Hilary heeft een interview gehad met VMagazine ter promotie van haar nieuwe videoclip ‘Roommates’

Galerij Links:
http//: ‘Roommates’ Single fotoshoot (Aaron Idelson)

As she returns to music with renewed honesty, Duff examines what happens to desire when life gets in the way

After nearly a decade away from releasing new music, Hilary Duff is stepping back into the pop spotlight. Her new single, “Roommates,” arrives with a striking music video and signals a quietly radical return: one that trades teen fantasy for emotional fluency, romantic realism, and the accumulated weight of adult life. The track is the latest preview of luck… or something, her forthcoming album out February 20 via Atlantic Records, and it captures a familiar, rarely articulated tension — the moment when love doesn’t disappear, but passion dulls under the logistics of living.

Co-written with her husband, Matthew Koma, “Roommates” sits at the intersection of intimacy and exhaustion, desire and domesticity. It’s a song about what happens when long-term partnership collides with work, children, responsibility, and the fear of becoming strangers under the same roof. As Duff prepares for her sold-out Small Rooms, Big Nerves shows — her first headline concerts in more than a decade — she is also opening up in ways she hasn’t in years, reflecting on ego, communication, physical closeness, and what it means to reconnect not only with a partner, but with herself.

Let’s start off with one of the first lyrics from the song. Can you tell me what “ego trauma” means?
For me, ego trauma is when you tell someone something you’re feeling—something personal between the two of you, something you’re struggling with—and you say, “Hey, I need this,” or whatever the conversation is. And that person takes it as an attack on their character. They feel diminished or embarrassed. It becomes a blow to their ego, instead of them being able to hear what you’re actually asking for. It’s like you can barely mention something you’re feeling without causing ego trauma—like, you’re going to completely spin out because I’m asking for what I need.

I am so happy to know this term right now. I’m looking out the window thinking, “How many times has this happened to me? How many times have I had to walk on eggshells to make sure I don’t give other people ego trauma?” That is such a useful way of putting it.
It really applies to every relationship in your life—whether it’s work, a friend, or your partner. In this case, I’m singing to my partner, but still. You’re always thinking, “How do I soften this so you don’t spin out and feel rejected, humiliated, or diminished?” And it’s actually not about you at all—it’s about me. I just want to talk about how to feel good for everyone involved.

You also sing, “Physical affection goes a long way with me.” There are definitely some fun, slightly risqué parts of the song, and that line really stands out. Would you say that’s your main love language? Do you even entertain conversations around love languages?
I entertain all conversations like that, because I love it. I love anything that’s a little bit psychic-adjacent, anything where you dig in and try to understand who you are and why you behave the way you do. So I’m totally into love languages. But I also feel like I’m someone who needs a little bit of all of them. I’m a Libra, so I need balance and health in all aspects.

When it applies to this song, it really is about being in a long-term relationship and life getting in the way. You get stuck in habits, on the hamster wheel. Whether you have kids or you don’t, you still have work, a dog, life, stress, bills. You fall into these patterns, and you forget how to be together. You forget to really see each other, you forget the passion, and you start to feel like roommates.

For me, I was always scared of that, because I’m obsessed with my husband. He’s such a gift to me. But this song is definitely a snapshot of a time in our relationship when we had a fucking shit ton of kids. That alone throws you for a loop hormonally, and you don’t recognize your body anymore. You’re like, “Okay, I’m on kid number three.” Our evenings were feeding everyone, doing homework, running to after-school activities, both of us trying to make our careers work. Then you get into bed at the end of the day and just stare at the wall.

I wanted the song to feel really polarizing, because in those moments, that’s how it feels. You feel alone, not seen. So yes, the song is risqué, but it’s also about taking me back to a time that felt more wild and more free, when you would do things you wouldn’t necessarily do as often in your late 30s or early 40s. It’s about yearning for a time when things felt freer.

It feels like someone reminiscing about earlier moments in a relationship and how that plays into longevity at the same time.
Yeah, I feel that too. It’s definitely a song about being at a certain stage in your life and remembering a different time. That’s a big theme throughout the record. I haven’t really been this open in about 10 years. Sharing this kind of music is so personal—it’s very exposed. So a major theme of the record is where I am now, how I feel, but also what I miss and what it feels like to look back.

This isn’t so much a question, but just as someone who’s around your age and who listened to you growing up—especially since you took a bit of a pause from music—it’s really fun to reconnect with your work in a way that feels relatable to where we are now in our lives. That’s very different from 10 or 20 years ago.
Honestly, it sounds so dorky and lame, but it makes me want to cry. I literally have tears in my eyes because I get so emotional about it. I really feel like I’ve missed connecting with people on such personal levels. Just because I have a family doesn’t mean that’s all I am. My record isn’t like, “Oh, I’m a mom and it’s so hard.” I’m a person. I’m almost 40, I’ve been through some shit, and all my fans who met me as Lizzie McGuire have also been through some shit. We get to connect on that, and it feels so special.

I honestly cannot wait to step on stage and see my peers at this age and meet them where they are again. I keep calling it a victory lap, because I’m just like, wow—they’ve really stuck by me for such a long time, through career highs and lows, personal highs and lows. We’re just people. I really feel the love. Even “Mature” coming out felt like a stepping stone to what’s planned next, and I can’t wait for the ride.

