Hilary Duff Revealed What Would've Happened In The Lizzie McGuire Reboot
She admitted she considered leaking the episodes.
Hilary Duff is thriving. She’s the lead of one of the season’s buzziest streaming shows, How I Met Your Father, she recently became one of the most famous people to ever guest star on The Bachelor, and — perhaps the most of-the-moment marker of fame — she inspired a beloved TikTok trend. But despite the 2022 Duff-aissance, fans still can’t help but mourn what could have been. Duff seems to be in the same boat, as she recently reminisced on the plot of the now-canceled Lizzie McGuire reboot and opened up about whether it could ever be revived again.
The return of one of Disney Channel’s most beloved tween sitcom was originally confirmed in 2019, and the year following saw production actually start. But later in 2020, fans started hearing about bumps in the road, as rumors came out that execs at Disney+, the streamer where the show was supposed to live, wanted the reboot to be more family-friendly than originally envisioned. Duff even publicly pleaded with Disney to move the series to Hulu, so the show didn’t have to “live under the ceiling of a PG rating." Sadly, that didn’t pan out, and in December 2020, Duff announced the series had officially been scrapped.
Fast-forward to 2022, and Duff is opening up more about what the reboot would have looked like if things had gone differently. She told Cosmopolitan in a Jan. 18 interview: “My character was moving back home with her parents because she caught her soon-to-be fiancé cheating on her, and she was falling flat on her face at the moment and being like, ‘I need to pivot because everything that I thought was wasn't, and I'm turning 30. What the f*ck?’”
Duff went on to explain her mindset about the whole ordeal. “There's a time and a place for everything,” she said. “It just wasn't her moment. I'm constantly asked about it still. All it does is breathe life into the fact that people still want it, and that's really sweet. It's not dead, and it's not alive.”
That doesn’t mean she’s happy about the cancellation, though. When asked if she ever considered leaking the already-shot episodes of the reboot, Duff was candid. “I would be lying if I didn't say I didn't have those thoughts a few times,” she said. “But I wouldn't, because in my 34 years, I've realized that everything does happen for a reason.”
Instead, fans will have to be content with seeing Duff star in How I Met Your Father, which premiered Jan. 18 and releases new episodes Tuesdays on Hulu.
