Culture Study Podcast - Hilary Duff's Irresistible Millennial Mom Image

00:00:00.720 I think it took me like a good 10 years to make peace with like Lizzie McGuire.

00:00:04.820 It's weird to like play a character that people fall so in love with that doesn't grow up.

00:00:10.840 She stays that age and then I grew up.

00:00:13.180 Now I'm like obsessed with her and I like get to join the fandom and be excited like everybody else,

00:00:18.880 even though I like was her.

00:00:21.120 But for a while it was a hard thing to be like changing and evolving.

00:00:26.320 But everywhere I went, like I was this to people.

00:00:30.000 this is the culture study podcast and i'm ann helen peterson and i'm ali jones i'm a writer

00:00:42.360 covering celebrity for the newsletter gossip time okay so normally we chat a little before getting

00:00:49.560 to listener questions but we have to start this time with one from sarah i read gossip time each

00:00:56.480 week. And I've always wondered where Allie Jones' obsession with Hilary Duff came from. I go with it

00:01:02.620 and read her each week until I care too. But I am curious the origin story for her

00:01:08.140 and now mine too. Check-ins. This is a fabulous question.

00:01:15.380 Definitely the personal obsession for me started with Lizzie McGuire. I was in fifth grade when

00:01:21.520 that show came out 100% the target audience. Hillary is just a couple years older than I am

00:01:28.120 and she was depicting a girl in middle school going you know so it was like relatable a little

00:01:34.180 aspirational. I was completely obsessed and then career-wise I sort of picked it back up about 10

00:01:45.720 years ago when i was working at gawker and covering like starting to cover some celebrity

00:01:51.740 stuff and people just thought that it was funny that hillary duff might be a character that i would

00:01:58.080 cover um i think maybe some people saw some similarities i think my editor maybe saw some 0.92

00:02:05.360 similarities there um and she was just starting her run on younger which was kind of like her

00:02:11.280 acting comeback. And she was doing all these interviews where she was talking about how edgy

00:02:16.960 the show was and how it was a real adult show and had a lot of kind of funny sound bites that then

00:02:24.180 I started covering. And then when I went to start my celebrity gossip newsletter, like five years

00:02:31.040 ago, I thought, who is someone who I'm really like tracking all the time? And it's Hilary Duff.

00:02:37.880 so I decided to put that as sort of a regular installment in the newsletter and now I just

00:02:44.140 can't give it up yeah you know there are celebrities that I somehow started following

00:02:49.840 on Instagram for whatever reason sometimes it was for a story sometimes just because I like

00:02:53.880 actually authentically like them that I feel like I could write a weekly column about what they're

00:02:59.360 doing kind of somewhat based on their Instagram because like they're oftentimes promoting some

00:03:04.800 weird collab that they're doing or something like that but sometimes too it's just like this is your

00:03:10.840 celebrity this is someone that you know a ton about you can go deep and wide on this particular

00:03:16.180 celebrity image and part of the reason I wanted to do the show is because Hilary Duff is just

00:03:23.460 slightly too young to cross my like obsessive consciousness so I think what year were you born

00:03:32.700 1990 okay I was born in 1981 so when all of like the Disney like all of those stars like Hannah

00:03:42.540 Montana too and Miley Cyrus like that early understanding and all of like the the drama

00:03:48.520 between those stars for me that was early Mickey Mouse Club like that was Britney Spears Justin

00:03:54.800 Timberlake Ryan Gosling like those stars and I think that I was like even though I was reading

00:04:00.760 so much celebrity gossip in the early 2000s because this was the heyday of the gossip blogs

00:04:08.080 like press hilton so i mean all of the gawker stuff like there it was just coming from every

00:04:13.820 single direction but to me i always was like oh that's kind of kid stuff like it was just slightly

00:04:20.560 too young and i hadn't ever like engaged with them even though i was interested in lindsey

00:04:25.860 Lohan and I think that's because she skewed slightly older does that make sense yeah she 0.54

00:04:31.960 had more going on yeah she had she had more narratives to more adult narratives to follow 0.98

00:04:38.840 maybe um but yeah no I I was 100% the target audience for for Hillary and even like the

00:04:46.240 Hannah Montana stuff that was even a little bit later and I missed that but Hillary Lindsay Lohan

00:04:52.380 And that their whole feud, which I'm sure we'll get into, that was right up my alley.

00:04:59.060 Can you, for listeners who maybe are less familiar with Hilary Duff's trajectory, can you talk just a little bit about like, like how everywhere she was for, I think, consumers of a certain age?

00:05:12.640 yeah I was going back and even looking at her record sales and like her first record sold

00:05:19.100 three million copies which is insane to think about now because you don't think about her as

00:05:25.040 a huge recording star even though of course now she's having this comeback um she was like the

00:05:31.200 preeminent Disney star in the in the very early 2000s she was in the cheaper by the dozen remake

00:05:37.800 like a Cinderella story, these sort of, when people were going to movie theaters, you know,

00:05:42.740 big, big family movies. And they, Disney really gave her the all around treatment. She got the

00:05:50.300 recording deal, the acting, you know, she had endorsements. She had her sister, Haley Duff,

00:05:57.140 and they did stuff together. And then she was sort of dating or associated with male stars of

00:06:05.400 the time like aaron carter chad michael murray uh so yeah she i mean she was a huge star yeah

00:06:11.380 let's do this next question i think we'll get a little bit to it like the aura of her image

00:06:17.060 so let's hear this question from amanda hillary duff i do not have a question but i was born in

00:06:22.920 1992 which i feel like is peak hillary duff you have got to talk about the movie the cinderella

00:06:27.740 story and why it is a cinematic masterpiece also why is her music from like 2003 to 2008 just the

00:06:34.360 very perfect soundtrack to the best era of mall culture when you could go to the mall for hours

00:06:39.280 with friends walk around and buy nothing i'll be re-listening to most wanted for the foreseeable

00:06:43.420 future and re-watching cinderella story sometime soon too and i'm interested to hear what hillary