I mean, talk about longevity in a relationship—with fans you’ve had for so long. That’s part of it, too. And again, I think everyone is just so excited and relating to things in a new way.
Yeah, I’m definitely bracing for parts of this that weren’t part of the story when I was a teenager and touring the world. Social media wasn’t a thing back then. You couldn’t curate your life or your story the way you can now. It was a lot of guessing and tabloids. So this is definitely different. But I think it’s helpful to be my age and have what I have at home. If all of this were happening when I was younger, I don’t even know. I look at young people now who are successful and have so many eyes on them and conversations they can’t control, and I think, thank God I get to come home, close the door, and say, “This is what matters.”

What more can you tell me about prepping for the forthcoming shows?
It’s been really fun. Obviously nerve-wracking—I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t scared shitless. But I’m doing the whole thing with my husband, and he’s the safest person in the world to me. He’s been grinding day in and day out, and I trust him immensely.

I’ve gotten to have my hands on the entire thing, which feels like a first for me. I’ve always known what I like and what I think is cool, and with every record and tour I’ve done, a lot of it was me—but there was also a lot of outside noise. That was just how it was. I’m not blaming anyone, but there was always a lot of “you should work with this person,” “fly to Sweden,” “try to get this pop song.” That process just wasn’t going to work for me this time.

So everything—from making the record to building the tour, what my stage looks like, how I move, which older songs I’m singing, and which new songs I’m sharing before the record even comes out—it’s all me. It feels natural and really authentic. The process has been cool. I feel super empowered, and I feel safe asking for help when I need it. If the reaction is good, the feeling is going to be really good. I’ll know I stayed my course and followed the path I wanted. It took me this long to feel confident enough to say, “I can do this how I want to.”

It will be a room full of people who love you—it kind of can’t go that badly. I think it’s going to be very positive all around.
I designed it wanting it to be really small, knowing that the people who ride really hard are going to be in that room. They worked really hard to get in. I was blown away by the waiting rooms for tickets. My head wasn’t even on my body that day. The numbers people were talking about—I was like, this is not for me.

And you asked how I feel about it—I do have a lot of nerves, but I’ve been rehearsing every single day, and I’m starting to get bored of my set list. So I think that means I’m ready.

You recently attended the Fendi show. I can’t remember if you’ve done fashion week before, but I am curious what that experience was like for you. I’ve been doing this for 10 years and it can still be so strange.
My God, I’m so glad you said that, because I was thinking, “This is so strange.” I did a few fashion shows or Fashion Week rounds when I was younger, but not in Europe—mostly in New York. It was wild then, but this was a whole other level. People had this look in their eyes that was intense, not in a bad way at all. I’m not talking shit. It just felt so important. I was really happy to be there.

It was very cool to have Fendi say, “We want you to come, fly me to Italy for 48 hours, and take me to this super chic show. It was madness—people everywhere, pushing, everything felt so serious. But I love fashion, and seeing the models and how fashion houses want to present the clothes is always so creative. So much goes into it for such a short amount of time. I think about what goes into my tour—the money, the planning—and you build that show over and over again. Fashion shows are one and done. I was like, damn, this is just so major.

I know. And it’s like five minutes.
Exactly. They’re saying something, and you’re trying to figure out what it is, what feeling they’re evoking. It feels abstract, and being an onlooker is really cool.

Lastly, tell me a bit about the music video! And what it was like behind the scenes.
Well, the director of the video, Matty Peacock, is one of my favorite humans on Earth. I started working with him about eight months ago, when I realized, “Okay, I’ve made a record, and now I have to figure out how to hold a microphone again.” That scared me, because it had been such a long time, and I’m such a different person now. I was afraid of getting over that hump.

He’s a choreographer and movement coach, and one day I showed up at a dance studio. He put a song on, gave me a microphone, and I just started moving. It felt so good. He was like, “You’re going to be so good—it’s still in your body, but you’re you.” That was huge for me.

He’s like a safety blanket. He speaks my language. Having him direct the video made it the easiest day. He had the most badass crew—really lovely people. They built this house in the middle of nowhere, in Pomona, in this gorgeous landscape. I don’t know if you saw what I posted yesterday, but it looked like the Microsoft screensaver—blue skies, rolling green hills. It was actually all wild mustard greens. It was so beautiful.

I cook a little, so I was looking around thinking, “These are greens—what food is this?” Of course, picture me asking, “Do you want me to identify this plant for you?” And I was like, “It’s mustard greens.”

But the video is sick, and there’s a rain element, which is a little nod to “Come Clean.” I spent five hours of the day soaking wet. Normally, I wouldn’t describe that as one of my favorite days, but it was genuinely one of my favorite days.

There’s also this scene at the end where the guy in the video is at the top of this hill, and I’m walking toward him. There’s hope at the end. It’s not like, “We can’t get through this.” It’s just a rough patch. So I’m walking toward him, and the walls of the house erode and fall apart. When they fall away, it’s all that green, the blue sky, the clear air. I’m walking through the mustard greens, and he keeps saying, “Just keep walking until I call cut.” We did it probably six times.

Finally, I was like, “Matty, there have to be snakes in here.” I’m standing alone in a field, up to my hips in mustard greens and wild vines, and I’m like, there have to be snakes.