Hilary Duff Makes Rare Comment on “Complicated” Relationship With Estranged Sister Haylie Duff
Hilary Duff is coming clean about the reality of her family life.
The Lizzie McGuire alum made a rare comment about her estrangement from her sister Haylie Duff and father Bob Duff, explaining why she wrote songs about them on her upcoming album, luck…or something.
“That’s my family. Those are the people that affect you the most, take up the most space naturally as a human who’s born into something,” Hilary told Glamour in an interview published on Feb. 17. “Just because you’re born into a family doesn’t mean that it always stays together.”
“You can only control your side and your street,” the 38-year-old continued. “I’ve had a very complicated life, and my parents had a very complicated thing. I know it’s not rare, and I think it goes back to the theme of, why share now? I guess I just felt ready.”
Indeed, two separate tracks on Hilary’s new album, out Feb. 20, put a spotlight on the tricky dynamics with her family members. In “We Don’t Talk,” the Younger star seemingly addresses the rift with Haylie, 40, as she searches for an answer behind why they no longer communicate.
“I’m not sure when it happened, not even sure what it was about / If I did something different, would you feel something different? Would you at least let me hear you out?” sings Hilary, who later refers to their situation as an “emotional eviction.”
Hilary and Haylie have not been pictured together since 2019 and their interactions on social media have also noticeably waned in recent years. Speculation that the sisters were in a feud only grew in January when Haylie liked fellow Disney alum Ashley Tisdale’s essay for The Cut, detailing her breakup from a “toxic mom group” that Hilary was allegedly a part of. Following the bombshell essay, Haylie and Ashley were seen grabbing dinner in Malibu, Calif., together.
Despite the rumors, neither Hilary nor Haylie have commented publicly about what caused the rift in their relationship.
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As for Hilary’s dad, her fractured relationship with the patriarch is highlighted in her new song “The Optimist.”
In the tune, Hilary—who shares son Luca, 13, with ex-husband Mike Comrie, as well as daughters Banks, 7, Mae, 4, and Townes, 21 months, with husband Matthew Koma—sings, “I wish I could sleep on planes, and that my father would really love me.”
Hilary’s dad Bob and mom Susan Duff were married for 20 years before they went through a years-long divorce. Amid their legal battle in 2008, Bob was sentenced to jail time for contempt of court for selling family assets without approval—and went on to blame Hilary and Haylie’s fame with contributing to the end of his marriage.
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“Susan was very consumed with the girls’ careers…We simply grew apart,” he told Inside Edition in September 2008. “I was unfaithful to our marriage. I feel very badly about that and the effect that it had on the girls.”
And while Hilary is looking forward to providing a deeper look at her personal life on luck…or something, she’s also excited to introduce a new musical side of herself.
“I just felt really ready to share,” she told Glamour. “One, I wanted to stretch creatively, and two, I wanted to make something that I could connect with people again on the level of who I am now. I felt like people have definitely gone through some of the similar large strokes that I have in the past 10 to 15 years.”
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