{"id":547290,"date":"2026-04-23T23:42:09","date_gmt":"2026-04-23T23:42:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/547290\/"},"modified":"2026-04-23T23:42:09","modified_gmt":"2026-04-23T23:42:09","slug":"the-devil-wears-prada-2-mocks-jeff-and-lauren-bezos","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/547290\/","title":{"rendered":"‘The Devil Wears Prada 2’ Mocks Jeff and Lauren Bezos"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\t[SPOILER ALERT: This article contains mild spoilers for \u201cThe Devil Wears Prada 2<\/a>.\u201d]
\u201cThe Devil Wears Prada\u201d was groundbreaking in numerous ways when it first hit movie theaters 20 years ago \u2013 namely for its razor-sharp satire of the world of high fashion and its supreme leader, Vogue\u2019s Anna Wintour. The sequel, however, has different power players on its mind: Jeff Bezos<\/a> and Lauren S\u00e1nchez Bezos, the billionaire couple who have transformed into effigies of the 1%.\u00a0<\/p>\n

That was the buzz out of New York this week, following Monday\u2019s world premiere of \u201cThe Devil Wears Prada 2\u201d at Lincoln Center. The filmmakers reserved their incisive commentary not for Wintour or her staff, but for their notable friends and benefactors The Bezoses.\u00a0
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Although reviews are embargoed until next week, Variety spoke to five people who have seen the film in New York or London, where it screened on Wednesday night, about a storyline involving Emily Blunt, the beloved malcontent of the first film. Once the social-climbing assistant to Streep\u2019s Priestly, Blunt\u2019s character, also named Emily, has evolved into a figure that now very much resembles S\u00e1nchez Bezos.
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Drenched in designer labels and working at the house of Christian Dior, Blunt\u2019s Emily has become the pretentious partner of a billionaire tech mogul played by Justin Theroux, sources said. Theroux is said to be a mashup of Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk \u2013 one who undergoes a dramatic body transformation (the actor is seen in flashbacks wearing layers of \u201cfat\u201d prosthetics) after coming into extreme wealth. And now that he\u2019s fit and socially accepted in Miranda\u2019s circle, he lavishly spends on his beautiful partner, buying her whatever she wants. Furthermore, actor Lucy Liu has been cast as Theroux\u2019s first wife \u2013 a do-gooder who moves through the world solving problems with her divorce windfall (a nod to MacKenzie Scott, Jeff\u2019s first wife, who also inspired the Maya Rudolph Apple comedy \u201cLoot\u201d).\u00a0<\/p>\n

In mid-April, the New York Times ran<\/a> a lengthy profile of children\u2019s book author and pilot S\u00e1nchez Bezos, chronicling how the once-nebbishy Jeff Bezos has changed in the euphoria of their relationship.
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\u201cNow, he is gym-hardened, frequently shirtless, captured mid-laugh in paparazzi photos, canoodling on his megayacht, a man who has discovered joy, love and cosmetic dermatology,\u201d wrote Amy Chozick.\u00a0
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And Blunt\u2019s character is out for revenge. Once a long-suffering underling to Streep\u2019s Priestly, her fortunes have now dramatically reversed. A subplot in \u201cPrada 2\u201d follows Blunt\u2019s efforts to get her oligarch lover to buy Runway \u2013 the franchise\u2019s fictional magazine and stand-in for Vogue.
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This plot point directly references a yearslong rumor that the Bezos couple were kicking the tires on acquiring Vogue\u2019s publisher Cond\u00e9 Nast (which also owns The New Yorker, GQ and Vanity Fair, among others); a 2025 Vogue digital cover featuring S\u00e1nchez Bezos in her wedding gown was seen in some circles as a gesture from Wintour to a perspective new boss. In her Times interview, S\u00e1nchez Bezos denied the possibility of acquiring Cond\u00e9, adding, \u201cI wish!\u201d \u00a0But the idea has persisted.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tA spokesperson for Blunt told Variety it was \u201cabsolutely not true\u201d that her character was based on S\u00e1nchez Bezos. Reps for S\u00e1nchez Bezos did not respond to multiple requests for comment. Disney had no comment on the matter.<\/p>\n

