After 20 years, the supposed real-life inspiration behind Emily Blunt‘s The Devil Wears Prada character has come forward.
Leslie Fremar, a former Vogue assistant, recently claimed that the character of Emily Charlton was based on her, recalling when she met the actress behind the character in the 2006 movie.
When asked if she thinks Emily is based on her, Fremar said Vogue‘s The Run-Through podcast, “I know I am. Yes. Correct.”
“I have met Emily Blunt,” she noted. “I was always like, ‘If I meet Emily Blunt, what would I do?’ So one day I was getting a massage at the Greenwich Hotel and she was actually at the spa herself, and I wanted to say something and I didn’t. So I let that moment pass me and then a client of mine invited me over for dinner to her house and there was like seven people there and Emily was there.”
Fremar continued, “I was like, ‘This is so intimate and personal and we’re at a mutual friend’s house.’ So I said to her, I was like, ‘I just need to let you know I’m Emily.’ She was not that interested, to be honest. I was like, ‘I thought I was gonna get this like huge reaction.’ No, it was like, ‘Oh, okay.’”
Anne Hathaway, Meryl Streep and Emily Blunt in ‘The Devil Wears Prada’ (2006)
When the Hollywood stylist worked at Vogue, she hired The Devil Wears Prada author Lauren Weisberger to be a junior assistant for Anna Wintour, where they worked together for eight months. Weisberger wrote the 2003 book based on her time at the fashion glossy.
Blunt reprises her role in The Devil Wears Prada 2, premiering Friday in theaters, also seeing the fashionable returns of Meryl Streep as Miranda Priestley, Anne Hathaway’s Andi and Stanley Tucci as Nigel Kipling.
Tracie Thoms and Tibor Feldman will also reprise their roles from the original 2006 film, with Kenneth Branagh, Simone Ashley, Lucy Liu, Justin Theroux, B.J. Novak, Pauline Chalamet, Rachel Bloom, Patrick Brammall, Conrad Ricamora and Lady Gaga also joining the cast.
