich and powerful to bow down to her to the tune of more than $275,000.

Inventing Anna is inspired by Pressler’s extensive reporting. (She is also an executive producer on the nine-episode series.) The show follows journalist Vivian, a character loosely based on Pressler and played by Anna Chlumsky, as she investigates Anna’s complicated story. The stylish drama attempts to tell Sorokin’s story through the eyes of those who knew her—or thought they did.

Netflix did by the way pay Sorokin 320.000 Dollar to adapt her life into a TV show.

I watched the show for three different reasons:

- Those fun facts of the real Anna that made it into the show, like, to hire a stylist for your court appearances. Even though I have to say Anastasia Walker, a stylist whose celebrity clients include Courtney Love or Madonna did not really do a great job.

- The journalist Jessica Pressler and that certain image of journalstic work; even the fictional translater she meets in Germany is a fan of her writing. I have to say - I did not like her a bit: over-ambitious, always on the verge of a nervous breakdown, sacrificing everything to achieve her goal, repairing her professional image.

But most importantly: The irritation about that real thin line between being a creative business woman and a criminal.

Is it me or don´t we talk about lots of typical career moves here suddenly turning into baaaaad behavior, like, meeting all the right people and trying to raise money for projects you believe in. Okay, the simple ripping off hotel bills and friend´s credit cards is pure fraud - but to get invited on yachts, living the high life on the expenses of rich people you know or even get dressed by your loaded lover seems typical New York girl´s behavior.

Remember the movie "Working Girl"? Wasn´t lovely Melanie Griffith also tricking foolishly trustful her Harrsion Ford into that very kind of manoeuvre to get what she thought she deserved??? And wasn´t she an icon, someone we admired when she did not walk into prison but right into the arms of that fool (whom she also stole from another woman) into a prestigous little corner office with her own private secretary at the very happy end?

So let us cheer Anna as long as we admire all those selfmade women and any so called American dream - or finally put those dreams into perspective: No bank will ever support anyone without a fortune.

So the rich will stay rich forever, getting even richer by the minute, and the poor people better get an existence to survive. Because there is nothing more for them. At least in America.