With a career dating back to the late '90s, Hilary Duff is one of the most beloved celebs.
And, she only seems to get more popular as the years go by.
You may be curious about how she's changed over the years.
Here's a closer look at how she's transformed throughout her impressive career.
It's hard to remember a time when Hilary Duff wasn't famous.
The millennial generation grew up with the actress and remember her years as a child
star.
It seems like she's always been on our televisions, but it took years of hard work for Duff to
break into the acting industry.
Duff followed in older sister Haylie's footsteps when she started acting in preschool.
Duff soon started going on auditions of her own.
After the sisters were cast in a few commercials, they moved with their mother to Los Angeles
for pilot season, leaving their father in their home state of Texas and returning home
to visit every few weeks.
Their mother told Rolling Stone that the decision to pursue the arts was something her daughters
chose for themselves and not something they were pushed into.
She said:
"My husband and I were never involved in anything artistic, so it was never anything we focused
on."
After many unsuccessful auditions, the Duff women were ready to call it quits and move
back to Texas when Hilary landed the lead role on "Lizzie McGuire."
The rest is history.
Duff told Seventeen that her career truly started with the 1998 straight-to-video cult
classic "Casper Meets Wendy."
But, she didn't achieve true fame until 2001 when "Lizzie McGuire" debuted.
The Disney show didn't just prove to be Duff's big break, but it also elevated her to bona
fide celeb status and thrust her into the spotlight with little warning.
"Maybe you could get me an autograph?"
(awkward laugh)
Duff described the moment she realized she was famous to BuzzFeed:
"'Lizzie McGuire' aired and that weekend I went to go meet my friends at the mall, and
I literally had to hide in a janitor's closet.
It was like the craziest thing.
I had to call my mom from the closet.
It was really crazy.
It was actually a little scary."
Even though "Lizzie McGuire" transformed Duff's career, the role did come with some setbacks.
Playing the wholesome girl-next-door meant that Duff experienced a lot of typecasting
after leaving the show, especially in those first few years after "Lizzie McGuire."
She told Time in 2015:
"In the beginning I definitely dealt with a lot of that.
Even now with certain movie roles, I'll go and get amazing feedback and won't always
get the role.
There's definitely a stereotype because of my past, starting so young and people growing
up with me."
Duff kept fighting to find roles that let her grow as an actress, though.
She was excited to join the cast of "Younger" in 2015, which gave her the chance to play
a more mature, edgier character.
She said:
"This show came at a good time and got me really excited where others hadn't."
At the age of 22, Hilary Duff married hockey player Mike Comrie.
The actress told Us Weekly:
"I had already been working as an adult since I was 12 years old.
So 22 doesn't seem that crazy to get married."
At the age of 24, Duff gave birth to their son, Luca.
The transition to motherhood was difficult for the actress.
She told Motherly:
"I'd say it was a little isolating in the beginning because I didn't have any friends
that had babies yet.
But I had been working for such a long time that it felt like a natural step for me and
I always knew I wanted to be a mom.
I always knew that was going to be my number one priority in life."
In spite of the challenges, Duff said that becoming a mom transformed her life.
She said:
"You know I knew it was the most important, biggest job in the world but you know it looks
very different once you're just in the household with the baby by yourself all the time.
Like you know it was shocking and it was also the happiest, most beautiful experience."
She might be famous and talented, but, like the rest of us, Hilary Duff has had ups and
downs in her love life.
The actress went through a divorce in 2015, but she took it in stride.
She told Cosmopolitan after the split was announced:
"I don't want to sound bitter because I'm definitely not, but I don't know if people
are meant to be together forever.
Things happen over a long relationship that you can't always fight.
A marriage of 20 years, the accomplishment of that must feel really great, but there
are also huge sacrifices.
I just always want to fight for happiness."
It looks like Duff kept fighting because, in May 2019, the actress announced on Instagram
that she became engaged to singer-songwriter Matthew Koma.
She'd previously given birth to their daughter, Banks, in October 2018.
Just like Lizzie McGuire herself, Hilary Duff has done some things that she's embarrassed
about.
She's grown a lot as an artist since the early years of her career, and she looks back on
some of her work with regret, like the start of musical career.
She told BuzzFeed:
"There's a lot on 'Metamorphosis' that I wish I could forget, but then so many people come
up to me like, 'That album was everything to me.
And they always call out the most embarrassing songs, like there's this song called 'The
Math' and I don't get it at all.
That's like one of my most embarrassing moments in life."
Duff keeps super busy with her acting career, but she's also still passionate about music.
In 2015, she made the decision to revive her singing career after a nearly decade-long
hiatus, dropping the album "Breath In.
Breath Out."
Duff told Time in 2015:
"It's tough.
I put some music out last year, and right when I put my single out, we started filming
['Younger'].
