The real-life inspiration behind Emily Blunt's sarcastic and workaholic character in The Devil Wears Prada and its upcoming sequel has come forward to identify herself for the first time, though she is already accustomed to the spotlight. Celebrity stylist Leslie Fremar confirmed that she inspired the antagonistic senior assistant to Meryl Streep's Miranda Priestly during an interview on Vogue's The Run-Through podcast ahead of The Devil Wears Prada 2 premiere.
“I know I am. I am Emily,” Fremar told Vogue's editor-in-chief Chloe Malle. Since her days as Anna Wintour's first assistant at Vogue, Fremar has built a high-profile career styling clients like Julianne Moore, Charlize Theron, and Demi Moore. In 2022, she worked as Nicola Peltz's bridal stylist, helping secure the custom Valentino gown that sparked debates after Peltz's wedding to Brooklyn Beckham. Fremar described it as the most beautiful dress she had ever seen.
Origins of the Film
The Devil Wears Prada was adapted from Lauren Weisberger's bestselling 2003 novel about a toxic work environment, based on her eight months as a junior assistant at Vogue. The film's fictional Runway magazine was inspired by the real-life fashion publication. In the film, Blunt's Emily Charlton is cold and passive-aggressive to Anne Hathaway's character, Andy Sachs, who represents Weisberger. At one point, Charlton delivers the iconic line: “A million girls would kill for this job.”
“I definitely told her a million girls would kill for the job,” Fremar confirmed. “That was definitely my line, because I actually really believed that, and I knew that she didn’t necessarily want to be there.” She added that even though Weisberger was advised to make it fiction, the story was based on real experiences. Fremar described Weisberger as uninterested in fashion, saying: “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. 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.”
Fallout and Reflections
Fremar told Malle that the book “felt like a betrayal” when it first came out, and she never spoke to Weisberger again after leaving Vogue. Weisberger, however, has not commented on Fremar's remarks but wrote a Vogue article published Tuesday about her life after the novel. “It wasn’t an attempt to take anyone down or exact some sort of revenge,” Weisberger 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.”
The Devil Wears Prada 2 hits theaters May 1.
