After Seeing ‘Devil Wears Prada,’ Anna Wintour Didn’t Remember Former Assistant Who Wrote Novel

Obliviousness, for spring? How original.

In a new biography of Vogue editor-in-chief Anna Wintour, sources claim that Wintour told then managing editor Laurie Jones that she had no idea who her past assistant was that penned novel “The Devil Wears Prada.” It was only until the book was adapted for the big screen starring Meryl Streep in the allegedly Wintour-inspired role that the Vogue icon took notice.

“On May 21, 2002, Women’s Wear Daily reported that ‘The Devil Wears Prada’ had sold to Doubleday for a reported $250,000. When Anna learned about the book, she said to [managing editor Laurie] Jones, ‘I cannot remember who that girl is,'” author Amy Odell wrote in “Anna: The Biography,” via Entertainment Weekly, citing Wintour’s confusion over author Lauren Weisberger who previously worked as her assistant.

Streep went on to portray Miranda Priestly, a character that production maintained was “not a direct caricature” of Wintour. Anne Hathaway played the Weisberger insert, Andrea Sachs. Emily Blunt and Stanley Tucci rounded out the now-iconic, star-studded cast.

Per “Anna: The Biography,” Wintour attended a private screening of “The Devil Wears Prada” at the Paris Theater in New York City ahead of its June 30, 2006 premiere. Wintour wore Prada, and director David Frankel allegedly heard Wintour’s daughter Bee tell the Condé Nast titan that the dramedy “really got” her character down.

Vogue contributing editor William Norwich is also quoted in “The Biography” that Wintour “really didn’t care about the book” and even mused to friends that she was “so bored by me.”

Representatives for Wintour noted that “Anna: The Biography” was written “without Anna’s participation and, regrettably, she was not given the opportunity to fact check anything in it.”

Meryl Streep previously told EW that Miranda Priestly’s mannerisms were inspired by director Clint Eastwood’s quiet command of sets.

“He’s someone that guys really respect, and he never raises his voice, ever; the one time that he did, it so terrified people for two weeks, they were traumatized,” Streep recalled as part of the 15th anniversary oral history of the film. “In drama school [a teacher] said, ‘How you play a king has nothing to do with you — you’re just you — it’s how everybody else in the room acts when you enter it that makes you the king.’ It was all up to them to have this reaction. I could just speak and be slightly nastier than I normally am.”

Streep added, “I wasn’t interested in doing a biopic on Anna; I was interested in her position in her company. I wanted to take on the burdens she had to carry, along with having to look nice every day.”