So it was a little bad timing because I really didn't get a chance to properly promote my
single after being out of the music game for seven years.
But it was good."
According to Discogs, Duff paused any new music releases after dropping the single "Little
Lies" in 2016 and "Never Let You Go," a collaboration with RAC and partner Matthew Koma, in 2020,
but we're hopeful that we'll hear more music from her.
Duff is managing to crush both her professional life and motherhood.
The key to this, she says, is making sure that she looks after herself.
She said in an interview:
"It's really important to take care of ourselves as moms because we spread ourselves so thin.
If we break down, who will keep it all running smoothly?"
Duff stressed the importance of staying positive, even when parenting is rough.
"One thing I try to say to myself is savor the moment; it all goes by so fast — even
the really hard days or nights."
The actress also urged other moms not to be too hard on themselves.
"Remember you're doing a good job — it's a lot of pressure being a new mom."
Many people forget that Hilary Duff had a literary career back in the 2010s.
Her debut novel, "Elixir," is a paranormal romance.
According to the publisher's website, "Elixir" hit The New York Times bestseller list and
was followed by two sequels.
In spite of her literary success, Duff says that she doesn't have any plans for more sequels
or another YA series.
She told BuzzFeed in 2018:
"I don't have any plans to write any more books.
It was one of the hardest things I've ever done."
For now, at least, it looks like Duff is focusing on her other endeavors, and we can't really
blame her for wanting to let one of her many careers go.
While many former child stars go through a wild phase, Duff has remained down-to-earth
throughout her career.
Duff's mom told Rolling Stone in 2003:
"Hilary is personally a modest young woman.
She does not need to go around exposing herself.
What you see is what you get with Hilary, basically.
It almost sounds too good to be true, doesn't it?"
In a 2015 interview with Cosmopolitan, Duff said that she never felt like she had to,
quote, "wild out" to prove that she was an adult.
She added that, at the age of 19, she made a conscious decision to eliminate negativity
from her life and dropped a lot of friends.
She said:
"That was really hard, to sit down with people and say 'We can't be friends anymore.’
They were like 'That's f---ed up; you're a b----.'
But having a good reputation was important to me."
Living life in the public eye took its toll on Duff, as did growing up in an industry
that is obsessed with physical appearance.
There was a time in her life when she struggled with her body image and made unhealthy choices.
She told Health:
"When I was 17, I weighed, like, 98 pounds.
I was totally obsessed with everything I put in my mouth.
I was way too skinny.
Not cute.
And my body wasn't that healthy — my hands would cramp up a lot because I wasn't getting
the nutrition I needed."
Fortunately, Duff has a much healthier relationship with her body these days and isn't so hard
on herself.
She said:
"This is the body that I have.
And I feel good about myself."
Duff told Women's Health that after the 2018 birth of her second child, Banks, she stopped
doing cardio and turned to weight training to stay fit.
She has also changed her eating habits through the help of a dieting coach and by cutting
out snacking.
She still eats foods she likes, though.
She said:
"I lost 10 pounds and I was not starving myself, and just eating things that I like and being
more conscious.”
Fans were psyched at the announcement that Hilary Duff would be reprising her breakthrough
role in a "Lizzie McGuire" reboot.
Duff seemed just as excited about the show, which picks up as Lizzie is about to turn
30, but she wasn't always so enthusiastic about the idea of bringing back the iconic
series.
She told BuzzFeed in 2018:
"Honestly, the idea sounded terrible two years ago when reboots were happening, but you never
know.
I don't know.
I loved Lizzie McGuire and it might be really fun to see where she is now."
Duff, of course, did change her mind, as she was excited to share the adult Lizzie with
the world.
"She was everyone's best friend, and she was there for such pivotal moments in their pre-teen
life, and entering your 30s in a really big deal.”
Hilary Duff isn't just thriving in her professional life but also her personal life.
The actress married Matthew Koma in December 2019, seven months after announcing their
engagement on Instagram.
She told Vogue:
"Our wedding isn't over-the-top 'wedding-y' — it's more understated and for me, that's
more powerful.”
The ceremony, which was held just days before Christmas, was an intimate affair held at
the couple's Los Angeles home.
Duff wore a stunning dress from Jenny Packham and walked down the aisle holding her daughter,
Banks, while her son, Luca, walked down the aisle with Koma.
Duff summed up the special occasion in an Instagram post, writing:
"The most magical day into night with the one that I love."
As pandemic lockdowns spread all over the globe in 2020, many of those fortunate enough
to be able to stay at home quickly found themselves rather bored.
What's a person to do when they can't go out?
If you're Hilary Duff, you pick up some new hobbies.
Scratch that, you pick up a lot of new hobbies.
The star told Forbes that she turned to tie-dying and learning the guitar as solo hobbies, but
also picked up a lot of pastimes with her kids such as hula hooping, doing relay races,
and, quote, “play[ing] a lot of Monopoly."
