Adrian Grenier Says He Wasn’t Asked Back for The Devil Wears Prada 2 — and Fans Are Not Exactly Upset
Some people still think Nate gets too much hate. Others say Andy outgrew him long ago — and Adrian Grenier’s suggestion that Nate could get his own spinoff is not exactly winning people over either.
Adrian Grenier may be disappointed he did not get the call for The Devil Wears Prada 2, but judging by the internet’s reaction, plenty of fans think that is exactly how it should have gone.
Grenier, who played Andy Sachs’ boyfriend Nate in the 2006 film, recently told Page Six it was “a disappointment” not to be asked back for the sequel. He also acknowledged the long-running backlash against Nate and suggested that maybe there is still room for “a beautiful spinoff” centered on his character.
That comment was enough to kick off another round of debate, because nearly 20 years later, people still cannot seem to agree on one thing: Was Nate actually toxic, or was he just a boyfriend Andy had clearly outgrown?
Fans still cannot agree on whether Nate was “toxic”
One of the biggest themes in the reaction was simple confusion. A lot of people do not remember Nate as some villain at all.
“He wasn’t toxic. He was just a boyfriend she outgrew,” one person wrote.
Another commented, “How was he toxic?” while someone else added, “Toxic? Did we watch the same movie….?”
Several fans argued that Nate was not evil so much as frustrated, and that the relationship just stopped making sense once Andy got pulled deeper into Miranda Priestly’s world.
“I don’t remember him being toxic? They both just wanted different things and broke up. Why should he be in the sequel?” one commenter wrote.
Other fans were not exactly campaigning for more Nate
Then there was the other camp, and they were much less conflicted.
“No one was wondering what that guy was up to next,” one person wrote, which pretty nicely sums up the mood in a lot of these replies.
Another added, “He was a bit character. Unimportant on her journey. And she outgrew him.”
And when Grenier floated the idea of a spinoff centered on Nate, that did not exactly win people over either.
“He thinks he’s getting a spinoff 😂,” one person wrote, while another asked, “A spinoff to mansplain?”
A few fans were even harsher. One commenter pitched their own imaginary Nate movie: “Deadweight. Synopsis: A promising young woman being held back by a man with no plan.”
My take? “Toxic” might be a stretch — but he still wasn’t a great boyfriend
Personally, I would not go so far as to call Nate “toxic,” but I also do not think he was some misunderstood dream boyfriend either. The first year in a demanding career can be brutal, and it is not like a new employee gets to call the shots. So the constant complaining about Andy’s job never sat quite right with me.
When I was starting out in broadcast news, I was working nonstop, exhausted, and at my station’s beck and call. I barely saw the boyfriend I was living with at the time. But instead of making that harder, he was supportive and understood that this was part of building a career. We are married (almost 14 years!) now, and honestly, if he had acted more like Nate during that stretch, I probably would have moved on, too.
Whether you think Nate was toxic or just clearly not the guy for Andy, one thing is obvious: most fans are a lot more interested in revisiting Miranda, Emily, and Andy’s world than they are in checking back in on her ex. And if there’s one thing the internet loves almost as much as a sequel, it’s re-litigating old character debates years later. For more entertainment takes, you can also check out my piece on the reaction to Margot Robbie’s latest look and why I ended up changing my mind about Netflix’s new Pride and Prejudice.
