In The Devil Wears Prada 2, we’re introduced to a very different Miranda Priestly. There was a time where the all-powerful queen of fashion – who is played by Meryl Streep and based on Vogue’s longest-serving editor, Anna Wintour – could end careers with a glance. But this time, she spends most of the movie taking orders herself. First, we see her at the behest of advertisers, then publishing magnate Irv Ravitz and his irritating nepo baby son. And it isn’t long before Benji Barnes, an eccentric billionaire, shows up and threatens to dismantle the excellence she has spent her entire career championing.
In the film, Benji is played – scarily well, I should add – by Justin Theroux. After a high-profile divorce, he has had a “glow-up”, which loosely translates to losing weight and boasting a deep mahogany tan. Post-divorce, he is now in a relationship with Emily – Miranda’s acerbic former assistant, played by the scene-stealing Emily Blunt, who is described as “every girl who ignored him in high school”. Benji’s inclusion in the story feels representative of the wider media landscape, where the whims of billionaires decide which parts of the old, pre-social media world get to survive. And for Emily, she’s learning that being associated with someone so powerful has the potential to help her finally step out of Miranda’s shadow. The romance between these diametric opposites – Type A fashion queen and a nerd who grew up to become one of the world’s richest men – provides a stream of comic relief. But beyond the laughs are a deeper – and bleaker – statement about how people with enough money can buy cultural power.
So, who is Benji Barnes based on? It doesn’t take a genius to see the similarities with Jeff Bezos – the Amazon founder who, after his divorce from MacKenzie Scott in 2019, has had a (how should I put this?) visual transformation. Not only that, but in the movie, Benji’s ex-wife, Sasha Barnes (Lucy Liu), has decided to dedicate her life to philanthropy – similarly to Scott who pledged to donate half of her $37bn divorce settlement.
Then we have Emily. Now working as a high-powered fashion executive, Emily is determined to use her boyfriend’s status as a way to launch herself into the spotlight. Again, there’s an obvious parallel with how Bezos’s new wife, Lauren Sánchez Bezos, has used their much-publicized union to raise her own profile. Last year, she (literally) launched herself on a #GirlBoss flight to space alongside Katy Perry, of all people, before appearing on a digital cover of Vogue. And the couple’s luxurious 2025 wedding in Venice was attended by everyone from Oprah Winfrey to the Kardashians, Leonardo DiCaprio, Ivanka Trump, Bill Gates and the designer Domenico Dolce, whose fashion house Dolce & Gabbana designed her wedding dress. There were even reports that Sánchez wants to be a Bond girl, after Amazon acquired the rights to the 007 franchise in 2022. And even if there’s not any truth to that, the fact that it feels vaguely within the realms of possibility speaks volumes about how the status of the former host of So You Think You Can Dance? has been transformed.
Alongside the much-publicized release of The Devil Wears Prada 2, there is another fascinatingly “meta” subplot in the headlines. The sequel kicks off with a huge scandal that breaks on the night of the Priestly-verse’s version of the Met Gala. And this year, the real-life event has been plunged into controversy over Bezos’s role as honorary chair (and main source of funding), with rumors of celebrities boycotting the event in protest. (Though based on last night’s packed red carpet, it doesn’t seem like too many of them followed through.)
Bezos is likely not supporting the Met Gala – fashion’s biggest night – out of the goodness of his heart. His involvement reflects the extent to which he has been trying to infiltrate fashion’s inner circle for some time, but also the tightening grip that tech billionaires have on different parts of the media. “We already had a script and were making the movie when the rumors [of Bezos considering an acquisition of Conde Nast] started happening,” The Devil Wears Prada 2 screenwriter Aline Brosh McKenna said recently. “It wasn’t inspired by anything. But, we did say, ‘Whoa,’ when it happened.”
The Devil Wears Prada 2 is the latest in a long line of films and TV shows to make a plotline out of this shift, which is happening in plain sight. In Apple TV’s The Morning Show, space travel pioneer Paul Marks (Jon Hamm), who is not unsubtly based on Elon Musk, tries to build a media monopoly to shield his lies. In season three of the HBO finance drama Industry, the hapless aristocrat Henry Muck ends up profiting from a government bailout after running his energy startup, Lumi, into the ground. In Succession, we saw the juxtaposition of Logan Roy (Brian Cox), a Murdoch-coded media mogul who pulls the strings of politics and power, and Lukas Matsson (Alexander Skarsgård), a new-age tech billionaire who made his fortune in streaming. (The latter’s hobbies included sending his assistant bags of his blood.)
The sudden rise of these on-screen protagonists reflects a real-world reality. In previous decades, we simply didn’t know so much about the 0.00001%. Like royals, they were more aloof figures and their interactions with the media tended to be infrequent, distant and stage-managed. But now, it feels like the oligarch class are practically impossible to escape. (I can’t seem to get through a single day without catching wind of at least one of Musk’s social media diatribes). When Donald Trump (a billionaire himself) was inaugurated for the second time in January 2025, what was striking was the new squad of tech billionaires – including Musk, Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg, Apple’s then CEO, Tim Cook, and Bezos (accompanied by Sánchez, of course) – standing in prime position. These men become rich and powerful by building a monopoly on the tools we depend on to communicate, work, entertain ourselves and share information.
In the Netflix whodunnit Knives Out 2, the egomaniac tech billionaire Miles Bron (Edward Norton) invites his friends to his private Greek island for a murder-mystery game that turns into a real crime. When – shock horror – Miles turns out to be a villain, the film poignantly ends with not only his reputation in tatters, but with Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa going up in flames. The film warns us that the ambitions of one man can destroy the most priceless human creations.
The Devil Wears Prada 2 is a similarly cautionary tale. Like many of these billionaire men – because they are usually men – Benji has little regard for art and creativity. “I think a day is coming very soon where Runway doesn’t need models, locations or even designers,” he tells Miranda, almost excitedly, in the film’s most pivotal scene. “It’ll all just be AI.” Miranda takes the moment to defend “beauty, artistry and the best of human achievement,” but it feels as if she’s little match for the world that Benji and his fellow billionaires are building at a hurtling pace. The film asks: is that a world we want to live in?
