Hilary Duffis coming clean about the reason she started singing after launching her career as an actress.
In a new interview on herHow I Met Your Fatherco-starJosh Peck’sGood Guyspodcast, Duff spoke about turning to music because she “didn’t want to” be so closely associated toLizzie McGuire, the hit Disney Channel series that made her famous.
“I, at the time, wanted to start singing, and [Disney was] not super on board. They didn’t want to sign me right away at Hollywood Records, and obviously that was the first place that we decided to go,” recalled the 35-year-old star, who said the record label’s father-son duo of executives, Rob Cavallo and Bob Cavallo, eventually expressed interest in her singing career.
“They jumped on board, and then I started making a record,” continued Duff, who released her breakthrough albumMetamorphosis(featuring the hit “Come Clean”) in August 2003 — less than a year beforeLizzie McGuireended. “So, it wasn’t like they were like, ‘Let’s just juice this for what we can.’ It was my idea. I wanted to sing. I really didn’t want to be Lizzie McGuire anymore.”
Hilary Duff.Gregg DeGuire/WireImage
Looking back on the era, she remembered feeling like people only saw her as the character. “For so long, people were just like, ‘Lizzie, Lizzie, Lizzie’ — and still now to this day, which doesn’t bother me anymore, but it did for a while,” said Duff. “I just desperately needed to be my own person, and I think that I thought music was going to be a good way to reintroduce myself, and it was.”
As she started making music, however, the “With Love” singer continued feeling like many of her supporters weren’t ready for her to grow beyond the young teenager they grew to know on television.
“I would say that was five years of my life, just trying to navigate becoming a person that I wanted to be outside of who everybody wanted me to be,” said Duff. “I remember being on tour and having mothers come up to me and be like, ‘Never change! Whatever you do, just never, never, never change!'”
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Elsewhere in the interview, Duff spoke about the prospect of releasing another album in the future.
“It’s not something that I have done in a minute. I do want to. It’s a question that I get asked all the time, and since I live with my husband — who’s a very talented musician — they’re always like, ‘Well, what would be so hard? Like, put your kids to bed, and get into the studio. Put a booth in your home,'” said theYoungeractress, who’s married to producerMatthew Koma.
Duff, who has three kids — son Luca (with ex-husband Mike Comrie) as well as daughters Banks and Mae with Koma, 35 — continued, “Right now, I barely have enough time to give to my three children that I decided to bring into the world. So, taking more time away from them seems like something I couldn’t really wrap my head around.”
Fans shouldn’t give up hope for new music, though. “I miss that version of myself, and I definitely think that I have more to do in that department,” she said. “I just don’t know when.”
source: people.com