00:06:47.820 duff has been up to for the past 15 years so i love that idea of it as like soundtrack to mall

00:06:55.460 culture and it also reminds me wait melody didn't you just say that it was like on in the airport

00:07:01.540 yes when you were there i was in i was in lax two days ago and come clean was playing

00:07:06.320 and i also think like is it come clean that's the um the soundtrack to the laguna beach intro

00:07:13.860 yes that song and laguna beach even was like i think you know as amanda puts it like this very

00:07:24.080 best era of like early reality culture where you were like oh my gosh there's high schoolers that

00:07:30.980 we're following on mtv and they're so like glam and nothing happens and there is a nostalgia

00:07:37.480 for that understanding of what was going on during that time even though like

00:07:42.620 what a bad time so many ways yeah i mean it's so funny too they're doing the laguna beach uh

00:07:48.920 reunion coming up yes next month on the roku channel um i was hoping that hillary might be

00:07:55.700 involved with that but I don't think she is um but no I mean the mall culture thing Hilary Duff

00:08:01.700 had like a line with limited to which I remember like going to limited to right and like looking

00:08:08.060 at the Lizzie McGuire stuff um and and then she did become associated kind of with Laguna Beach

00:08:13.420 and that says Abercrombie to me all over the place Hollister um and her music is is very

00:08:21.660 mall like there was nothing super challenging about it um that it wasn't even like just like

00:08:28.520 right down the middle pop yeah anyone could appreciate it anyone could really sing along

00:08:33.940 I would say the range is not crazy um and and I think uh she she just had such a sweet relatable

00:08:45.060 image that you didn't have to think too hard about how influential do you think her look was

00:08:51.480 for your generation of consumers.

00:08:54.840 I just like, I was looking at some of the videos

00:08:56.740 that you shared with me and Melody shared with me

00:08:58.880 and like the bangs, like there's something

00:09:01.380 and the way that like,

00:09:03.560 like the part that's kind of like

00:09:05.640 almost zigzag a little bit, you know what I mean?

00:09:08.560 Like there's just so much now that I see.

00:09:11.320 And part of it is, you know,

00:09:13.020 was she doing it because that was what

00:09:14.560 you were supposed to be doing or was she influential?

00:09:17.060 What do you think?

00:09:18.660 Yeah, that's a great question.

00:09:19.860 I'm sure that I was trying,

00:09:21.480 I feel like I can see a picture of her wearing like a dress over jeans on the red carpet

00:09:26.780 and being like, I should do that.

00:09:31.100 Like it was it was very, very early aughts, like those sort of horrible trends that we

00:09:37.000 look back on now.

00:09:39.460 And I think that she was aspirational to a point, but she wasn't like the Nicole Richie 0.97

00:09:45.600 or the Rachel Zoe styled girls.

00:09:49.300 That was kind of a different thing.

00:09:50.860 Yeah.

00:09:51.020 And and she also wasn't ever how do I want to, like, be very careful about how I talk about this, but like she wasn't noticeably skinny, like her body wasn't the conversation.

00:10:04.700 Does that make sense?

00:10:05.980 Yeah. And I think, well, I'll complicate that a little bit because she did get really skinny at one point and kind of talk about this later. 0.99

00:10:16.800 She kind of like, she went brunette and she was dating one of the Madden brother who is now married to Nicole Richie. 0.81

00:10:25.400 No.

00:10:25.840 Yes.

00:10:26.420 Joel.

00:10:27.040 Joel.

00:10:27.760 Yep.

00:10:28.300 Thank you, Molly.

00:10:31.320 And that was kind of like a dark period.

00:10:34.780 But I think her look before that was very relatable.

00:10:40.140 And then she kind of came back around to a more relatable look after that phase as well.

00:10:45.640 Yeah.

00:10:46.800 how would you describe her image now like a cool millennial mom which is still so it's like we've

00:10:55.740 grown up with her and now she's mirroring back like who we are still I think that's why I mean

00:11:03.240 I'm a mom now and like I've listened to all her content about like she has done podcasts about

00:11:12.980 her birth stories and like a little bit of her breastfeeding journey that kind of thing and I

00:11:18.000 definitely have eaten that up and um she she posts her kids a lot which is controversial for some

00:11:25.040 people but I think it makes her seem like someone who's just taking care of young kids a lot which 0.99

00:11:31.520 is you know relatable to a lot of people in their mid-30s women in their mid-30s so yeah I would say 1.00

00:11:38.100 it's she but she looks like she looks great like she looks a little bit elevated she obviously has 0.85

00:11:44.560 help and it's still kind of wholesome but like you know in a more grown-up way I guess so she

00:11:51.080 has a older kid from her first marriage correct to a hockey player I do remember that being in

00:11:57.260 the gossip pages like her involvement with the hockey player and then she now is married to a

00:12:03.060 musician right yeah he's like a producer a musician and he did work on this uh new album

00:12:09.900 so I don't know how much of a brainchild he is behind it but yeah and they have three kids

00:12:16.000 together yeah so she has four kids total that's a lot of kids yeah but as someone who just had 0.99

00:12:24.020 a second child I'm like holy crap four kids there's so many kids um but she she actually

00:12:31.820 is to her credit like she's very open about like she'll post her nanny on instagram and like she

00:12:38.480 even admits like they have a weekend nanny like they have help um so she's definitely not doing

00:12:44.300 it all by herself um but yeah that's a lot of kids she's not like trad wifing it up where you're just 0.53

00:12:49.200 like erase all signs of like any of the health that you have yeah i actually think that that's

00:12:53.600 like that's what people are looking for as almost a contrast in like a breath of fresh air to the

00:13:01.320 like I do it all myself like I am I'm a celebrity and I take care of all these kids all the time

00:13:07.160 right because that's just so I mean that's so obviously false it's like you have commitments

00:13:12.180 that your children are not sitting in on like yeah she there's something about her contemporary

00:13:18.360 image and I think like you said like cool millennial mom that really reminds me of like

00:13:22.200 the tiktoks that you'll see of like millennials hearing like a rap song from 2005 and being like

00:13:29.120 oh it hits or like knowing all of the lyrics to like some song like that sort of vibe 100%

00:13:36.960 and she reposts things like that on Instagram all the time she is one of us

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00:17:15.900 Okay, let's hear two questions back to back about why we're talking about her right now.

