After dodging questions about The Devil Wears Prada for years, Anna Wintour is finally sharing her true thoughts on the comparisons between her and Meryl Streep’s Miranda Priestley.
The 2006 film was based on Lauren Weisberger’s novel of the same name, which was inspired by her own experiences working as an assistant to the Vogue editor-in-chief. Prada followed Anne Hathaway’s Andy Sachs, an aspiring journalist, who lands a job at the fictional prestigious magazine Runway, working as an assistant to cynical editor Miranda Priestly.
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“I went to the premiere wearing Prada, completely having no idea what the film was going to be about,” Wintour said to New Yorker editor David Remnick during a recent episode of The New Yorker Radio Hour podcast. “And I think that the fashion industry were very sweetly concerned for me about the film, that it was going to paint me in some kind of difficult light.”
Remnick chimed in to suggest, “Cartoonish,” to which Wintour agreed, adding, “Yes, a caricature.”
However, the fashion icon said that once she watched the Oscar-nominated film, her reaction was quite different from what she was anticipating.
“First of all it was Meryl Streep, which, fantastic,” Wintour said. “And then I went to see the film, and I found it highly enjoyable. It was very funny. Miuccia [Prada] and I talk about it a lot, and I say to her, ‘Well it was really good for you.’”
She added that the film “had a lot of humor to it. It had a lot of wit. It had Meryl Streep. I mean, it was Emily Blunt, [and] they were all amazing. In the end, I thought it was a fair shot.”
The Devil Wears Prada ended up being a box office success, grossing $326 million worldwide, not adjusted for inflation, as it had an estimated $40 million budget. Nearly two decades later, a sequel is currently in development with stars Streep, Hathaway, Emily Blunt and Stanley Tucci returning. The film is set to hit theaters in May 2026.
Over the years, whenever Wintour was asked about the movie and Miranda Priestley similarities, she was typically dismissive. She even told the BBC last year, while attending the gala performance of the musical version of Prada, that it was “for the audience and for the people I work with to decide if there are any similarities between me and Miranda Priestly.”
Wintour also recently announced that she will be stepping aside as the editor-in-chief of American Vogue, but will continue as chief content officer for Condé Nast, as well as global editorial director of Vogue. Chloe Malle has since been tapped as the new U.S. editorial director for Vogue.
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