Lauren Weisberger loosely based her 2003 classic 'The Devil Wears Prada' on her time as Anna Wintour's assistant
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NEED TO KNOW
- Lauren Weisberger based The Devil Wears Prada on her time as Anna Wintour’s assistant
- Weisberger now lives on a boat with her family in the Bahamas after selling their Connecticut home during the pandemic
- As of April 2026, she is working on her ninth novel
Anne Hathaway may play her on screen, but Andy Sachs was inspired by Lauren Weisberger's real-life stint at Vogue — and her life looks very different today.
The author famously based her 2003 debut novel, The Devil Wears Prada, on her short time working as an assistant to legendary editor Anna Wintour.
Weisberger has long said that Miranda Priestly, the icy editor portrayed by Meryl Streep in the 2006 film, wasn't directly based on her former boss. However, many of Andy's experiences mirror her own, including being told to fix her hair after being hired.
In a February 2026 interview with The Times, the author described the job as “a year of being yelled at.”
“I did not know what I was walking into and that probably had something to do with why I ended up getting the job,” Weisberger said. “I didn't know enough to be tongue-tied and terrified. She was extremely composed and very intimidating.”
So, where is the real Andy Sachs now? Here's everything to know about Lauren Weisberger's life, two decades after she wrote The Devil Wears Prada.
Weisberger authored seven more books
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Weisberger continued her career as an author, writing seven more books, including Everyone Worth Knowing (2005), Chasing Harry Winson (2008), Last Night at Chateau Marmont (2010), The Singles Game (2016), When Life Gives You Lululemons (2018) and Where the Grass is Green and the Girls are Pretty (2021).
In 2013, she followed up The Devil Wears Prada with its sequel, Revenge Wears Prada. Weisberger revealed in an April 2026 essay for Vogue that she was currently in the process of writing her ninth novel.
She married Mike Cohen in 2008
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In April 2008, Weisberger tied the knot with playwright and screenwriter Mike Cohen. She wrote in The Telegraph the following June that they love to explore new restaurants, read and relax with their two Maltese dogs.
"We don't do glamorous things at all," she continued. "We're just very happy to be together in a great city and to be doing the kind of work we love."
At some point, the couple moved from New York City to Connecticut, per her official website.
Weisberger has two kids
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Cohen and Weisberger have welcomed two children together.
Though she's largely kept her kids out of the public eye, they did accompany her to the premiere of The Devil Wears Prada 2 in N.Y.C. in April 2026, with her daughter wearing a meaningful accessory.
"Many moons ago Anna Wintour gifted me the very Prada bag that, tonight, my beautiful daughter carried down the red carpet," the author captioned an Instagram photo of her daughter. "Life is weird and wonderful."
She said she still sees herself in Andy Sachs
Credit: Lauren Weisberger/Instagram
In her 2026 Vogue essay, Weisberger wrote that people often ask her if she still sees herself in The Devil Wears Prada protagonist.
"The answer is yes, but in the way I recognize myself in an old photograph," she explained. "The features are familiar, the outfit is questionable, and I feel a strong urge to explain my choices."
Weisberger continued, "Andy lived in a moral universe of very clean trade-offs. She stepped into a version of herself she didn't entirely like and then stepped right back out again, unchanged. I admire her confidence. I also now understand that life doesn't work that way."
Weisberger went on to say that if she wrote the cult classic today, she'd do so with more empathy for both Andy and her terrible boss.
"That kind of understanding comes only with time, experience, and a few hard-earned recalibrations," she continued. "Still, the version of me who wrote that book had something I cannot easily access now: unfiltered honesty."
Weisberger now lives on a boat at sea
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During the COVID-19 pandemic, Cohen and Weisberger sold their home in Connecticut and spent three years living abroad while homeschooling their two kids.
She wrote in her Vogue essay that they had moved onto a boat.
"I'm writing this Vogue piece from the boat, nearing my 90th straight day at anchor in a remote part of the Bahamas," Weisberger continued, noting that she spends her mornings writing and her evenings "scrubbing the galley" and spearfishing.
She added, "This is, objectively, a strange evolution. But in the words of Nigel from [The Devil Wears Prada] West End musical (another surreal, delicious development): 'Got a job, my dreams, a partner I love, and a life that fits like a Lagerfeld glove.' "
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