00:17:23.700 The first one is from Nora, and Melody's going to read it.

00:17:27.320 Why was Hilary Duff gone so long?

00:17:29.340 And also, why did she pick now to come back?

00:17:31.520 Because literally, we needed her right now.

00:17:33.960 And the second is from Emily.

00:17:36.420 Why am I so invested in Hilary Duff's comeback when I have never seen a single Lizzie McGuire

00:17:41.460 episode or movie?

00:17:42.900 Is it because her music hits that nostalgia spot in me?

00:17:46.660 Is it because I fell in love with her in Younger, which is so great?

00:17:50.260 Is it because Roommate and Mature are just phenomenal songs?

00:17:54.660 Why do I care so much about someone who otherwise seems like a very milquetoast celebrity?

00:18:01.280 Okay, Melody, I think you take offense to milquetoast, right?

00:18:04.500 Yes.

00:18:06.220 But the question here, is this a comeback? 0.69

00:18:09.760 You know, the cover, she was on the cover of Glamour magazine. 0.98

00:18:14.400 She's like on the back of a motorcycle, I think.

00:18:17.340 And the title, the headline is The Second Coming of Hilary Duff.

00:18:23.420 So it's definitely the publicity narrative.

00:18:26.520 But I also know from reading your newsletter that like she didn't go anywhere.

00:18:31.360 Like she hasn't been gone so long.

00:18:33.040 So how do you think of this?

00:18:34.480 I mean, she's definitely consistently worked.

00:18:37.020 almost unlike any other star that she was coming up with like she has always had a job uh she was

00:18:44.560 on Younger for like eight years and then a couple I would say maybe in the last five years a couple

00:18:50.160 projects like haven't panned out I don't know how much we want to attribute like COVID to that but

00:18:54.400 like there was a Lizzie McGuire reboot that didn't pan out she was on the um How I Met Your Mother

00:19:00.560 reboot How I Met Your Father that that also like kind of didn't go anywhere and her brand deals

00:19:06.420 alone I feel like could cover her for the for the rest of her life so she's been working definitely 0.80

00:19:12.760 she hasn't put out music in like a decade so that is a comeback uh I guess you could say but yeah I

00:19:20.740 feel like she's never really left the public eye like she's always still has paparazzi like she's

00:19:27.020 always still in you know the stars they're just like a section of Us Weekly uh if you want to 0.72

00:19:33.560 use that as a heat score um yes do and she's touring for this new album yes that puts her

00:19:43.120 in the public eye like public performance in a way that like having brand sponsorships does not

00:19:48.600 necessarily yeah it's definitely a uh a bigger jump uh i kind of it's so funny like i feel like

00:19:56.780 i've been speaking into a void about hillary duff for so long that it's almost i never imagined that

00:20:03.360 we would be in this place where she is now like mainstream 100 famous like going on tour to the

00:20:11.180 point where I can't even get tickets in the pre-sale like it's um it's crazy like I am your

00:20:17.240 biggest if anyone from her team is listening look me up I would love to be there um and I'm sure

00:20:26.820 melody would too but uh it's yeah it it's it's just not what I was expecting her to necessarily

00:20:34.560 do because I feel like she has had such a full career and she didn't really like need to do this

00:20:39.980 um I was talking to a friend who was talking to someone like in the music business and their

00:20:48.860 theory is that which I thought this was really interesting is that she's doing music now to try

00:20:55.140 to revive some interest in her back catalog to potentially sell it which a lot of pop stars do

00:21:02.600 and if that is the goal she's already been really successful like i think her spotify streams were

00:21:08.360 up like 130 or something when she announced the new album so if she pulls that off that i mean

00:21:16.540 that would be great i don't know that she needs the money or or needs to do that but if that's

00:21:21.340 her goal i think she'll probably do it and the sales from the tour have been really good too

00:21:26.000 yeah i keep thinking about like you know part of the reason we're doing this show like she's been

00:21:31.480 appearing on like the drew barrymore show on the morning show she went on call her daddy like

00:21:37.180 there is a squarely millennial interest in her that i think people like it's intersecting with

00:21:44.380 a larger nostalgia for 90s culture early 2000s culture like I just keep going back to the part

00:21:53.440 of whose question was it Nora's where she's like literally we need her right now like why does she

00:21:58.900 feel like someone that we want to think about right now you know I was thinking about this and

00:22:04.800 I think she really got a happy ending that a lot of the stars from our youth just simply did not I

00:22:13.140 I mean, Lindsay Lohan is maybe doing better now, but like that was a tough watch.

00:22:19.460 I think for a lot of women for a while, without like naming too many other names, I think you can like, you know, you know what I'm talking about.

00:22:29.560 I think she has seemed, quote unquote, normal and sort of made it out of being a child star relatively unscathed, which she's talked about a little bit now and in recent interviews.

00:22:41.380 Um, and I think, like, she is kind of mirroring back to us, like, oh, like, this is like a happy life for someone who's successful and like has a family. And yeah, and I think it makes us feel good to think like, oh, this person that I was like, very attached to in youth is like, still kind of like me and like doing well.

00:23:03.380 yeah and then going back to the relatability piece of it she's talked very openly in recent

00:23:08.900 interviews about being estranged from her sister right now and like how she doesn't feel like her

00:23:14.220 dad loves her like and they had like a really tough divorce when your parents get divorced as

00:23:19.420 adults like that's always so tough and so I think that that part of like yeah I'm holding it down

00:23:25.740 with my family but like there's all these other messy parts of my life too feels very relatable

00:23:31.080 yes and i think um even she's not an overtly political uh star but when it does come up

00:23:39.820 she expresses like progressive views for the most part and um sort of the theories behind her split

00:23:46.960 with her sister are that it might be due to politics uh her sister moved to texas in the

00:23:54.220 middle of the pandemic and is um a little more conservative the day hillary was giving birth

00:24:01.660 the day she was giving birth to her third child yeah wow i did do a full breakdown on this for

00:24:09.920 for gossip time if anyone is curious i have a whole timeline absolutely linked to that okay

00:24:16.120 yeah no i think that that that's all right like well actually this is a great setup for our next

00:24:22.520 question, which I love because it will allow us to talk about some of her skill at image formation.

