Hilary Duff is opening up about where she stands with her older sister, Haylie Duff.
In a new interview with CBS Mornings, Hilary confirmed that the track “We Don’t Talk,” which appears on her newly released album Luck… or Something, addresses her rift with Haylie.
“It’s definitely about my sister,” she said. “Just absolutely the most lonely part of my existence is not having my sister in my life at the moment. Really struggled with thinking about including that on the record, but it’s funny as a person that exists in the world without my, like, other half, so many people are having that experience.”
For Hilary, including the track on the record felt like the right thing to do.
“It’s my truth,” she said. “It’s hard because I am me, and people know everything about my life since I was a child, you know? And I didn’t necessarily choose that part, but it’s my reality, and so it was honestly healing to say. It’s hard to watch your life unfold on the internet sometimes. … All of that is just a crazy thing to process.”
On “We Don’t Talk,” Hilary dives into “emotional eviction” and how suddenly a relationship can change. You can’t always pinpoint the moment where everything fell apart — you just know it has, and that all you can really do is accept it.
“‘Cause we come from the same home, the same blood/A different combination, but the same lock,” she sings. “People ask me how you’re doing, I wanna say amazing/ But the truth is that I don’t know.”
The pop singer dreams of hashing out their differences and getting back “to how we were as kids,” because she’s “so sick of being so sad about how we don’t talk, and you won’t talk about it.”
When asked whether she hopes Haylie listens to the song, Hilary said she doesn’t find that way of thinking productive.
“I don’t think that that would help. I think I have to just exist as a person on my own and do what I want to do,” she told CBS Mornings. “It’s taken me a lot of time to get there and to live that way, and to not care what the noise is going to be around it and just be me. I don’t know. I don’t know if she’ll hear it. I don’t know how she’ll react to it, but it is a really personal part of my life that doesn’t get to stay personal. So I might as well say how it is for me as an experience.”
“We Don’t Talk” seems to confirm what fans have long speculated. Hilary and Haylie haven’t been photographed together since 2019. Rumors that the sisters had fallen out intensified in recent years, with fans highlighting their lack of social media interaction. After detailing her exit from a “toxic mom” group, which Hilary is believed to be part of, High School Musical star Ashley Tisdale was spotted out with Haylie, further bolstering claims that the sisters were no longer on speaking terms.
Haylie Duff, left, and Hilary Duff in 2013.
(Todd Williamson/Invision for SodaStream/APImages)
Hilary and Haylie were once inseparable. They released their joint cover of “Our Lips Are Sealed” in 2004 for the A Cinderella Story soundtrack, before starring in the teen comedy Material Girls together in 2006.
“We started out this way,” Haylie told Pop Entertainment in 2006. “We started out as children being very close even when we were very little and I can’t imagine it being any other way. And we appreciate it.”
Hilary added, “We always want to do things together because we’re really close.”
Luck… or Something explores another familial rift. On the track “The Optimist,” perhaps her most vulnerable, the Younger star speaks candidly about her fractured relationship with her father.
“I wish I could sleep on planes/And that my father would really love me,” she admits. “He’d show up on my wedding day/And tell my family they’re all so lucky/He’d tell me how he wish he’d stayed/And that he never meant to disappoint me.”
Hilary’s parents, Bob and Susan Duff, were married for 20 years before getting divorced. Amid their divorce proceedings in 2008, Bob cited Hilary and Haylie’s careers as a reason why their marriage fell apart. He also admitted to being unfaithful to Susan.
Regarding where she stands with her father, Hilary recently told Rolling Stone, “There’s times where I talk to my dad and times where I don’t talk to my dad. I do have a pretty sunny disposition, but a lot of shit has gone down, and that’s life.”