As “Dancing With the Stars” begins its 33rd season, the popular ABC dance competition show faced heavy criticism from fans on Wednesday when it announced that con artist and “infamous ankle bracelet fashionista” Anna Delvey would be among the celebrity contestants.

Delvey’s participation in the show was announced Wednesday on ABC’s “Good Morning America.” She will join the likes of former NBA star Dwight Howard, troubled “Beverly Hills, 90210” star Tori Spelling and Jenn Tran, the leading lady of “The Bachelorette” whose season ended in heartbreaking fashion just Tuesday night, the Associated Press reported. Each of the 13 celebrity contestants will face professional ballroom dancers to compete for the famous mirror ball trophy.

But Delvey, whose real name is Anna Sorokin, generated plenty of headlines and discussion on social media following the announcement of season 33 on Wednesday. Fans called her participation in the show a “disgrace,” given that she is a convicted con artist who pretended to be a wealthy German heiress to trick various Manhattanites into giving her hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash, goods and services. Delvey, whose exploits inspired the hit Netflix show “Inventing Anna,” is currently under house arrest after posting $10,000 bail. She wears the aforementioned electronic ankle bracelet for GPS monitoring as she fights her deportation to Germany.

But as people wondered how low “DWTS” will sink to get publicity, they may have forgotten that Delvey isn’t the first controversial figure to compete on the popular family-friendly show, usually to gain positive publicity and a chance to restore their public image, as Us Weekly reported. The show seems to like stirring up controversy every few years, often under the guise of building a dramatic redemption story around a troubled celebrity.

“Dancing With the Stars” was also in the news this past week because of the arrest of one of its longtime professional dancers. Artem Chigvintsev was arrested last week in Napa County on suspicion of domestic violence and is not scheduled to appear on the show this season. He met his wife, former WWE star Nikki Garcia, when she was competing on the show and he was a professional partner.

As for “DWTS” controversial contestants, the trend started with Season 5 in 2007, when professional boxer Floyd Mayweather was invited to compete on the show despite his history of domestic violence, Us Weekly reported.

Two years later, not everyone was happy when former GOP politician Tom DeLay, House Majority Leader from 2003 to 2005, joined the show’s 9th season in 2009, Us Weekly also reported. Four years earlier, DeLay had been charged with conspiracy to violate the Political Fundraising Act, which led to his resignation, but his 2011 conviction was later overturned.

Celebrity chef Paula Deen, who was caught using racial slurs and fired from her job at Food Network, attempted to redeem herself during the show’s 21st season in 2015, according to Us Weekly. The following year, Olympic swimmer Ryan Lochte faced audience protests due to his scandal at the Rio Olympics when he admitted to falsely claiming to have been robbed at gunpoint.

Politics again caused bad feelings among fans and ABC employees when Sean Spicer, Donald Trump’s former press secretary, joined the show’s 28th season in 2019, Us Weekly reported. An ABC employee told CNN that Spicer’s appearance on the show was “a slap in the face to those of us who have struggled with his nonsense and the consequences of the ongoing White House campaign of lies and disinformation.”

In the following season in 2020, animal activist and Big Cat CEO Carole Baskin was given a platform on the show, despite being accused of complicity in her husband’s disappearance in the hit 2020 Netflix true-crime docuseries “Tiger King,” Us Weekly reported.

In season 30 in 2021, YouTube star Olivia Jade Giannulli sought her own form of “DWTS” redemption after her wealthy Hollywood parents, television actress Lori Loughlin and designer Mossimo Giannulli, were embroiled in the college admissions scandal. Giannulli’s parents pleaded guilty to paying a $500,000 bribe to fraudulently gain her and her sister admission to the University of Southern California.

“Your presence on the dance floor is an affront to honest decency,” one woman tweeted in response to one of Gianulli’s appearances on the show.

Such comments now follow news that Delvey will appear on “Dancing With the Stars.” Delvey is actually the name the con artist, born Anna Sorokin, used when she posed as an heiress with a multimillion-dollar trust fund to gain access to the upper echelons of New York’s high society, the Associated Press reported.

Sorokin, who became Delvey, was convicted in 2019 in connection with forging checks and financial documents to fund a lavish lifestyle. She defrauded banks, hotels and individuals of an estimated $275,000, AP and other media reported. She was sentenced to four to 12 years in prison, although she was given credit for more than 500 days of the sentence while her case was pending, and was released in February 2021 for good behavior, AP reported. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrested her a few weeks later for failing to leave the country, and she remained in custody for a year until she was released under house arrest.

“DWTS” appears to be taking advantage of her infamous reputation by having her impersonate Anna Delvey on the show, the Associated Press reported. In its press release, the show also described her as a “notorious ankle bracelet fashionista” and posted a picture of her wearing a short, sparkly dress with the ankle bracelet on her leg.

AP said ICE did not return requests for comment on changes to Delvey’s house arrest conditions that would allow her to film the show in the Los Angeles area. Delvey told The Hollywood Reporter that she was persuaded to appear on the show and said she received permission from ICE to do so.

“I was kind of talked into it,” Delvey told the Hollywood Reporter. “I got permission from ICE and then it was kind of too late to back out.” She also said she doesn’t expect her ankle bracelet to affect her performance. “It’s actually pretty light,” she said.

Delvey’s spokeswoman Juda Engelmayer confirmed to AP on Tuesday that under current house arrest conditions, she can travel within a 70-mile radius of her home and anywhere in the five boroughs of New York City, but she could not comment on any changes to those rules.