00:24:29.380 This question is from Christy. I'm very curious how she's been able to be in the public eye for

00:24:33.880 as long as she has without any sort of major scandal or known rivalries. Also, just how she 0.61

00:24:39.740 still seems so normal. I love this because we've just talked about like a bunch of her rivalries

00:24:45.860 and scandals but that does seem to be even with a fairly major recent scandal that she was included 1.00

00:24:54.840 in I guess how do we say like the blast radius included her she does seem to be relatively

00:25:00.560 scandal free so first of all can you talk about some of the scandals that she has been 0.91

00:25:06.000 associated with yes I mean the the biggest one uh and probably the most like fabricated is her feud

00:25:14.720 with Lindsay Lohan, which started when they were both Disney stars and sort of both dating

00:25:23.340 Aaron Carter at the same time. And like they showed up to each other's movie premieres and

00:25:30.960 Lindsay kind of poked fun at her on SNL. And then Hillary did, I think, my favorite interview 0.98

00:25:38.540 she's ever done for Access Hollywood

00:25:40.480 talking about that moment.

00:25:44.080 When I heard that Lindsay was going to be

00:25:45.720 on Saturday Night Live, 1.00

00:25:46.760 I knew she was going to make fun of me.

00:25:47.920 She might also know me from the pages of Us Weekly 0.89

00:25:50.140 as the girl who's always fighting with Hillary Duff.

00:25:52.740 I wasn't honored.

00:25:53.780 I don't think it's an honor to be made fun of

00:25:55.080 on Saturday Night Live.

00:25:56.140 I'm not here to talk bad about her

00:25:57.600 like she talks bad about me all the time.

00:25:59.240 And I just knew that it was going to happen.

00:26:01.360 I watched it this morning

00:26:02.860 and I was just amazed

00:26:06.080 at how perfectly like high school popular girl it is it's just perfect just the phrase i wasn't

00:26:13.720 honored it's like my favorite i feel like i say that all the time i wasn't honored

00:26:20.100 she's just so she's so polished she really is i mean she's a hard worker and has been since

00:26:30.040 childhood which is its whole own other thing but she so she definitely had that feud that was like 0.99

00:26:35.660 in the tabloids and um yeah and a part of pop culture enough that it that it made it to SNL 0.99

00:26:41.880 yeah and then my other favorite kind of feud that she had was with the actress Faye Dunaway

00:26:47.680 this was around also like 2003 when she was announced um to be doing a remake of Bonnie

00:26:56.960 and Clyde which did not happen uh and Ms. Dunaway made some comment saying you know

00:27:04.020 well that's a shame i think to you know uh to that effect and uh and hillary really went for 0.95

00:27:13.980 her then in another in another interview and and kind of went for her looks which uh is you know 0.84

00:27:20.220 not who we think of as hillary duff but but she did do that i think that my fans that are going 0.99

00:27:25.420 to go see the movie don't even know who she is so you know um i think it was a little unnecessary

00:27:31.720 But I might be mad if I look like that now, too.

00:27:34.800 So that stuff doesn't it didn't stick to her, to your point, you know?

00:27:40.400 Yeah. And then the most recent one is about the texting group, the mom group.

00:27:46.340 Some people I know were obsessed with this and some people I think it is totally flown under their radar.

00:27:52.700 So can you break this down a little bit for us?

00:27:55.440 Yes, I would be in the obsessed camp because I knew about. 0.69

00:27:59.660 So, Hilary Duff, when she was having her, like, third baby, a bunch of other celebrity and sort of celebrity-adjacent moms were also having babies, and she started the quintessential mommy group.

00:28:13.540 If anyone's had, like, a first baby, you know that experience.

00:28:16.420 You all go to a baby class together, and you form a playgroup, and you're in a group.

00:28:20.460 and mandy moore was in it megan trainer the pop star was in it and ashley tisdale another

00:28:27.340 former disney star was in it and uh i think people stopped paying attention to this because

00:28:33.560 the kids are like five now so it's like they're not babies anymore the group doesn't even really

00:28:38.840 exist but uh ashley posted on her website a blog basically saying i broke up with my mommy group

00:28:47.140 They were mean girls. And people immediately clocked that this is about a group of other 0.84

00:28:53.460 celebrities. But I think what's interesting, at least from where I sit, people are really willing

00:28:59.260 to give Hillary the benefit of the doubt. Like no one was like, oh, Hillary must be the mean girl 0.98

00:29:04.500 in this scenario. I don't think anyone thought that. And it's kind of backfired on Ashley,

00:29:10.400 I would say PR wise. But no, I've been following every Instagram follow and unfollow and like

00:29:18.720 between all of these women. Yeah. Is it like, at least as I'm remembering from your updates, 0.99

00:29:26.060 it seems like the, the main girl in the scenario was someone who was like celeb adjacent.

00:29:31.520 yes um yeah i don't want to defame anyone but um gabby dalcan is like a very instagram famous 0.51

00:29:41.720 chef is close friends with manny moore and hillary and she by kind of like looking at who

00:29:48.960 everyone followed and unfollowed it became clear that gabby and ashley had unfollowed each other

00:29:55.160 and had some kind of issue um who's to say what what happened I think in a way it's kind of 1.00

00:30:03.020 just more proof of Hillary's relatability because that kind of stuff does happen in mom groups like

00:30:08.660 there is sometimes the odd person out or or someone gets left out and has their feelings

00:30:14.520 heard and you know you're like it's like any I mean this is like a bigger conversation but I feel

00:30:20.700 like any forced group of adult women is like a weird way to do friendship because not everyone 0.96

00:30:26.840 is going to be on the same level with everyone else because that's just not how like people work

00:30:32.280 in my opinion. But yeah, I mean, I guess people can relate to that. Yeah, no, I totally agree.

