In November, a strange and random thing happened on TikTok, as it often does.
Seemingly out of nowhere, TikTokers latched onto a video from 2007.
It wasnt a particularly notable video, but it was enough to inspire a viral waterfall of content.
(I love how she gives absolutely 0% energy.
Slay me lazy queen, one commenter on YouTube wrote.)
I was like, Is this going to dig up everything that I dont want dug up?
Is this just an opportunity for more fun to be poked?
Duff tells me a couple of months later on Zoom.
Still, Duff took it in stride.
Or, Oh, that was a rough period.
But I made it through, she tells me.
I do remember that time, so Im going to have some fun with it, she remembers thinking.
No one will shut up about it, so heres my attempt.
What was especially ironic about the #hilaryduffchallenge was the premise that Duff was or is capable of laziness.
(IfLizzie McGuireand Disney taught me anything, it taught me how to work.
And how to power through and be energetic and show up, she says.)
Duff recently started a meditation practice and found that five minutes was all her schedule would allow.
She had Banks in 2018, and got pregnant again in summer 2020 with her youngest, Mae.
(She delivered both babies in her home in Los Angeles.)
Hilary would come to work on a Monday and ask, What did you do this weekend?
I slept and did laundry.
Fans of her work might be surprised to see Duff in this, her abundantly adult life.
Thats because, on television, Duff plays characters who havent quite settled into themselves.
This month, Duff stars in a sequel to the much-adored sitcomHow I Met Your Mother.
(An older version of Sophie is played by Kim Cattrall.)
She married her first husband, the hockey player Mike Comrie, in her early 20s.
She met Koma while making her last album,Breathe In.
A mutual friend thought theyd make good collaborators, and Koma wrote and produced multiple songs on the record.
Duff is a grownup, and she feels it.
Im starting to feel like…
I cant eat what I want anymore.
I cant drink how I used to.
If I dont get the sleep I need, Im not good the next day.
Duff has been in the business for most of her life.
But she soon received an offer to audition for the lead role in a new Disney show calledLizzie McGuire.
She turned down the request, but her mother kept encouraging her to try it.
Eventually she flew back to Los Angeles and landed the part (despite bombing the first audition).
I think I was trying not to get too excited, she says.
I remember meeting friends at the mall the day the show came out, and being mobbed by people.
Someone who worked at the mall stuffed me in the closet and said, you better call your mom.
(Even characters from present day shows likePen15orEuphoriafall in the post-Lizzie McGuirelineage.)
Anyone whos currently in their late 20s to mid-30s became intimately familiar with the storylines and the character.
I was too young to do a character dive on Lizzie, she says.
I think I was just playing myself.
And I really related to that girl.
She was me, and I was her, and that was that.
WhileLizzie McGuirewas on air, it was fine that the world kept conflating Duff with her iconic character.
As she got older, though, it started to wear on her.
By the time the series wrapped, Duff was deep into her burgeoning pop-music career.
She releasedMetamorphosisin 2003, analbum that landed at No.
1 on theBillboard200and allowed her to tour arenas around the country.
In Hollywood, the role of Lizzie McGuire loomed over her for many years.
Duff remembers going on auditions and getting callbacks, only to be written off by producers and casting agents.
Oh, shes too famous.
We know her as Lizzie McGuire, she recalls.
Im like, Why are you giving me the callback then?
Dont fucking waste my time.
Im driving to Venice for this shit!
I was like, Im me!
Im Hilary, not that person.
Thats a made-up person, Duff continues.
It was a desire to be seen as a person outside of a character.
Young people werent taken seriously, she adds.
Now its like, if youre not 19, there is no way youre going to break.
If youre 30, youre too old.
And its amazing and Im so happy for them.
But when I was coming up, I was really trying to break the mold…
It was a really challenging time.
Mary-Kate and Ashley quit acting and started smoking.
Lindsay Lohan became, and remains, a tabloid sensation for all kinds of public shenanigans.
(Including an alleged feud with Duff over tween pop sensation Aaron Carter, whom Duff dated early on.
These days, Carter is an OnlyFans star and celebrity boxing exhibitionist.)
Justin Bieber had a run that included illegal drag-racing and urinating in a janitors bucket.
I 100% relate to and feel for her, she says.
It was so unfair what we all did to her.
Halsey shaves her head and its celebrated.
Britney Spears shaved her head a long time ago, and it was like, Shes gone mental!
Check her into the institution.
Duff never really had the same kind of shocking public transformation that Spears did.
She was angsty, sure, and she admits she did like to party occasionally.
Not every night but some nights, she remembers.
I knew I had a responsibility.
I kept a low profile, [used] the back door, not the front door.
By age 24, she was married to Comrie and had her first child, Luca.
To this day, Lizzie McGuire impacts her professionally.
I ask her if being a Disney star hindered her career.
Was she typecast as a bubbly young woman, always in family-friendly roles?
She responds without skipping a beat.
But after many years of self-reflection, Duff has come to an understanding.
Ive obviously had to think about [Lizzie] a lot.
And they probably always will be.
I think just accepting that has brought me a lot of peace, she says.
I have all of those things.
Its what the character deserves.
She seems to have come full circle on Lizzie.
Now Im like, I love her.
She made everyone feel good, she says, beaming.
Duff has grown more and more comfortable calling the shots within the confines of her current universe.
Its a right shes earned with experience.
Im obviously very opinionated because Ive been doing this for so long, she says.
Her last album,Breathe In.
Breathe Out., showed a more adventurous and adult side, blending dance-pop and folk influences.
Only recently, shes started plotting her return to music, but she is treading carefully.
Tapping into that part of myself thats purely mine is really hard to do, she says.
Shes just also trying to give herself a break.
I dont want to cry, but I might cry.
I put a lot of pressure on myself, personally.
And I want to release that stuff that doesnt serve me.
I have a lot of trouble sitting still and not having a ton of things going on to manage.
And finally, at 34, I think thats slowly chipping away.
Lizzie is a little bit like that.
