On 'The Talk', Hilary Duff defends publicly shaming paparazzi at son's soccer game: 'I will protect my kids'
On Friday's episode of the Daytime Emmy-winning CBS talk show ‘The Talk’, the co-hosts met none other than TV’s Lizzie McGuire, Hilary Duff!
On the show, the 32-year-old actor, singer, songwriter and producer discussed her relationship with the paparazzi and her recent confrontation with them at her son’s soccer game.
On February 22, Duff took to Instagram to call out a photographer taking pictures of her son at the soccer game. She wrote: “Paparazzi shooting KIDS. Go ‘practice’ your photography on ADULTS! Creep! Laws need to change! This is stalking minors! Disgusting!”
Her message was shared alongside a video in which she asked an unidentified man holding a camera, “Hey, who are you here with?” When the man responded that he was there all by himself, she asked, “Can you stop taking pictures of the kids, please?”
When the photographer claimed there was no legality stopping him from taking photos, an angry Duff said, “It's making me feel really uncomfortable... I’m asking you to stop taking pictures of our 7-year-old children if you don’t know anyone that’s here. I’m asking you, human to human, as a mother, if you don’t know anyone here can you please stop taking pictures of our children playing football this morning.”
She continued, “These are 7-year-old children and you don’t have a child here. I will just post this to my 15 million followers on Instagram, and let people know how creepy it is that this is what you choose to do on your Saturday morning.”
On ‘The Talk’, Duff said, “You know, I have days where I'm fed up with [the paparazzi], and days where I can ignore it. And a lot of the time they are very respectful with me. I never condone it, but there are laws that say they can do that.”
She added, “And this guy was standing closer to the kids than the coaches, on the front line. Closer than any of the parents were sitting. And I thought he was a family member, and when the other parents started to be like, ‘Who is that?’... Sometimes I feel like since I bring the paparazzi it’s my responsibility. This wasn't cool with me, and that's my opinion that it's wrong. And you know, whatever universe I'm in, I'm going to protect my kids.”
Moving away from the paparazzi, Duff also discussed her first single in four years with husband Matthew Koma -- a cover of Third Eye Blind’s single ‘Never Let You Go’ -- that she released earlier this month.
“We’re both huge Third Eye Blind fans. We’re 90s babies and it’s a big part of our love story. And, Matthew has, kind of, has an obsession with Stephan Jenkins, so when he was asked to do the song and he recorded it and I showed up to his studio and I put headphones on and I was like, ‘I’m getting on this.’ I just weaseled my way in,” Duff said. “It was just a fun thing that we did. It turned out great.”
‘The Talk’ airs Monday through Friday at 11 am PT.