Inside the True Story of “The Devil Wears Prada”
Inside the True Story of “The Devil Wears Prada”
Emily BlackwoodSat, May 2, 2026 at 12:00 PM UTC
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Meryl Streep in 'The Devil Wears Prada' ; Anna Wintour in 2026.Credit: Alamy; Karwai Tang/WireImage -
Lauren Weisberger's novel The Devil Wears Prada was inspired by her time as Anna Wintour's assistant at Vogue
Weisberger has said Miranda Priestly is fictional, but admitted some stories reflect her real-life experiences
Celebrity stylist Leslie Fremar revealed she inspired Emily Blunt's character and felt the book was "a betrayal"
The Devil Wears Prada may be fiction, but it was inspired by one very real (and very grueling) job.
Published in 2003, Lauren Weisberger's hit novel — which inspired the 2006 cult classic film about a new grad who becomes the assistant to the demanding editor-in-chief of the esteemed fashion magazine Runway — was loosely based on her real-life experience working as then-Vogue editor-in-chief Anna Wintour's assistant.
"Crazy first job out of college, no idea how it happened," Weisberger said during a June 2021 interview on Today. "I was there just under a year, and it definitely informed that whole book for sure ... it was wild."
Despite the obvious similarities between the story and Weisberger's own life, she told reporters that "nothing" in the book was based on her former real-life boss, per Entertainment Weekly.
Wintour, for her part, responded with trademark cool in a 2003 interview with The New York Times: "I always enjoy a great piece of fiction. I haven't decided whether I'm going to read it or not."
So, is The Devil Wears Prada based on a true story? Here's everything to know about the real-life job that inspired the hit book and film.
Is The Devil Wears Prada based on a true story?
Anne Hathaway in 'The Devil Wears Prada' ; Lauren Weisberger in 2018.Credit: Barry Wetcher/20th Century Fox/Kobal/Shutterstock; Roy Rochlin/Getty
Weisberger has said that The Devil Wears Prada is loosely based on her real-life experience as Wintour's assistant, a job she began in December 1999, a few months after graduating from Cornell University. In the movie, protagonist Andrea Sachs (Anne Hathaway) gets her first job after graduating from Northwestern University.
For Weisberger, it was clear early on that she was more interested in being a journalist than an assistant, as former managing editor Laurie Jones recalled in 2022's Anna: The Biography that she "couldn't get any assignments from us."
Like Andy, Weisberger cared "very little about high fashion," she told Penguin Random House, and instead was passionate about pursuing a writing career.
After less than a year in the role, Weisberger followed former Vogue editor Richard David Story to his new role at Departures magazine. Two years later, she had sold her debut novel, The Devil Wears Prada.
In the movie, Andy experiences a number of insane asks from her boss, Miranda Priestly (Meryl Streep), including getting the latest unpublished Harry Potter manuscript and ordering a steak to Miranda's desk in under 15 minutes — some of which were real experiences.
"A lot of the anecdotes and demands and craziness are products of my imagination, stories I created at four in the morning while chugging coffee and fighting sleep deprivation," she told Penguin Random House.
Weisberger added, "But there's reality there, too. Some of the stories aren't so far away from the tasks either I or my friends in various industries — whether fashion or magazines or PR or advertising — went through our first few years out of college."
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Is Miranda Priestly based on Anna Wintour?
Meryl Streep in 'The Devil Wears Prada' ; Anna Wintour in 2026.Credit: Disney+; Savion Washington/Penske Media via Getty
The Devil Wears Prada author has always maintained that Miranda was entirely fictional, telling reporters at the time of the book's release that "nothing was based on Anna."
However, many fans of the novel and its subsequent film have long suspected otherwise.
That's just fine with Wintour, who told the BBC in December 2024 that it's "for the audience and for the people I work with to decide if there are any similarities between me and Miranda Priestly."
Wintour previously denied that The Devil Wears Prada was a true representation of what working at Vogue is like, sharing in a 2009 interview on 60 Minutes that "it was entertainment, it was not a true rendition of what happens within this magazine."
When asked about rumors that she is known to be cold, Wintour had a succinct reply.
"We're here to work," the Vogue editor said. "If one comes across sometimes as being cold or brusque, it's simply because I'm striving for the best."
Who is Emily in The Devil Wears Prada based on?
Leslie Fremar ; Emily Blunt in 'The Devil Wears Prada.'Credit: Jamie McCarthy/WireImage; 20th Century Fox
Weisberger hasn't confirmed who her character Emily was based on. But in April 2026, celebrity stylist Leslie Fremar came forward as the inspiration for the high-strung senior assistant played by Emily Blunt in the 2006 movie.
“I definitely told her a million girls would kill for the job,” Fremar said on Vogue's The Run-Through. “That was definitely my line because I actually really believed that, and I knew that she didn't necessarily wanna be there.”
The stylist said she didn't learn about the book until after she had left her job at Vogue to work for Prada — and that it was Wintour who informed her of its release.
“I got a call from Anna's office saying that she wanted to see me," Fremar recalled. "I was petrified. [Wintour] said, ‘Who's Lauren Weisberger? And I said, ‘She was your junior assistant. And she's like, ‘Well, she wrote a book about us, and you're worse than me.' "
Though she admitted that she was probably "not very nice" to Weisberger during their time together at Vogue, the former senior editor said the book "felt like a betrayal."
“It just felt like this exposure,” Fremar said of the book. “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.”
on People
Source: “AOL Entertainment”
