Hilary Duff has never been one to shy away from the spotlight, but her latest album, luck... or something, has thrust her personal life into a new kind of public scrutiny. On February 20, 2026, the singer and actress appeared on CBS Mornings, where she confirmed what fans had long suspected: her deeply personal track "We Don’t Talk" is about her estrangement from her older sister, Haylie Duff.
“It’s definitely about my sister and just absolutely the most lonely part of my existence. It’s not having my sister in my life at the moment, and I really struggled with thinking about including that on the record,” Hilary, 38, told host Anthony Mason. The emotional revelation was a rare, candid moment from a star whose family dynamics have often been the subject of both tabloid headlines and fan speculation.
The song, featured on Duff’s sixth studio album released the same day, is a raw reflection on the pain of familial distance. With lyrics like “’Cause we come from the same home, the same blood / A different combination but the same lock / People ask me how you’re doing / I wanna say amazing / But the truth is that I don’t know,” Hilary lays bare the complexities of her relationship with Haylie, 41. According to Rolling Stone, she compared the experience of releasing the song to her 2015 divorce from Mike Comrie, saying, “I feel almost like when I got divorced, where I dealt with it privately, and then the news comes out and you’re like, ‘Okay, great. I’m going to deal with this all over again.’”
Hilary’s decision to include such a personal track on her album wasn’t made lightly. She admitted to CBS Mornings that the process was fraught with doubt. “I was never going to take outside songs from people...what would the point be, right, if it wasn't me and it wasn't my life?” she said. For Hilary, the album was meant to be about connection, and sharing her truth—even when it hurt—felt like the only honest path forward.
But honesty, especially when lived out in the public eye, comes with its own set of challenges. Hilary described the difficulty of watching her private life dissected on social media platforms like TikTok. “It’s hard to watch your life unfold on the internet sometimes with talking heads on TikTok speculating this, that, and the other. