The introduction of every episode of "Inventing Anna" carries the same message: "This whole story is completely true, except for all the parts that are totally made up."
As a person who covered the real-life Anna Sorokin's trial in 2019, reported on documents from her legal troubles, and interviewed her and people close to her in the years since, I can tell you: It's more true-to-life than you can imagine.
Though Sorokin hasn't been able to watch the show, I spoke with her about some of the scenes and broke down fact from fiction.
The Netflix show, starring Julia Garner, is based on a 2018 New York magazine article by Jessica Pressler about Sorokin — who also goes by Anna Delvey — scamming Soho until it caught up with her. Sorokin left hotel bills unpaid, took a trip to Morocco and left a friend with the $62,000 bill, and pretended to be an heiress with a $60 million fortune in order to try to convince financial institutions to loan her money for the Anna Delvey Foundation, a plan to develop a mixed-use arts and restaurant space in Manhattan.
Pressler — a talented journalist who also wrote the story that was the basis for the movie "Hustlers" — produced "Inventing Anna" with Shonda Rhimes. Sorokin, after selling her life story rights to Netflix for $320,000, provided information to lay out the scope of her deceit. Two of Sorokin's friends, Neffatari Davis and Kacy Duke, as well has her former lawyer, Todd Spodek, are also credited as consultants in the show's credits.
Sorokin finished her prison sentence after being convicted on charges related to her scam (although she is appealing her case). She was re-arrested by immigration authorities and remains incarcerated ahead of a possible deportation. Earlier this month, she wrote for Insider about her experience in jail and thoughts on the show.
"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," Sorokin wrote.
So, how much of "Inventing Anna" is "totally made up?" Here are 13 of the most striking scenes and details from the show and how they match up to reality.