The The Devil Wears Prada 2 locked the satirical target not only on Anna Wintour, but also on a different kind of power couple, and the timing couldn’t be more fraught.
According to Blackwho spoke to five people who have seen the film after its world premiere at Lincoln Center and a subsequent screening in London, Emily Blunt’s recurring character Emily has been reimagined as a figure who bears a striking resemblance to Lauren Sánchez Bezos.
Dressed in designer clothes and working at Christian Dior, the character is now the glamorous partner of a billionaire tech mogul played by Justin Theroux, described by sources as a mix of Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk.
Theroux’s character is shown in flashbacks wearing prosthetics to appear heavier before a dramatic physical transformation following extreme wealth, a detail that closely mirrors the real-life narrative of Bezos’ well-documented reinvention.
Lucy Liu plays the mogul’s first wife, a philanthropist who uses her divorce to do good in the world, which sources say is a nod to MacKenzie Scott, Bezos’ first wife.
A subplot reportedly follows Blunt’s Emily trying to convince her billionaire partner to acquire runway, the film’s fictional stand-in for Vogue, in a direct reference to long-standing speculation that the Bezos couple were eyeing a takeover of Condé Nast, which publishes Vogue, The New Yorker, GQ and Vanity Fair.
Sánchez Bezos has denied any such interest and tells New York Times “I wish!” when asked about it.
A spokesperson for Blunt says so Black it was “absolutely not true” that her character was based on Sánchez Bezos.
The timing is acutely awkward.
The Bezoses are co-chairs of this year’s Met Gala on May 4, the Monday after the film opens, along with Wintour, Beyoncé and Nicole Kidman, and are also financial sponsors of the event.
The Met Gala is said to lean heavily into the film as a promotional tie-in, meaning Blunt could find herself in the same room as the woman she’s said to be parodying.
The situation is further complicated for Blunt’s husband John Krasinski, who stars in Amazons Jack Ryan franchise, Amazon will of course remain under Bezos’ executive chairmanship.
