The woman who inspired Emily Blunt‘s character in “The Devil Wears Prada” has shared the story of the one underwhelming time she met the actress.
Hollywood stylist and former Vogue assistant Leslie Fremar appeared on this week’s episode of Vogue’s “The Run-Through” podcast. During the episode, she spoke about her time working at Vogue and, specifically, the relationship she formed with “Devil Wears Prada” author Lauren Weisberger after she hired Weisberger to be a junior assistant to Vogue’s then editor-in-chief Anna Wintour.
Having been promoted to Wintour’s first assistant, Fremar worked closely with Weisberger for around eight months, a period that would inspire the latter’s “Devil Wears Prada” book. It was her relationship and experiences working with Weisberger that led Fremar to eventually realize that she was the inspiration for Emily Blunt’s character, Emily Charlton, in “The Devil Wears Prada.”
“Do you feel confidently that you are the real Emily?” “The Run-Through” host and the head of editorial content for Vogue U.S. Chloe Malle asked Fremar in Wednesday’s episode. “I know I am. Yes. Correct,” Fremar responded. Malle later asked Fremar if she has ever met Blunt in person.
“I have met Emily Blunt,” Fremar replied. “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.”
“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,’” Fremar recalled, revealing, “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.’”
After eventually leaving Vogue, Fremar went on to work at Prada for a time before becoming a full-time Hollywood stylist for stars like Charlize Theron and Jennifer Connelly. Blunt, meanwhile, returned to reprise her breakout role as Emily Charlton in this year’s “The Devil Wears Prada 2,” which finds the former assistant working now as a senior executive at Dior.
You can watch Fremar tell the full story in the video above.
