Hilary Duff is speaking candidly about her complicated relationship with her father years after her parents' divorce.
The actor and singer opened up about the lasting impact of the split during a recent appearance on the podcast "On Purpose with Jay Shetty." Her parents, Robert and Susan Duff, ended their 20-year marriage in 2008.
"My parents divorced when I was around 18. And I feel like that was a really hard time," Hilary Duff said.
"Because I was like kind of an adult, and then you're like, did they just stay together to get us to this point? And now you have guilt that they were unhappy."
Hilary Duff said the separation had long-term effects on her relationship with her father.
"We don't speak very often," she admitted, adding that the estrangement has left her without "a whole bunch of answers."
"You kind of hear one side and then take from it what you believe, and you know, the same on the other. It's really hard, I think, if a family breaks apart very dramatically."
"It's hard to find your way back sometimes. And some people want to, and some people don't," Hilary Duff continued.
The divorce came during a turbulent period for the family. In the same year as the separation, Robert Duff was ordered to spend 10 days in jail for contempt of court during a trial to determine whether he violated an injunction prohibiting the sale of family assets without court approval, Entertainment Weekly reported.
Hilary Duff said witnessing the fallout from her parents' breakup later shaped how she approached her own divorce from former NHL player Mike Comrie in 2016. The two share a son, Luca Comrie.
"When it came for me getting divorced, I was like, 'I'm not going to have that,'" Hilary Duff said. "We're going to do holidays together as much as we can."
"Not that it was always easy, but it felt way easier than the alternative."
The "Lizzie McGuire" star has since remarried. She and musician-producer Matthew Koma, known for producing Grammy-winning EDM hits such as Zedd's "Clarity" and "Spectrum," have three children together.
In a separate interview with Glamour, Hilary Duff also addressed speculation that lyrics from her recently released sixth studio album, "Luck … or Something," reference members of her family, including her father and sister Haylie Duff.
"That's my family. Those are the people that affect you the most, take up the most space naturally as a human who's born into something," Hilary Duff said.
"Just because you're born into a family doesn't mean that it always stays together. You can only control your side and your street … I've had a very complicated life, and my parents had a very complicated thing."
"I know it's not rare, and I think it goes back to the theme of, 'Why share now?' I guess I just felt ready," she added.
Zoe Papadakis ✉
Zoe Papadakis is a Newsmax writer based in South Africa with two decades of experience specializing in media and entertainment. She has been in the news industry as a reporter, writer and editor for newspapers, magazine and websites.
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