“The Devil Wears Prada 2” may be a fun trip down memory lane for longtime fans, but for the journalism world, its candid take on today’s media landscape was a bit unsettling, to say the least.
Starring returning actors Meryl Streep, Anne Hathaway, Emily Blunt and Stanley Tucci, the sequel centered on Runway Magazine’s fight for survival after editor-in-chief Miranda Priestly (Streep) gets caught up in a major scandal. Andy Sachs (Hathaway), once her assistant and now a successful (and recently laid-off) journalist, is brought back to restore the publication to its former glory, unaware that tech billionaire Benji Barnes (Justin Theroux) plans to buy it for his girlfriend, Andy’s former colleague Emily (Blunt).
To many, Theroux’s character may sound like an obvious nod to Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and his foray into media, which has, so far, included buying and gutting The Washington Post and potentially eyeing Condé Nast (publisher of Vogue, which inspired Runway) as a wedding gift to his wife, Lauren Sánchez Bezos, per mid-2025 reports. Anna Wintour, Condé Nast’s chief content officer, seemingly denied those rumors last year.
However, screenwriter Aline Brosh McKenna told Variety, “We already had a script and were making the movie when the rumors [of Bezos considering an acquisition of Condé Nast] started happening.”
“It wasn’t inspired by anything,” she added. “But, we did say, ‘Whoa’ when it happened.”
A rep for Blunt also told Variety that it was “absolutely not true” that her character was based on Sánchez Bezos.
The timing of the movie’s release, mere days before this year’s Bezos-backed Met Gala — the annual, multimillion-dollar fundraising event that has been a major revenue source for Condé Nast — was pretty hard to ignore. The fact that Jeff and Lauren Sánchez Bezos also serve as honorary chairs of the gala further underscored the overlap.
But there were even eerier connections between the Bezos and the “Devil Wears Prada” sequel.
Much like Benji Barnes, Jeff Bezos was far from a fashion advocate when he attended his first Met Gala over a decade ago while still married to philanthropist MacKenzie Scott. Post-divorce, one of the world’s richest men and Lauren Sánchez Bezos have been front-row guests at Fashion Week, with the latter earning a Vogue spread featuring her wedding to the tech mogul.
Sounds awfully similar to the makeover upgrade Benji got after divorcing his philanthropic wife (played by Lucy Liu) in the film, thanks to his fashion-forward and well-connected new girlfriend.
On Monday, the Bezos couple served as lead sponsors of fashion’s biggest night – and many oppose their presence. Left-wing activist group Everyone Hates Elon called for a boycott, with one parody advertisement reading, “The Bezos Met Gala Invites You To Party Like It’s 1939,” adding that the event’s dress code is “willful ignorance.”
Several celebrities also reportedly skipped the Met Gala because of the Bezoses, with some directly calling out those who still plan to attend.
It was not lost on audiences that the subplot of “The Devil Wears Prada 2” seemed to be playing out in real life:
Accidental or not, Bezos and Sánchez-Bezos’ ties to the fashion and media industries are being scrutinized now more than ever — and “The Devil Wears Prada 2” sure didn’t do them any favors.
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