My Friend Anna: The True Story of a Fake Heiress

The incredible true story of Anna Delvey, a young con artist posing as an heiress in New York City, is told by her friend and former photo editor for Vanity Fair. Delvey was conned out of more than $62,000, and her story is featured in the Netflix series Inventing Anna. Think Sex and the City meets Bad Blood and Catch Me If You Can.

The ambitious and worldly Anna Delvey, a self-described German heiress, became Rachel DeLoache Williams's new companion. She was also giving; she paid for expensive meals at Le Coucou, infrared sauna treatments at HigherDOSE, cocktails at the bar at 11 Howard Library, and frequent personal training sessions with a famous personal trainer.

Rachel leaped at the chance when Anna offered an all-expenses-paid trip to Marrakech at the upscale La Mamounia hotel. However, Anna's ideal vacation soon took a nasty turn when her credit cards abruptly stopped functioning. Rachel was instructed by Anna to start covering expenses, first with flights, followed by dinners and shopping, and ending with their $7,500-per-night private villa. Rachel was unaware that her credit cards had been debited over $62,000. As soon as they got back to New York, Anna promised Rachel she would pay her back.

When the refund never came through back in Manhattan, an astonishing pattern of dishonesty surfaced. Rachel discovered that wherever Anna had gone, she had left a trail of dishonesty and unpaid expenses. Distressed, Rachel reached out to the district attorney, and in a surprising development, she ended up assisting in the prosecution of one of the most well-known con artists in the city.

My Friend Anna is an incredible true story of "glamour, greed, lust for power" (The New York Times) and female friendship, told with breakneck pace and in-depth reporting from the girl who lived it firsthand.