Fake heiress and convicted fraudster Anna Delvey is continuing to give back to society in her signature fashion: deficiently. Still living in NYC and sporting an ankle monitor, Anna had a “photo shoot” this week in Brooklyn’s Prospect Park (for a magazine? No, just for her Insta). Accompanying Anna in the notably unexceptional photos are three rabbits, each one affixed with a leash around the neck. The rabbits were procured by Christian Batty, the hairstylist whom Anna brought in for the shoot. Turns out Batty had picked up the rabbits from someone in the “NYC Bunnies” Facebook group looking to surrender them. Then when the shoot was over and Batty realized that the three domestic rabbits were still his responsibility, he did the cruel and unthinkable and abandoned them in the park. While Batty and Delvey and the photographer have all been playing the blame game, three women hopped to work to safely rescue all three Oryctolagus cuniculus.
Hare heroes: Terry Chao, Jennifer Babcock and Jenna Goins spoke with PEOPLE about what became a days-long effort to track down and safely capture the three domestic rabbits. …Chao, a vegan blogger, says that she first learned about one of the rabbits through a post in her neighborhood Facebook group, even before she realized it was one of the same animals featured in Delvey’s shoot. “We need to save this rabbit,” she recalls thinking at the time. She escalated the call in other online groups, where Goins responded, offering up her own wild-rabbit catching expertise and an X-pen, a type of enclosure for rabbits. A brown rabbit, which Chao later named Parker, was rescued in Prospect Park.
Rescuing the other rabbits: Chao caught word of a second rabbit — a harlequin-coated one — a few days later. “The bunny was a little hard to catch. He ran all the way up to the top of the Endale Arch,” she says. “And we were a little concerned that he might jump off and hurt himself.” However, with help from Jenna and her roommate Carolyn, they managed to corral the bunny, renaming him Moon. … The third rabbit, Joaquin, proved the hardest to find, as the group hadn’t been aware he was missing until they saw Delvey’s Instagram post. Chao says she found the same brand-new rabbit carrier from Delvey’s Instagram Stories in Prospect Park.
They were obviously domestic: Babcock, a rabbit owner herself, explained how they could tell the animals were domestic and needed rescuing in the first place. “You’ll never see a wild lop-eared rabbit. That is a recessive gene. So it was really obvious, for instance, that Parker, despite being brown, that he was a domestic.” …“I think a lot of people, for one, don’t realize that bunnies exclusively need to be living indoors,” [Goins] explains. “They’re not meant to be outside and they’re not equipped to handle the environment the way wild rabbits are.”
Anna’s lame response: Delvey had also previously taken to social media to share her side of the story, sharing a statement to her Instagram Stories about the situation, and recently shared a screenshot showing that she had made a $1,000 donation to All About Rabbits Rescue in New York. “As talent, it’s not my job to source or return animals, but as an animal lover, I can promise I will never work with them again without knowing exactly where they came from and how they’re getting home,” Delvey wrote. “I do not eat meat, and I had no involvement in the acquisition, transport, or return of these animals. I would never condone these actions.”
“As talent, it’s not my job to source or return animals…” TALENT??? This wasn’t like Anna Wintour contracting Delvey for a profile in Vogue; this is something Delvey did for her own Instagram!! And what would Delvey’s actual “talent” even be, causing chaos and rage in her wake? Sit down, shut up, and stare at your ankle monitor for a while, Anna. And oh, what a giver, the scammer who conned hundreds of thousands of dollars from people donated $1,000 for the rabbits. [insert Nancy Pelosi slow clap here] If you really want to barf, Anna’s full rebuttal is many slides. The first page is her paltry attempt at apologizing, but by the next page she’s already back to playing the victim, saying “I am deeply alarmed by the death threats and hundreds of vile, harassing messages flooding my social media,” before she goes on point the finger heavily to the photographer. I think it’s safe to say that what Anna is taking away from this inhumane, entirely preventable snafu is, “nothing.”
Come on karma bus we need some failed brakes for this one!
I would love the very excellent woman with actual talent and devotion to bunnies, Amy Sedaris to rip into this con artist.