00:30:39.020 Our next question is kind of related to this and it's from JD. How and maybe why did Hilary Duff

00:30:45.000 escape the slut shaming that Christina Aguilera and Britney Spears got? How purposeful was her 1.00

00:30:50.480 more chaste image or am I just remembering it wrong yeah what do you think about this I don't

00:30:55.540 remember at all what her like how virginity was incorporated into her image yeah I think

00:31:01.460 well she's she's a little bit younger than Christina and Brittany so they weren't in the

00:31:07.620 same conversation like you know the Christina and Brittany virginity thing went on forever and she

00:31:12.700 wasn't in that same conversation um but she did talk recently I believe on Call Her Daddy about

00:31:18.920 interviewers asking her if she was a virgin like that was still a topic of conversation

00:31:24.460 wild I think her relationship with Joel Madden also came under some scrutiny because he was much

00:31:34.040 older than she was I don't know if it would necessarily rise to the level of of slut shaming

00:31:39.440 but it was certainly something that people talked about and then I would also argue that like the

00:31:44.440 whole narrative around her and lindsey was pretty standard misogynistic stuff um yeah so i i don't

00:31:54.020 think she escaped that but maybe she wasn't like the main person you think of getting completely

00:32:00.160 dragged to hell well and she also like she wasn't ever like performatively religious was she

00:32:07.100 she definitely came from like a christian texas family but that wasn't part of her music in the

00:32:14.260 same way maybe like jessica simpson yeah yeah i was just thinking about that yeah like so much

00:32:18.980 of the conversation is in some ways prompted by like undertones of an image that are forcing

00:32:25.500 i never think it's okay to like make this part of like a conversation about someone but like

00:32:30.280 when you create an image like say britney spheres is that is so rooted in like

00:32:35.200 a school girl outfit in him he may be one more time like that is going to continue to force

00:32:42.140 the conversation and i think oftentimes the architects of these images like know exactly

00:32:45.760 what they're doing and it's not the stars themselves right and the stars have to bear

00:32:49.520 the consequences of that like very complicated scrutiny and i think the way that we used to

00:32:57.060 talk about like teen girl sexuality we think maybe we've moved beyond and it's like we 100

00:33:04.440 percent haven't no so it all the more just kind of impresses me that hillary seems to like let a

00:33:12.900 lot of stuff roll off her back uh because i can't imagine that being how you grew up yeah

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00:38:06.260 This is actually another great segue into this next question

00:38:09.520 about how sex figures into her current album.

00:38:12.760 This question comes from Lacey. 0.99

00:38:13.980 listening to hillary duff's new song roommates i feel like she's trying to emphasize how grown 0.90

00:38:19.240 up she is now she makes pointed references to giving head and sex yet it all feels performative

00:38:25.460 i feel like this is because of her disney days and how she's always going to be a teen star on

00:38:29.240 people's eyes and she kind of wants to cement her career and her legacy as an adult with

00:38:33.540 quote-unquote adult music still it feels like she's over correcting with these sexually explicit

00:38:38.280 lyrics that don't really do much like musically like do you feel like this is because she wants

00:38:43.640 remembered as something other than just lizzie mcguire or is this just like the music she wants

00:38:48.320 to make now i think this is so hard right because like you see this conversation around taylor swift

00:38:53.900 too they're like oh she's just talking about high school romance all the time but then when she like 0.97

00:38:59.760 talks about travis kelsey's dick people are like that's gross stop it um how do you feel about the 0.96

00:39:06.520 new album you know she's definitely trying to make adult pop music she's 38 i think i think we would 0.90

00:39:13.400 find it weirder if she was trying to like be olivia rodrigo in this moment like it's that 0.94

00:39:20.580 like that doesn't make sense she's like a mom of four yeah uh she's clearly a sexual being um

00:39:28.820 it the the lyrics don't bother me um but i can see i mean i think i think what you're saying

00:39:38.160 about Taylor is on the money like it's it's hard to win when people have such a strong image of you

00:39:45.580 in mind yeah and this is so like I always think of the historical examples here like

00:39:50.440 Shirley Temple like that was extremely hard for her to age even out of being like six yeah right 1.00

00:39:58.460 like and here like she became an ambassador like she was a grown-ass sophisticated woman

00:40:03.940 and people are like oh you're still six or the other really classic example is this woman Deanna

00:40:10.600 Durbin who was a huge star in the 1940s she she was a singer too like very like 1940s version of

00:40:17.260 Hilary Duff only the type of singing that she would do in her movies was like opera singing 0.98

00:40:21.360 like she was like she had this beautiful operatic voice and no one would let her get older than 16

00:40:27.720 and either you're stuck in this like always virginal always vulnerable always like a kind

00:40:35.520 of gross pre-pubescent sex object stage or you have to I think like transition into the sex

00:40:41.700 object phase and that's so difficult too like this is what happened like Elizabeth Taylor managed 0.63

00:40:46.340 this through a lot of scandal like she had to endure so much scandal in order for people to 1.00

00:40:51.260 understand her as an adult but then she also was like a vixen was the only way to get there

00:40:56.440 yeah I think I think maybe we're just reacting to like wait a minute like she Hillary kind of like

00:41:03.800 skipped that that phase like she she was a child star a teen star and now she's a mom and we sort

00:41:11.140 of missed the like Brittany Christina of it all but I do think it makes sense that she would want

00:41:17.000 to do more adult music and not like teeny bopper music and yeah I wonder too how much of this is 0.99

00:41:24.140 like moms aren't sexy well sure right it's like you can't be a mom of four and have that be like

00:41:33.220 a primary discourse around you and also talk about like explicit sex stuff wait I have to

00:41:38.900 chime in with my thoughts on this because I feel like this question is just misreading the song

