The woman who inspired the character of Emily in The Devil Wears Prada has been revealed as Nicola Peltz's wedding dress stylist, Leslie Framer. Leslie worked as first assistant to Vogue's former editor-in-chief Anna Wintour alongside junior assistant Lauren Weisberger, who went on to write the novel The Devil Wears Prada about her time there.
Now one of Hollywood's most in-demand stylists, Leslie spoke with Vogue's Head of Editorial Content Chloe Malle on the Run-Through podcast, where she claimed to be the inspiration behind Emily Charlton, the character played by Emily Blunt in the film. 'I know I am. I am Emily,' she said.
In the film, Emily is high-strung and irritable, often behaving condescendingly towards the protagonist Andy Sachs, played by Anne Hathaway. Leslie, who helped source Nicola Peltz's Valentino wedding dress for her wedding to Brooklyn Beckham, also revealed that one of the film's most famous lines was a direct quote from her. 'I definitely told her a million girls would kill for the job,' she said. 'That was definitely my line, because I actually really believed that, and I knew that she didn't necessarily want to be there.'
'Even though someone obviously advised her to make it fiction, it was really based off of a lot of things that, you know, I lived, she lived.' Weisberger worked as a junior assistant at Vogue for only eight months, with Leslie saying they were not friendly outside the office. Leslie also felt the future author did not take the fashion business as seriously as she did.
'I probably was not very nice, and I probably was high-strung because I felt like I was having to do her job as well,' she said. 'So for me, that was really frustrating. I think she was probably just sitting there writing a book and not necessarily taking the job as seriously as I did.'
Leslie said Weisberger's book 'felt like a betrayal' and she never saw or spoke to her again after she left Vogue. She also thinks if the pair were ever to cross paths again it would be 'awkward'. Weisberger penned an essay for Vogue where she recalled writing The Devil Wears Prada at age 23 and was not at all prepared for the global phenomenon it became.
'It wasn't an attempt to take anyone down or exact some sort of revenge,' she wrote. 'I was just writing something that felt true to my experience as an assistant in very close proximity to a powerful woman—one who filled me with abject terror—before I had the distance or the maturity or the sense of self-preservation to round off the edges.' She added: 'If I wrote The Devil Wears Prada today, it would undoubtedly be different. Not softer, necessarily, but more layered. I have more empathy now—for the assistants and the bosses, for the 20-somethings trying to prove themselves, and for those who already have.'
The Devil Wears Prada 2 is slated for a May 1, 2026 release, marking exactly 20 years since the original took audiences behind the glossy yet cutthroat world of high fashion. The plot involves Runway editor Miranda Priestly (Streep) struggling against Emily, her former assistant turned rival executive, as they compete for advertising revenue amid declining print media, while Priestly nears retirement. Emily is now a high-powered executive for a luxury group with advertising dollars that Miranda desperately needs.