While it sounds like Duff mastered the art of quarantine living, she admitted to Cosmopolitan
UK that it wasn't all easy.
While her husband, Matthew Koma, was totally fine staying home, she said she hankered after,
quote, "quarantine distanced dinners" with her friends.
Koma happily helped her do this, watching the kids while she got some socializing in.
She admitted:
"I'm a homebody too, but I do need to go out with my girlfriends once in a while.”
Another way that Hilary Duff kept busy during quarantine was by writing her first children's
book, "My Little Brave Girl."
The book was inspired by a special person: her daughter Banks.
Duff explained to People that the idea for the story came to her during her final days
of breastfeeding her daughter when she had just returned home from a long day of work.
She said:
"Tired and emotional, I held my daughter and remembered the many ways I watched my mother
be brave and was encouraged to do the same.”
She continued:
"I sat there in a well of emotion, realizing I was close to the end of my breastfeeding
journey with my daughter and this was just one of the many ways I was going to watch
her grow into a little brave girl."
The story came to Duff that night and she jotted the words in a note on her phone.
Per the book's description on Amazon, the words Duff came up with that night, quote,
"encourage girls to reach higher, dream bigger, and approach the world with their hearts wide
open."
Fans were incredibly excited when the "Lizzie McGuire" reboot was announced in 2019, but
the highly anticipated series never got off the ground.
While the original cast reunited and even filmed a couple of episodes of the new iteration
of the Disney Channel classic, Duff hinted in an Instagram post that things fell apart
over creative differences.
When the show was called off in December 2020, she wrote:
"I want any reboot of 'Lizzie' to be honest and authentic to who Lizzie would be today."
Duff had revealed in a previous Instagram post that she was hoping for the show to be
moved from Disney+ to Hulu, as she didn't think the 30-something Lizzie McGuire should
be restricted by a PG rating.
In short, it seems studio execs were reluctant to let Lizzie grow up.
“It was a big disappointment obviously”
While it wasn't officially confirmed that it was these creative differences that led
to the show's cancellation, some cast members seem to think that's what happened.
Robert Carradine, who played Lizzie's dad, told Vice:
"So, you go to all that trouble and they decide at the last minute, out of the blue, that
it needs to be more kid-friendly?
I don't get that."
Fans who haven't caught up with Duff since her Disney Channel days may have trouble picturing
Lizzie McGuire as a mom of one, let alone a mom of three, but Duff welcomed her third
child in March 2021.
Duff announced the birth of her newest bundle of joy, Mae James Bair, in an Instagram post.
She wrote:
"We LOVE you beauty.”
Baby Mae joined the world after an emotional home birth for which the family was present.
According to Insider, Duff said on the "Informed Pregnancy" podcast that it was especially
meaningful to her that her son, Luca, was there.
She said:
"It was kind of important for me, because I'm really big on being open and honest with
him about how strong women are and how childbirth looks."
Duff explained that she wants her son to know this from a young age.
She said:
"I think that sometimes a 9-year-old boy is like, 'Well, men have bigger muscles,' and,
yeah, but we bring life into this world.
We move a baby through our body.”
There's no doubt about it: Hilary Duff is a TV comedy queen.
Fans who grew up watching her on "Lizzie McGuire" were excited to see her take on a more mature
— but still funny — role on TV "Younger" ran for seven glorious seasons.
Alas, all good things must come to an end, but saying goodbye to "Younger" as the show
wrapped its final season in 2021 was no easy feat for the Disney Channel alum.
She admitted to Variety:
"After spending so much time on a show with people you love, it's always hard to permanently
say goodbye."
That being said, Duff thinks the writers of "Younger" did right by her character, Kelsey.
She said:
"I love that Kelsey chooses herself, ditches the guys who aren't good for her and continues
on a journey that forces her to take risks.”
If that all sounds like the character is set for a spin-off, there's a reason for that.
While a spin-off hasn't been confirmed, "Younger" creator Darren Star told Variety that a series
centered on Duff's character could be in the future.
Don't get too excited, though.
Star said:
"It's a big question mark whether it's going to happen.”
Fans may have been disappointed to learn that Hilary Duff's time on "Younger" would come
to an end, but Duff is one of the hottest actresses in Hollywood so she's not hurting
for new projects.
The actress is slated to take on the lead role in "How I Met Your Father," a spin-off
of the hit sitcom "How I Met Your Mother."
Duff is set to play Sophie, the lead character who, through a series of flashbacks, tells
her son all about her journey to meeting his dad.
Duff told Variety that she couldn't be more thrilled to star on the show, which will air
on Hulu.
She told the outlet that she was a fan of the original and knew the spin-off was the
perfect fit for her as soon as she read the script.
She said:
"I knew I had to be the one to bring Sophie to life and share the female POV to this legendary
show.”
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