<\/p>\n
\n\tNearly ten years after releasing her last studio album \u2014 2015\u2019s \u201cBreathe In. Breathe Out.\u201d \u2014 Hilary Duff<\/a> looked back on her early pop career, the pressures that shaped it and why she felt now was finally the right time to return to music. In a recent conversation for Variety\u2019s \u201cKnow Their Lyrics<\/a>\u201d video series, Duff opened up about the experiences that informed her new single \u201cMature<\/a>\u201d and the album that will follow, describing the project as a grounded reintroduction to who she has become.<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cThis song is about a very brief romance that I had with an older guy,\u201d she explained, noting that \u201cMature\u201d serves as a conversation \u201ctalking to the past version of myself and looking back at that time with the maturity of a formed grown adult.\u201d Now over a decade removed from the era that inspired the track, Duff said, \u201cPeople have been following my career and having a connection, and I think I was just really ready to reintroduce myself to them.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tHer forthcoming album, \u201cluck \u2026 or something,\u201d set for release on February 20, 2026, takes its title from a lyric in \u201cAdult Size Medium,\u201d a track that questions whether she still recognizes the person she once was \u2014 including the young actress navigating the pressures of Disney stardom. Duff said the phrase reflects the curiosity she\u2019s often met with: \u201cHow are you the normal one, and how did you escape all of these childhood stardom things?\u201d Her answer, she noted, is a balance: \u201cSome of it was luck, and some of it was me.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tDuff emphasized that she waited to return to music until the timing felt meaningful and authentic. \u201cI never wanted to jump the gun and do something that didn\u2019t totally feel right,\u201d she said. \u201cThis moment in time and the people that I\u2019ve surrounded myself with, it felt really right.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tThis time around, Duff says her new album feels genuinely herself, a stark contrast to the uncertainty she experienced ten years ago. Looking back at the era surrounding \u201cBreathe In. Breathe Out.,\u201d she admitted she had not yet found the creative clarity she has now. \u201cI\u2019m really proud of this record, but it doesn\u2019t feel cohesive to me,\u201d she said candidly. \u201cI was not really holding my own ground with knowing exactly what I was doing.\u201d The experience left her feeling disconnected from some of the material. \u201cWhen I listen to \u2018Sparks\u2019 or even watch the video, I\u2019m like, who is that girl?\u201d she said, though she acknowledged the song has taken on a life of its own with fans. Still, she added, \u201cI don\u2019t know that I would\u2019ve ever created that song on my own.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tDespite the pressures of rising to fame in the early 2000s, Duff also looked back on the start of her music career with both affection and humor. \u201cI think it was a combination of not entirely knowing what I was doing and also being thrilled to be a pop star,\u201d she said of her early rise. Ironically, she hadn\u2019t grown up singing. \u201cI had a speech impediment when I was a kid and somebody was telling my mom, \u2018put her in voice lessons,\u2019 and my mom was like, \u2018OK,\u2019\u201d she recalled. \u201cI ended up loving doing the voice lessons and exercises, but I wasn\u2019t like a singer.\u201d It wasn\u2019t until her love of voice lessons combined with an obsession with Britney Spears that the idea of pursuing pop music truly clicked. \u201cI was like, well I\u2019m also gonna be a pop star, so watch this,\u201d she joked.<\/p>\n \n\tAs she gears up to release new material, Duff said she was most energized by the idea of reconnecting with her original catalog. \u201cFor the first time in a really long time, like 15 years maybe,\u201d she said, \u201cI feel so excited to sing my old songs again.\u201d She anticipates a different experience this time, looking forward to reinterpreting her songs in a way that resonates both personally and with the audience, evoking a sense of nostalgia. Most importantly, she finally feels she can perform them the way she wants. \u201cTo kind of do it my way now \u2014 it\u2019s going to be a really lovely victory lap.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tWatch Variety\u2019s Know Their Lyrics video with Hilary Duff above.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source variety.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Nearly ten years after releasing her last studio album \u2014 2015\u2019s \u201cBreathe In. Breathe Out.\u201d \u2014 Hilary Duff looked back on her early pop career, the pressures that shaped it and why she felt now was finally the right time to return to music. In a recent conversation for Variety\u2019s \u201cKnow Their Lyrics\u201d video series, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2175765,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25179],"tags":[22320,418710,417782],"class_list":["post-2175764","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-music","tag-hilary-duff","tag-know-their-lyrics","tag-mature"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/Hilary-Duff-Reflects-on-Musical-Return-After-a-Decade-With.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2175764","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2175764"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2175764\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2175766,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2175764\/revisions\/2175766"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2175765"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2175764"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2175764"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2175764"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}