00:41:44.520 because please say more the song roommates is about that feeling of stagnation that could come

00:41:50.740 in a long-term relationship when you're like well we just might as well be roommates and she is

00:41:55.480 singing about that feeling of the early stages of a relationship when yeah like you might get

00:42:01.140 freaky in a dive bar and then you go home and you're making so much noise you wake up the

00:42:05.120 roommates but now we are basically roommates because we've been I mean she and her husband

00:42:09.180 have been together for almost 10 years yeah and so the whole point is like that is a very relatable

00:42:15.260 feeling for for 38 year olds in long time relationships and so it's not like oh yeah

00:42:21.020 I have sex it's like it's it's the absence of the sex that the song is about that's a good

00:42:28.740 point thank you I have more just let me know when the last question I think will allow us

00:42:36.340 to come up with a unifying theory about Hilary Duff and it comes from Anna and Melody's gonna

00:42:41.240 to rate it. For better or worse, Hillary is known for her long-standing lack of stage presence. 1.00

00:42:46.560 Is it just me or does the yes, Hillary, give us nothing meme of it all, which I perceive as 1.00

00:42:51.480 adoring, make her incredibly relatable to us normal, uncool millennial girls? I grew up loving

00:42:57.400 music and performers, but had zero stage presence no matter how many music videos I studied. 0.98

00:43:02.820 To me, Hillary is a perennial cool girl who somehow also manages to lack any aura of coolness, 1.00

00:43:08.080 especially in a Gen Z slash alpha driven social media landscape?

00:43:12.200 What's going on?

00:43:13.220 Or is this just my shy inner teenager projecting?

00:43:16.800 I love this question.

00:43:18.820 Where does it lead to, Allie?

00:43:20.220 I absolutely love this question because I think it really gets at her appeal.

00:43:26.420 I say this in the most loving way possible. 0.54

00:43:29.460 I like to refer to Hillary as a zero threat.

00:43:32.520 She's not. 1.00

00:43:33.480 um truly like she has succeeded on her charisma alone uh and and her bright beautiful face uh

00:43:43.860 she is not the strongest singer she's not uh you know an oscar-winning actress and the dancing

00:43:52.440 she fully admits she is not a dancing performer she was just on uh jimmy fallon and um sort of

00:44:01.320 playing into one of the memes about her which is this performance she did on the today show in 2007

00:44:07.840 of with love and the choreography is sort of like laughably bad and she does it almost as if there's

00:44:15.180 like a gun to her head like she's so does not want to be doing it um like that it's like the go

00:44:21.420 hillary give us nothing meme and it's i think on another person it might read as like oh this

00:44:28.860 person's like ungrateful or they're not trying on Hillary it just reads as like a girl doing her

00:44:32.780 best um yeah and and and I think that's what people I think that is what people love about

00:44:38.480 her and even though that she's not Beyonce in in any sense um I still think that she is

00:44:47.720 very charismatic uh she'll give a soundbite in interviews like she's open she's warm and

00:44:54.880 And I think that can be its own kind of stardom, even if you don't have the traditional hard-worn talent that some other Disney teeny boppers did.

00:45:07.220 How do you distinguish her from Taylor in your mind?

00:45:10.180 Because I do think that, like, there is this—Taylor is always trying really hard.

00:45:15.560 And Hillary is—like, what's the phrase that Anna uses here?

00:45:20.980 like a perennial cool girl who somehow manages to lack any aura of coolness so she's kind of

00:45:26.380 dorky like taylor but she's you don't perceive her trying to overcome that yeah i i have talked

00:45:34.640 about this with so many friends because people are really like waking up to her um like relatability

00:45:41.760 like all of these interviews that she's doing now people are like she's so charming like i love this

00:45:46.280 And I think that she is the rare person who, I mean, I don't know her.

00:45:52.880 I wish I personally knew her.

00:45:54.140 I don't.

00:45:55.140 But she does not give off, like, an anxious vibe.

00:45:58.580 She seems very at peace with herself.

00:46:01.480 She doesn't seem like she's trying to reach an unreasonable goal.

00:46:07.540 She's just, like, doing what makes sense for her to do in the moment.

00:46:12.160 And when she speaks in interviews, you can just tell like she's not really being calculating where I think some people look at Taylor and say, OK, everything she's saying is like calculated in some ways.

00:46:25.720 I think that people just get a more genuine vibe from Hillary because it doesn't seem like she's reaching for the stars in the same way. 0.80

00:46:34.240 and and allowed to like kind of sail on that in part because she's like white conventionally

00:46:43.720 attractive like you know what i mean like that like that that's very interesting to me

00:46:48.380 i also there was another question that we didn't include but that dovetails with this 0.99

00:46:53.440 that talks about how she also has this vibe of like other millennial moms who are like coming 1.00

00:46:59.500 through the time in their lives where like they no longer give shits about things like there is 0.99

00:47:04.780 that feeling of like i know who i am and i'm confident who i am and whether or not that's 0.74

00:47:10.260 100 the case like it does seems to be like vibrating off of her totally i think she said

00:47:16.000 in a recent interview that she lets her one-year-old have diet coke like

00:47:19.680 I'm like that to me I'm like that's amazing like that in the same way I don't think you can really

00:47:30.320 hear Taylor Swift saying something like that like it's it's a different and obviously they're in

00:47:35.700 like kind of well the stakes are lower right like this is what's so that that's also the thing is

00:47:40.960 that like Taylor couldn't say that because it would become like Donald Trump would comment

00:47:46.980 Yeah, totally. Whereas Hilary Duff says it. And like a couple of people are like, wow, can you believe that? Like she will say this now. And it doesn't like the stakes just are very, very different. It reminds me, too, about how like some of this performance of authenticity that's very important, I think, in our relationship to celebrities right now. 0.67

00:48:06.280 people are craving it and how like the whole uh conversation around the stars of heated rivalry

00:48:13.400 a lot of it was like oh wow they're so unmedia trained which is in some ways true but also like

00:48:20.120 part of being media trained now is giving off that yeah and giving that that feeling of not