Yes, please!
LOVE. RIP sweet Tina bunny!
Aww those poor bunnies. Thank you to those 3 women for rescuing them!!!! Can Anna be charged with anything? Make this a violation and enforce more punishment on her? This time her ankle bracelet tied to her home so she can’t leave it for awhile because she’s a threat to animals, environment, and wildlife. She’s a lying scam artist with delusions of talent that hurts bunnies. At the very least, kick her out of New York.
I hate people. That’s all.
“This is why I hate people” is what ran through my mind as I read this story. The only redeeming people in this whole debacle are the rescuers.
UGH! I just read the texts on Instagram. Anna Delvey and Christian Batty need to be charged, fined, ostracized. Anna: I’m talent! I don’t handle bunnies. Christian: I’m 19! I didn’t know better. And the photos from the shoot are stupid…why use live animals? Come on New York, hold them accountable!!!!
I don’t even know who this woman is, nor do I care, and I hope everyone else will join me in not giving her the attention that she so desperately craves. NYC used to be cool. Now it’s filled with wannabe’s who have absolutely NO talent whatsoever, but have the means to hire a good publicist. Having followers does not validate you. And anyone who treats animals like this is a lesser human being. I will be glad when we stop following tacky, classless, no talent surgically altered fauxbots and start being human again. If it’s possible. Just my 2 cents.
We’re all kinda dumb at 19, but c’mon, dude, you’ve got to know you can’t just turn loose domestic animals in a park! Also, you’re obviously just starting out in your career, but this client is one you have to drop. Pronto.
Why is she still in this country? We have hardworking, law abiding people who ARE citizens being rounded up, kidnapped and sent to camps, children who are undergoing chemotherapy and being sent to God knows where and this criminal is allowed to run around town and terrorize bunny rabbits? WTF?!?!
That was my first question, too.
She is white. Rounding up white women doing dumb photoshoots is not the order ICE agents get.
Maybe we could get her to throw a sandwich at a cop?
I’m glad they were able to rescue the bunnies. Prospect Park is pretty big so that’s impressive.
I was surprised to see her in NYC because I thought deportation was part of her original sentence. So I looked into it and apparently it wasn’t, but ICE tried to deport her when she was released from prison. She’s currently on house arrest fighting her deportation case.
Which is… interesting given everything that’s currently going on with ICE. But I guess White Europeans who “only” commit White Color (initially a typo but I’m leaving it) felonies are considered a protected class nowadays.
Wow. It would appear she’s getting…due process. Nice for some, I guess. 😡
What’s even worse, according to the NY Times article, she tried to place the blame on the photographer, Jasper Soloff. His attorney had to issue a statement saying, nope, all he was hired for was to show up and take photos. He’s a young talented artist. A rising star. His father, a beloved 2nd grade teacher who my kids had the privilege of learning from, passed away in an accident a couple months ago. Jasper has had a hard enough year. Leave him the f*ck out of it.
Where’s ICE when you want them? It would be awesome if someone called ICE to go round her up. Why is she still in the country?
Even if they weren’t dumped, this would have been a troubling photoshoot, because you should NEVER put a collar and leash on a rabbit. They will break their own necks so quickly. They need harnesses!
I was about to write that. Never ever put a collar on a rabbit!!! Neck or spine break so easily.
Why is this useless Twunt of a woman even getting a photoshoot? For what? She’s a criminal con artist, why is she being treated like some sort of valued celebrity? Of course she tried to blame the photographer. She has zero conscience or empathy. I hope she gets a hefty fine for this. Poor bunnies…
Like a lot of you, I can’t believe this grifter is still even in the U.S.; she gets only HOUSE ARREST for fighting her deportation? Like, whaaaat??? Nice to know that’s an option for certain people 🙄
Just came to say that her “photo shoot” was stupid and she apparently thinks she nailed the broken-down-doll look, and no, Miss J would NEVER. Her fillers did her no favors either.
Where is the white with black circle around eye rabbit? It’s in the ‘photoshoot’ but not one of the ones rescued.