A celebrity stylist who says she was the real-life inspiration for Emily Blunt’s cutthroat fashionista character in “The Devil Wears Prada” is speaking out for the first time as the film’s sequel rolls into theaters.

On Tuesday’s episode of Vogue’s “Run-Through” podcast, Leslie Fremar confirmed she personally hired Lauren Weisberger as a junior assistant to Vogue’s then editor-in-chief, Anna Wintour. At the time, Fremar was fresh off a promotion to Wintour’s first assistant, and she and Weisberger would work closely with one another for about eight months.

After leaving Vogue, Weisberger published her first book, “The Devil Wears Prada,” which many interpreted as a fictionalized account of her experience at the fashion magazine. The chilly character of Miranda Priestly, in particular, was seen as a thinly veiled depiction of Wintour.

“I definitely told her, ‘A million girls would kill for the job.’ That was definitely my line because I actually really believed that, and I knew that she didn’t necessarily want to be there,” Fremar recalled, alluding to one of Blunt’s now-iconic lines from the 2006 film.

Fremar also confirmed that many of the details from Weisberger’s novel ― and the film adaptation, which starred Anne Hathaway and Meryl Streep ― were accurate in their specifics about the working atmosphere at Vogue at the time. Still, she said she viewed the book as a “betrayal,” particularly after reading an early copy that included harsh details she believes were “softened” by editors before publication.

“It just felt like this exposure,” Fremar said. “Even though someone obviously advised her to make it fiction, it was really based off of a lot of things that, you know, I lived, she lived.”

Blunt’s style-focused character, Emily Charlton, is frequently at odds with the protagonist, aspiring journalist Andy Sachs (Hathaway), throughout much of the book and film, a point which Fremar says reflected her real-life working relationship with Weisberger.

“For me, the driving force ― and I can speak for myself ― was that I really loved fashion and wanted my career long-term to be in fashion,” she said. “And I think for her, the endgame was different. I think she wanted to be a writer, not that she couldn’t get things out of that experience that would help a writing career ― obviously she did ― but I think the fashion part did not interest her.”

“I think this idea that the Emily character is not very pleasant or nice or seems high-strung is because I probably was not very nice, and I probably was high-strung because I felt like I was having to do her job as well,” Fremar added. “So for me, that was really frustrating.”

After her time at Vogue, Fremar became the director of celebrity relationships at Prada and now works as a Hollywood stylist. Her client list includes actors Julianne Moore, Jennifer Connelly and Charlize Theron. Weisberger, meanwhile, has parlayed the success of “The Devil Wears Prada” into a full-time career as an author, and in 2013, published a sequel, “Revenge Wears Prada: The Devil Returns.”

Fremar said she and Weisberger have “never talked again” in the years since working together, and admitted a 2026 reunion with her former colleague would be “very awkward.”

Only time will tell if any of Fremar’s experiences make it into “The Devil Wears Prada 2,” which hits theaters Friday. Wintour, meanwhile, has notably warmed to both the franchise and Steep’s portrayal of Miranda as of late.

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