00:48:27.840 being so polished anymore and so she i think has like come back to this place where she understands

00:48:33.640 that part of what people like about her is like almost a zaniness in the way that she talks about

00:48:39.480 herself yes i think 100 and i think that's why this rollout has been so effective and so successful

00:48:47.280 for her because she's doing a million interviews and you could see that as flooding the zone but

00:48:53.140 she's giving a little clip in every single one like letting people in a little bit while still

00:48:59.260 not saying anything super controversial even when it comes to the stuff about like her sister and

00:49:04.880 her dad I think like still kind of maintaining a respectful distance from whatever it is is like

00:49:10.880 actually happening yeah um I think that like people could other stars could look at that model

00:49:18.200 and pick something up for sure it that actually is like you know incredible media training and

00:49:24.140 it reminds me of like classic Vanity Fair interviews I always think of the one where

00:49:29.260 Jennifer Aniston said in a profile of her that like like everything else was so bland in this

00:49:36.180 interview for with Vanity Fair and then she just says that Brad Pitt had a sensitivity chip missing

00:49:42.120 yes and that's all she needed to say right like everything else she just doesn't matter but you

00:49:48.240 say one thing that feels real that feels authentic and that becomes like a way that people are like

00:49:55.580 oh yes like I love that person and I like I'm invested in this drama around their lives and

00:50:00.400 like theoretically I will consume these products that they are selling yeah yeah I think that I

00:50:05.620 think she absolutely nails that and maybe that's just because she's been doing it for so that's it

00:50:12.320 she is a pro she's such a pro where does she go now it's i i as i said before this is beyond my

00:50:21.260 wildest dreams already her being in the news this much it's like i before trying to sort of cobble

00:50:32.240 together things that i was going to write about what about her in the newsletter was like oh like

00:50:38.100 kind of hard now i have such a glut of of content it's it's actually unbelievable to me i i mean i

00:50:46.680 guess she's gonna go on tour yeah i kind of don't think that then she's gonna do another album in

00:50:52.380 two years like i think she's doing this to do it and then and then that'll be done i would love to

00:50:58.240 see her in another like middle brow sitcom i feel like she really shines in that arena i think

00:51:05.800 people are still re-watching Younger like people love that show um I think she just needs the right 0.61

00:51:11.980 vehicle um and she she could be a tv star I also think if she wanted to just be done and spend her

00:51:21.820 40s like enjoying the fruits of her labor I think she should do that too but I guess I guess we'll 0.98

00:51:28.860 see i could see her um in like it has to be somewhat glossy like younger was such a perfect 0.99

00:51:36.480 vehicle for her she cannot do a period piece no like like she does not have a face for like

00:51:43.180 bridgerton or something like that but something that like is somewhat humorous not super serious

00:51:48.460 like that's so in her wheelhouse like something that is on i don't know fx or hulu um and i could

00:51:55.840 also see her maybe 10 years from now pulling a Kate Hudson and and doing something that like

00:52:02.960 draws on some of these like essential components of her image and also throws people back to like

00:52:07.960 2004 or something like that right um and I also want to say just because we didn't clarify at the

00:52:15.620 very beginning of the episode your newsletter is not just about Hilary Duff it is about it's about

00:52:20.480 other things that are happening in the gossip world it is simultaneously like such a trenchant

00:52:26.840 analysis while also having like that that delicious distance that I often associate with like a little

00:52:32.860 bit of gawkerie in there um and then at the end of every newsletter you had a recurring column

00:52:39.460 called stuff with Hilary Duff and sometimes it was just like Hilary Duff made a brand appearance

00:52:45.860 at like Macy's. Like you were scraping the bottom of the barrel to find some of it.

00:52:53.080 Yeah. And I feel like I'm being rewarded for a job I didn't even know I was doing. So I

00:53:00.660 could not be happier for Hillary and for me.

00:53:07.980 Is there anything else that we didn't get to talk about that you feel that we should talk about?

00:53:11.240 You know, this has given me anxiety because I've tried to take so I feel like I could talk about her for days and and not touch on it all.

00:53:20.780 But I think I think we really got a good we got in there and we got a good picture of our girl Hills.

00:53:29.400 And I'm just so I'm so happy.

00:53:32.120 Melody, is there anything that you would like us to still talk about?

00:53:35.340 I feel like we need to just say like one or two things about her status as like, not a queer icon, but like she is an icon for queer people. And I think it's part, like, Ali, you mentioned this briefly of like when her politics do show themselves, they are progressive.

00:53:54.100 I had totally forgotten until you sent it to me, the PSA that she did about that's so gay. 0.97

00:53:59.760 Yes. 1.00

00:54:00.100 Do you like this top? So gay. 1.00

00:54:04.240 Really? 1.00

00:54:05.340 Yeah, it's totally gay. 0.87

00:54:07.200 You know, you really shouldn't say that. 0.94

00:54:10.120 Say what? 1.00

00:54:11.180 Well, say that something's gay when you mean it's bad. 0.98

00:54:14.180 It's insulting.

00:54:16.260 What if every time something was bad, everybody said,

00:54:19.340 oh, that's so girl wearing a skirt as a top. 0.50

00:54:22.760 Oh, you are. 0.86

00:54:24.820 Those are cute jeans, though. 0.99

00:54:26.620 When you say that's so gay, do you realize what you say? 1.00

00:54:29.500 Knock it off. 0.92

00:54:30.820 So she did this PSA in 2008.

