Hilary Duff Explains Why She “Didn’t Want to Be Lizzie McGuire Anymore” Following End of Her Hit Show
Photo: Getty Images
“I just desperately needed to be my own person,” Hilary Duff explained of navigating her career after starring as the eponymous spunky preteen in Disney Channel’s Lizzie McGuire
Hilary Duff worked hard to shed her image as a child star.
The 35-year-old Disney Channel actress revealed she “really didn’t want to be Lizzie McGuire anymore, as amazing as it was” after her breakout program ended in 2004.
“For so long people were just like ‘Lizzie, Lizzie, Lizzie,'” she explained while discussing growing up in the public eye on pal Josh Peck and Ben Soffer’s Good Guys podcast.
“And still, now to this day, which it doesn’t bother me anymore but it did for a while, I just desperately needed to be my own person.”
“I think that I thought music was gonna be a good way to introduce myself, reintroduce myself, and it was,” added Duff.
Duff starred as the eponymous spunky preteen in Lizzie McGuire, which ran on Disney Channel for two seasons from 2001 to 2004, as well as in 2003’s The Lizzie McGuire Movie.
Despite that a Disney+ reboot was canceled shortly after filming began, Duff has stated that she remains “optimistic” about the show’s future.
Later, she appeared in films such as Cheaper By the Dozen, A Cinderella Story, Raise Your Voice, The Perfect Guy, and Material Girls, as well as dozens of television series, with her most notable role being from 2015 to 2021 on TVLand’s Younger.
She is currently acting as Sophie on Hulu’s How I Met Your Father.
Duff, who released her debut studio album Santa Claus Lane in 2002, also revealed on Peck’s podcast that music was essential in her shift away from her Lizzie McGuire image.
“I would say that was five years of my life, just trying to navigate becoming a person that I wanted to be outside of who everybody wanted me to be,” she shared.
“I remember being on tour and having mothers come up to me and be like, ‘Never change! Whatever you do, just never, never, never change!'”
Duff recalled. “And I would go into my dressing room after a meet-and-greet and just be like, ‘What?’ They probably didn’t mean anything by it, but could you imagine telling an 18-year-old or 17-year-old to never change?”
The Metamorphosis artist said “I do want to” make more music, adding: “I miss that version of myself. And I definitely think that I have more to do in that department. I just don’t know when.”
“I think that I will. I just don’t know. Right now, I barely have enough time to give to the three children I decided to bring into the world,” added Duff.
Duff shares Banks Violet, 4, and Mae James, 11 months, with husband Matthew Koma, and she shares son Luca Cruz, 10, with ex-husband Mike Comrie.
