Hilary Duff says musical comeback is explicitly for her gay fans: ‘It’s all for them’
Hilary Duff says her musical comeback is ‘just to impress’ her gay fans. (Getty/Canva)
Hilary Duff says her musical comeback is 'just to impress' her gay fans. (Getty/Canva)
Pop icon, former Disney star and homophobia-fighting ally Hilary Duff has confirmed that she’s about to release new music, and it’s explicitly for the gays.
After months of teasing that a new record is on the way, Duff, 38, recently confirmed that the follow-up to her fifth album, 2015’s Breathe In. Breathe Out. is coming imminently.
Speaking to Variety at the Vogue World: Hollywood event in Los Angeles on 26 October, Duff was informed that her gay fans are particularly excited for her musical return.
In response, the “Sparks” singer quipped: “You know it’s all for them. It’s just to impress them.”
Duff teased that said gay fans can expect to hear new material “really soon” as she has been “hard at work in the studio” with her husband, musician Matthew Koma.
“I always knew I was going to return to music. I needed to feel safe and I needed to have the right people in my corner and be absolutely 100 per cent ready,” she explained of her lengthy break away from the industry.
“Honestly, I needed to have 10 years of life under my belt. I needed a lot to say. This album feels like the inner workings of my brain and I really am so excited to connect with people again on that level, that very forward-facing level.”
Though Hilary Duff is best known for her titular role in Disney’s noughties series Lizzie McGuire, she’s produced a solid musical output since then.
Her 2003 single “So Yesterday” and 2005’s “Wake Up” both charted inside the top 10 of the UK’s official music chart, while here debut pop album, 2003’s Metamorphosis, topped the US Billboard chart.
Before her decade-long break, Breathe In. Breathe Out. spawned three singles in “All About You”, “Chasing The Sun” and “Sparks”, with the latter routinely going viral on gay Twitter for the fact it is an underappreciated anthem.
Perhaps more famous than her filmography and musical output – among the LGBTQ+ community anyway – is Duff’s vocal opposition to homophobia.
In an anti-homophobia advert released back in 2008, Duff is seen overhearing two girls joking that the clothes they are trying on are “totally gay”.
Confronting them, she says: “You know, you really shouldn’t say that… That something’s gay when you mean that it’s bad. It’s insulting. What if every time something was bad, everybody said, ‘That’s so girl wearing a skirt as a top’.”
The advert ends with Duff asking viewers at home: “When you say ‘That’s so gay’, do you realise what you say?”
The clip has become a meme within the LGBTQ+ community, with Duff being facetiously praised for “ending homophobia”.
In 2022, Duff acknowledged the clip’s internet infamy, and recreated it – to a riotous viral reaction.
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