00:54:33.600 and that was like revolutionary in 2008 and it was kind of a bold stance that she didn't have to take

00:54:42.780 and she is still talking about it you know it kind of had a second life in the tiktok era but

00:54:49.620 but she still talks about it in her current interviews of like people coming up to her

00:54:54.200 being like i was a kid when that i was a closeted gay kid when that came out and that meant so much

00:54:58.680 to me and it's like i think she really views it as part of her legacy and so she has a huge queer 0.66

00:55:04.520 fan base and even at one of her recent shows she i guess was inviting people up to do the silly

00:55:11.620 little today show dance which she's also like good at making fun of herself and like owning

00:55:16.700 the memification of herself yeah and she and she like her she's camp in a lot of ways yeah 0.98

00:55:22.140 in the straightness of her yeah yeah so she like invited these guys up to do the dance and then

00:55:27.220 one of them proposed to the other like right after doing the dance and it seemed like she was

00:55:31.240 in on it and she just embraces that part of her audience which i love yeah yeah i think she's

00:55:38.920 so rarely disappointing uh to you know she's an unproblematic queen people who want to follow

00:55:46.820 celebrities oh except for she did her and her husband did dress up as uh the pilgrims and 1.00

00:55:54.660 this was an old boyfriend not not her current husband good good um and she did apologize

00:56:00.500 right away so she and she was the pilgrim so the pictures aren't as bad as you might be imagining

00:56:09.500 yeah um but no that was bad but but i do think this stuff doesn't stick to her because she was

00:56:14.800 like very genuine like oh i didn't think that through like i'm really sorry yeah and that is

00:56:21.360 more than a lot of stars would ever say about anything right or like they'd pull like a justin

00:56:26.700 timberlake i'm sorry you're offended a situation right where she's like i didn't think it through

00:56:31.340 and like that was wrong and that's like that's what you do is you just try to be better she

00:56:35.620 doesn't seem like one to double down or dig her heels in like even with the ashley tisdeal drama

00:56:40.720 i don't think she commented on it directly but like her husband posted an instagram story like

00:56:47.400 making fun of it but it was just sort of like too beneath her for her to even care about it oh that's

00:56:53.820 so great well melody you got tickets to the show didn't you on stub hub yes i'm going to red rocks

00:57:01.080 row 12 and you're going with your sister right yes does your sister also love her as much as you do

00:57:08.300 uh yes this has been uh an ongoing bonding experience between us for a very long time

00:57:16.200 Oh, that's so nice.

00:57:17.700 I went and looked at my Instagram archives and I texted Anne this, that the first time that I texted my sister a picture of Hilary Duff with the caption, my wife, was 2019.

00:57:30.860 Were you allowed to watch her?

00:57:32.560 Were you allowed to watch the show, Gauria?

00:57:33.840 Yeah, we watched a lot of Lucy McGuire.

00:57:36.840 And then I wasn't super into her music other than it was just everywhere.

00:57:43.020 But then I got back into her because of Younger.

00:57:46.200 And just I was just like glad to see her still working.

00:57:50.460 And I think, Ali, you kind of touched on this is that she has just continually worked and she she knows her lane.

00:57:58.840 But she I don't know.

00:58:01.720 Yeah.

00:58:02.240 She's just happy to be here.

00:58:03.740 This is an important point.

00:58:05.380 And we touched on this a little bit.

00:58:07.140 But I think there is a lot of sadness watching some of the stars from our era.

00:58:11.900 and also like an understanding like a complacency and how like they got fucked up in part by like 0.99

00:58:19.600 our consumption of paparazzi and gossip about them and so it's almost like she like she fucking 0.89

00:58:27.880 lived you know like she she's out there thriving and that that is a testament to the fact that like

00:58:33.020 like celebrities don't have like it doesn't all have to go in this direction and i actually see

00:58:40.180 like these this new crop of stars i think trying to learn some of the lessons and also as consumers

00:58:46.840 i think we have learned some of the lessons as well i don't know but well okay i'm gonna go

00:58:53.260 listen to the album charlie called it my partner charlie called it like b minus uh carly ray jepson

00:59:00.160 but i'm fine with that well that's tough because her husband did date no yeah and he produced one

00:59:07.980 of Carly Rae's early album yeah which I felt like such a savant because when I first heard

00:59:13.800 mature I was like this has Carly Rae vibes and then I like went down the rabbit hole and I was

00:59:18.440 like this is why I do love what I've the way I've heard her talk about the album too is that she'd

00:59:24.100 been kind of thinking about it for a few years and she felt like she reached this crossroads

00:59:28.640 where she was either like either I push myself and I try something creative that's gonna challenge

00:59:33.800 me or i'm just gonna like be a stay-at-home mom for a while and her husband was like if you want

00:59:39.980 to do this we're gonna do this and she used the phrase like like we closed the gates and we just

00:59:45.520 like made this album together and on the drew barrymore show she got kind of choked up because

00:59:50.540 she was like you know i have four kids i kind of take care of everybody and this experience was

00:59:55.460 really about my husband taking care of me as we made this thing together and i think b minus for

01:00:02.480 hillary duff is like that that is par yes she's that is success you know what that's all she's

01:00:08.800 trying for that is above average yeah like i listened to it i fully was just like this is

01:00:14.740 gonna be like mid and i'll like it ironically but i genuinely like it and cannot stop listening to

01:00:21.000 it yeah mature is a really good song yeah the other thing though that i'll say just to close

01:00:26.940 this is like that is so relatable I think for so many women around our age like feeling like I have

01:00:33.260 something creative in me and either I can pursue it but it's going to take a ton like I'm going to

01:00:39.580 have to focus on me for a second instead of like taking care of so many other people or I can like

01:00:45.340 let it go and both things can lead to happiness in different ways right but like it's it's

01:00:51.880 marvelous to see someone, I think, approaching it as well in this way and modeling that for a

01:00:57.100 public audience, too. Totally. Allie, where can people find you on the Internet if they want to

01:01:01.460 find more of your work? You can look me up Gossip Time on Substack. I'm Allie Riley Jones on

01:01:09.160 Instagram, and I usually post my other other stories there. Amazing. Thank you again for

01:01:15.400 taking the time to join us. This is like a dream come true. Dream come true for me. Thank you so

01:01:19.800 much for having me. Well, that's my life. Thank you so much for spending time with me. I hope

01:01:25.060 you enjoyed it because I know I did. Thanks for listening to the Culture Study Podcast. Be sure

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Culture Study Podcast - March 18, 2026

Hilary Duff's Irresistible Millennial Mom Image

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