Anna Delvey Responds After Her Photoshoot Rabbits Were Dumped in Park
Anna Delvey wants to make sure no one hops to any inaccurate conclusions.
The fake heiress—who was convicted in 2019 of grand larceny and theft of services for defrauding wealthy individuals and businesses—has spoken out after she was accused of dumping rabbits she used in a photoshoot in Prospect Park in Brooklyn, N.Y.
During the photoshoot, shared to Instagram Aug. 7, the 34-year-old posed around New York City in a short blue dress and her ankle monitor, holding two rabbits on a leash, as captured by photographer Jasper Soloff.
After the shoot, a social media user came forward claiming the model rabbits looked like ones they had found abandoned in Prospect Park, according to Page Six.
Anna addressed the uproar about the allegedly dumped rabbits on her Aug. 11 Instagram Story, explaining that Christian Batty—her assistant, according to the New York Post—told her he knew someone who “could lend us bunnies for a few hours" and supplied multiple rabbits.
“I later discovered that, instead of borrowing animals from a legitimate source like he claimed, he had obtained them via Facebook Marketplace and intended to release them into Prospect Park,” Anna wrote on her Instagram Story, “a plan of which I had no knowledge. The idea that someone would compromise the well-being of innocent animals for personal networking opportunities is deeply disturbing to me.”
Anna added that as “an animal lover,” she was “appalled by what transpired,” noting that she would not be working with animals in her shoots moving forward and would do whatever she could to make sure the rabbits were safely rehomed.
“I do not eat meat, and I had no involvement in the acquisition, transport, or return of these animals,” she said. “I would never condone these actions.”
The Inventing Anna subject added in another post, “Christian Batty lied for days about returning the rabbits. Turns out his plan all along was to dump them.”
Anna also shared a series of alleged screenshots of texts with Christian in a group chat with the photographer Jasper and publicist Kelly Cutrone.
In the texts, Jasper asked Christian if the bunnies they used were the same creatures that were abandoned, writing, "It’s better to know then [sic] to lie to us.”
Christian—who has since deleted his Instagram page—allegedly admitted in the text that he put them in the park, saying that he picked them up from someone in Yonkers, N.Y., that he met through the Facebook page NYC Bunnies, who was looking to surrender the pets. According to Christian, he reached back out to the owner about dropping off the animals but “they had blocked me.”
He allegedly wrote in the text, “I was panicking with bunnies. That’s the reason I dumped them.”
Christian also apologized publicly for dumping the bunnies, writing in a since-deleted Instagram Story on Aug. 10, according to the Post, “When I realized the rabbits were being surrendered to me, I panicked.”
“At 19, with no experience caring for animals … and no knowledge of available resources, I felt overwhelmed and made the worst possible choice,” he wrote. “Believing, mistakenly, that there were existing rabbits in that area, I released them [in Prospect Park], thinking that was my best option. That belief was wrong, and I regret it deeply.”
Luckily, it appears that three of the rabbits used in the shoot are now in the foster care of animal rescuer Terry Chao, according to the Post.
E! News has reached out to Anna and Christian for comment, but has not heard back.
Another bunny that Anna and Jasper used for the shoot belonged to Instagram user @natflowerss, who posted a photo of her pet to Instagram Aug. 11, assuring people that her rabbit Benito “is fine at home.”
The user explained that she didn’t know Anna or anyone involved prior to the photoshoot, but saw Anna’s Instagram Story asking for bunnies and “thought it would be nice for him to meet other rabbits.”
“I had no knowledge of their abandonment outside of the photoshoot,” she wrote of the other rabbits in the shoot, “as I don’t know anyone actually and had I known, I would have been happy to provide Christian with knowledge in addition to shelter, because my rabbit was rescued from a similar situation.”
Jasper also spoke out about the situation through his lawyer Gary Adelman.
“This was not Jasper’s photoshoot,” he told Page Six Aug. 11. “Jasper had no knowledge or input as to how the bunnies were obtained or what happened to them after the photo shoot.”
His lawyer added that Jasper is “a huge animal lover” and has taken care of “birds, cats, dogs, parakeets, iguanas, and has a lovely dog named Tinkerbell” throughout his life, and was therefore thankfully the bunnies had found a safe place to go.
As for Anna, she posted on Instagram Stories that she had donated $1,000 to All About Rabbits Rescue.
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