Hilary Duff says her childhood was spent on sets, not in classrooms.
If you grew up in the early 2000s, chances are Hillary Duff was a part of your personality at some point.
The first Disney ‘It’ girl experiment, she stepped out of the television onto covers of magazines, albums selling on the scale of 15 million, and an enduring legacy of film.
Duff’s early years were anything but typical. As a preteen and teen, she was constantly moving between film and TV sets, including her breakout role on Lizzie McGuire.
In an interview with Jessie Ware and her Mother Lennie on their Table Manners podcast, Duff revealed she received “zero education” during her childhood of stardom,
Instead of textbooks and classrooms, her ‘school’ was makeup trailers, scripts, and tight shooting schedules.
Asked whether she ever went to regular school or was homeschooled, Duff laughed off the idea, even recalling that her mom once suggested she at least get her GED. But she never did. Still, she says she doesn’t dwell on it.
It sounds shocking at first. But when you think about the machine that was early-2000s teen stardom, it’s not exactly surprising.
Duff doesn’t sound bitter about it. If anything, she sounds reflective, like someone who understands that her life just took a different route.
Instead of standardised tests, she learned how to navigate contracts, interviews, public scrutiny, and adult expectations before she could legally rent a car.
That’s not nothing. It’s just… not algebra.
“I know that my life was different than most,” Duff explained, “and I don’t need to be embarrassed that I don’t know when, like, a certain war took place. There’s Google for that and ChatGPT.”
She has a point, in some regard. The internet age does let those who stay curious, despite education, access information and learn quickly, or rather, briefly about the topic.
But while we watch Hillary Duff reflect on her own childhood stardom, there is something unnerving about watching someone performing normal adolescence on screen whilst they’d never experience that for themselves.
We consumed a fictional middle school narrative while the real teenager behind it didn’t get one.
