Hilary Duff might have had fans clutching their pearls over the racy lyrics in her song “Roommates,” but she isn’t bothered by the criticism.
“I’m not making music for my kids. I’m not making music for 7-year-olds,” Duff, 38, said in a Wednesday, February 25, appearance on the “Call Her Daddy” podcast. “I’m making music for myself.”
Duff, who is a mom of four, dropped her latest album, Luck … Or Something, on Friday, February 20, featuring the single “Roommates” and its references to “touching myself” while “looking at porn.”
“I’m making music for people like myself,” Duff told podcast host Alex Cooper. “I was singing crazy lyrics when I was young, too, that I had no idea what they meant.”
Duff rose to fame as a child star, pursuing both acting and music. During her early years in the limelight, she was also frequently asked about her virginity, sexuality and star-studded romances.
“I don’t think it impacted my relationship with sex, but I think it’s just been another one of those things that comes along with my career that I didn’t really ask for and had to learn how to just accept,” the Lizzie McGuire alum recalled. “It was really hard as a young girl because I was coined ‘the good girl.’”
Duff continued, “Having to label someone and then do everything they could to try to poke holes in that label or try to figure out anything they could that was somewhat negative or bad. They were just trying to create stories, and it was hard to be, like, ‘I’ve been labeled the good girl but I’m also just normal [and] doing all the normal things that teenagers are doing.’”
While Duff tried not to “accept” the labels as her truth, she found the lack of privacy to be especially difficult.
“I remember that time [when I was asked] if I was a virgin,” she recalled on Wednesday’s episode. “I think, also, as a child actor, you’re conditioned to want to give people what they want, so answering something like that felt really wild. … It’s, like, so inappropriate. That stuff I don’t think flies anymore.”
Now that Duff has grown up, she’s sharing her innermost thoughts and feelings with fans on Luck … Or Something.
“I think there was no way for me to make a record after 10 years and not dig into what those 10 years have looked like, the big things that have happened and that affect me and that make me who I am,” Duff said. “Unfortunately, a lot of that has not been great stuff. That’s life, [and] it sucks that I’m not an adult coming out with an album that people don’t know my story and all the players in it. People have known everybody in my life since I was on Lizzie McGuire.”
Duff, who coproduced her new record with husband Matthew Koma, opened up about her marriage and family dynamics on Luck … Or Something. “The Optimist” and “We Don’t Talk,” specifically, highlight estranged relationships between Duff, dad Robert Duff and sister Haylie Duff, respectively.
“[It’s] scary to share it because of the internet but important for me, like, I’m just saying how it feels for me,” Hilary stressed. “That was something on the record I really tried to accomplish is not placing blame anywhere.”
Hilary Duff’s Luck … Or Something is out now.
