Real-Life Inspiration for ‘Devil Wears Prada’ Emily Calls It a ‘Betrayal’

Leslie Fremar was the inspiration behind Emily Charlton, portrayed by Emily Blunt in The Devil Wears Prada. The 2006 film was adapted from Lauren Weisberger’s novel of the same name, which was based on her experience working as a junior assistant to the iconic Anna Wintour at Vogue.

“I am Emily,” Fremar admitted during the April 28 episode of The Run-Through. She went on to explain the moment that she learned about being written into the book. “I got a call from Anna’s office saying that she wanted to see me. I went into her office and she said, ‘Who’s Lauren Weisberger?’ And I said, ‘She was your junior assistant. She was only here for a short period of time, maybe eight months.’ And she’s like, ‘Well, she wrote a book about us, and you’re worse than me.’”

Fremar continued, “It felt quite dark, I remember thinking. And I found that quite hurtful. What got put into the world is a much lighter, nicer version of what she actually wrote. That’s what kind of lives in my mind, because that’s what ended up being put out there. I remember feeling like it was a betrayal at the time.”

Although the book was fictional, Fremar stated that it was clearly based on a lot of real-life events. Allegedly, one of the most famous quotes from the film was based off of their real lives as well.

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“I definitely told her, ‘A million girls would kill for the job,’” Fremar stated. “That was definitely my line because I actually really believed that, and I knew that she didn’t necessarily wanna be there.”

She continued, “I probably was not very nice, and I probably was high strung because I felt like I was having to do [Lauren’s] job as well. So for me, that was really frustrating. She was probably just sitting there writing a book and not necessarily taking the job as seriously as I did, or 100 million girls would. That probably created some tension in the office. Maybe I would snap at her—she just didn’t want to play the game.”

Fremar also revealed that she had the chance to tell Blunt that she was the inspiration behind her famous character. “She was not that interested, to be honest,” Fremar revealed. “I thought I was gonna get this, like, huge reaction. No, it was like, ‘Oh, okay.’”