In researching the sequel to \u201cPrada,\u201d screenwriter Aline Brosh McKenna\u2019s process reportedly involved interviewing former and current Cond\u00e9 employees. One source speculated that the portraits of the Bezoses may have been inspired by Cond\u00e9 journalists openly dreading the prospect of the billionaires owning Vogue and having S\u00e1nchez calling the shots. (Bezos\u2019 purchase of The Washington Post in 2013 was invigorating at the start, but recent years have seen extensive layoffs and softer coverage of Trump\u2019s second term in the White House.)<\/p>\n

The satire surrounding the couple in the \u201cPrada 2\u201d script comes at a potentially awkward time. The Bezoses are co-chairs for this year\u2019s Met Gala, alongside Wintour, Beyonc\u00e9 and Nicole Kidman. They will stand atop the Met\u2019s stairs on May 4 beside Wintour, receiving scores of A-listers and moguls at the annual fundraiser. They also serve as financial sponsors of the event.
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Wintour herself has been pivotal to the marketing campaign for \u201cThe Devil Wears Prada 2.\u201d Based on the 2003 roman \u00e0 clef by Lauren Weisberger, the project was once a thorn in Wintour\u2019s side that threatened to derail her legacy. Streep\u2019s beloved ice queen portrayal wasn\u2019t as savage as the book, where the character was a British dictator in designer glasses. Two decades later, the movie\u2019s staying power across generations has bolstered Wintour\u2019s image, and the editor has responded in kind \u2013 embracing the new movie in unexpected ways.\u00a0<\/p>\n

This month, Wintour appears on the cover of her own magazine with Streep to hype the film, under the banner headline \u201cSeeing Double: When Miranda Met Anna.\u201d She appeared onstage at the Oscars with the film\u2019s star Anne Hathaway. And at the New York premiere, franchise director Frankel gave opening remarks and said the film series would not have been possible with Wintour.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Sources at the premiere\u2019s after-party speculated about whether Wintour had given her famous friends the heads-up that they were mocked in a movie that all of Conde had come up to support. Other attendees at the premiere included Cond\u00e9 CEO Roger Lynch and Chloe Malle, the head of editorial content at Vogue, who made the decision to put Wintour and Streep on the cover of American Vogue. Another insider said Wintour had not screened the film until the New York premiere.\u00a0<\/p>\n

This year\u2019s Met Gala, which is scheduled for the Monday after \u201cThe Devil Wears Prada 2\u201d opens, is said to lean heavily into the film as a promotional tie-in. The cast is expected to attend, meaning Blunt could come face-to-face with the woman she parodies. It may also provide an awkward moment for Blunt\u2019s husband John Krasinski, star of four seasons of a \u201cJack Ryan\u201d series and an upcoming spinoff film at Amazon Prime Video. Bezos remains executive chairman of Amazon.\u00a0
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The Bezos presence at the Met Gala is already causing other sources of tension. Last week saw wide reports about a poster campaign popping up around New York City, calling for a boycott of \u201cThe Bezos Met Gala.\u201d Tied to a guerilla activist group, the posters have referenced \u201cworker exploitation\u201d at Amazon warehouses, as well as alluded to Amazon\u2019s reported support of the Department of Homeland Security in waves of deportations.\u00a0
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This wouldn\u2019t be the first time protesters have ruined a Bezos event. Their June Venice 2025 wedding, commemorated by Vogue, was hit with a protest from aggrieved locals \u2013 decrying the reported $55 million nuptials for an excessive display of wealth and environmental damages to the Italian city. That kind of rebuke to the famous couple\u2019s wealth may have come as no surprise. Their being lampooned by a project so closely affiliated with Wintour is more unexpected.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"[SPOILER ALERT: This article contains mild spoilers for \u201cThe Devil Wears Prada 2.\u201d]\u201cThe Devil Wears Prada\u201d was groundbreaking…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":547291,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[96,8897,29950,2839,9019,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-547290","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-movies","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-jeff-bezos","10":"tag-lauren-sanchez","11":"tag-movies","12":"tag-the-devil-wears-prada-2","13":"tag-uk","14":"tag-united-kingdom","15":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/547290","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=547290"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/547290\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/547291"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=547290"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=547290"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=547290"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}