Meryl Streep says she was ‘ready to retire’ when the call for ‘Devil Wears Prada’ came—so she demanded they double her salary or nothing

Meryl Streep just gave a master class in knowing your worth. The three-time Oscar winner—with an estimated net worth of $100 million—says she was lowballed when the call came in 2006 to star as The Devil Wears Prada’s high-powered, pouting, and feared editor-in-chief Miranda Priestly. And if the studio wouldn’t budge, Streep had already decided she was ready to walk away from Hollywood for good.

“They called me up, and they made an offer, and I said, ‘No, not going to do it,’” Streep recalled in a recent interview with Today. 

After reading the script, Streep knew the film would land. She also knew she could earn more than the studio was offering. And she had nothing to lose: Already in her mid-fifties with millions in the bank and two Oscars to her name, she was ready to walk away from acting entirely. So she turned down the job that a million girls would kill for.

“I knew it was going to be a hit, and I wanted to see if I doubled my ask,” she said. “And they went right away and said, ‘Sure.’ And I thought, ‘I’m 50, 60—it took me this long to understand that I could do that.’”

“They nee...