Kelly Cutrone has a bone to pick with Maks Chmerkovskiy.
The famed fashion publicist, who is friends with Anna Delvey, took to her Instagram Stories on Monday, September 23, to slam Chmerkovskiy’s criticism of Delvey’s Dancing With the Stars debut. Cutrone posted a screenshot of a TMZ headline that quoted Chmerkovskiy calling Delvey a “s—-y dancer.”
“I thought this said SEXY!!!” the 58-year-old wrote, tagging Chmerkovskiy. “Did you mean Sassy or are you so pathetic that you cannot get on a show you have to attack someone? No one cares about your opinion.”
She added, “Dance yourself into a new reality.”
Earlier Monday, Chmerkovskiy, 44, a former DWTS pro, appeared on the “TMZ Podcast” and denounced his ABC alma mater for casting Delvey, 33, a convicted felon.
“To me, [Delvey’s] job was a professional liar,” he told the outlet, adding, “You’re gonna bring that person [on stage] and say, ‘Here’s a platform that a lot of people waited their entire actual career to be a part of,’ to also get a moment of a personal story [where they] can say, ‘This is who I actually am.’ Will I believe anything this lady says? Absolutely not.”
With blunt honesty, he judged Delvey’s routine as “not great” and “very kind of standoffish.”
“You can blame the nerves and say, ‘Hey, everybody’s human and this person is not used to that stage.’ Bulls—,” he said. “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. 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 s—-y dancer, and [her] personality is not really going to help her in this competition.”
Delvey was famously arrested in 2017 and indicted on multiple counts of grand larceny and misdemeanor theft. She was released from prison on parole in 2021 and was put under house arrest one year later after being taken into custody for overstaying her visa.
Delvey’s DWTS partner, Ezra Sosa, defended her Monday, saying, “I know what she did was really controversial and was not right, and I can never justify that for her and for anyone in her life. It’s really hard for me because this person that I truly am just falling in love with every day in rehearsal, isn’t the person that everyone sees in the media. No one deserves the amount of hate that she’s getting right now. She deserves a second chance.”
Cutrone, who appeared as a tough-talking mentor on MTV’s The Hills and The City, has taken Delvey under her wing, inviting her to live in her home outside of New York City. This month, they produced several shows for New York Fashion Week.
“Anna looked up to Kelly as the person she wanted to be when she came to New York, and as soon as Kelly met Anna, she basically fell in love with her,” fashion designer Shao Yang recently told Vanity Fair. “I think having them two together is, like, literally a powerhouse.”
