Hilary Duff bared her soul on new album Luck … or Something, and in a new interview, the singer-actress opened up about key moments in her life — from her divorce to her struggles with family and the Disney Channel machine — leading up to it.
On a new episode of On Purpose With Jay Shetty posted Monday (March 9), Duff reflected on some of the biggest personal fallouts she’s faced, starting with her 2014 split from ex-husband Mike Comrie. “I felt like in that time of my life, I was so ready to get married … I was ready to have a baby,” she told Shetty. “I was ready to have something of my own, you know, that I could just like, focus on and it be mine.
“I’ve been pretty open about, you know, being a divorced person and what that’s like, and being a single mom,” she continued. “Choosing to end a family is a huge, horrible choice to make. But I also co-parent … with that person. And we do a great job mostly.”
The Lizzie McGuire alum married the former NHL star in 2010, staying together for four years and welcoming son Luca before separating. Their divorce was finalized in 2016, and Duff is now married to songwriter Matthew Koma, with whom she’s welcomed three more kids over the years.
Another separation that’s affected Hilary has been that of her parents, Robert and Susan, who divorced in 2008. She’s been open about having “complicated” dynamics with her mom and dad as well as her older sister, Haylie, both of which she addressed on the podcast.
“To be in a family that, you know, your parents aren’t together, and you don’t have relationships with both of your parents, it’s devastating,” she told Shetty. “You want your parents to feel like they care about you. And a big portion of my existence hasn’t felt like that. I don’t know if that’s the truth, but that’s how it feels.”
“My sister and I don’t speak,” Hilary added of her rift with Haylie, which inspired “We Don’t Talk,” one of the former’s new songs on Luck … or Something. “It’s very hard to be a person who’s had their life exposed in the industry for 25 years, and we were talking about, you know, that earlier tiptoeing around what the outcome has been for some of it … It’s a very vulnerable song, and it’s a very raw part of my existence. I hope it’s not forever, but it’s for right now.”
Beyond prying eyes into her family and personal life, the How I Met Your Father star also went in to more ways that finding fame through her work with Disney as a preteen had negative impacts on her. “Probably around 15 was when I feel like the world started getting very interested in what I was wearing, who I was dating, what I was eating … I feel like I lost some serious innocence,” she told Shetty.
For a brief time, Hilary says the scrutiny led her to poor body image and disordered eating. “I was dealing with people commenting on my body at a young age and starting to get photographed and people, like, asking you how many times you weigh yourself or comparing you to people that were thinner than you or other girls in your line of work,” she said. “I definitely struggled for a little while there, just trying to fit a certain mold and have control over something in my life. Thankfully that was pretty short-lived. Um, but definitely toyed with it.”
Luck … or Something dropped Feb. 20, debuting at No. 3 on the Billboard 200. In June, she’ll kick off a world arena tour in support of the LP, which marks her first in more than a decade.
If you or someone you know need support for an eating disorder, visit the National Eating Disorders Association for more information.
Watch Hilary’s full interview on On Purpose With Jay Shetty below.
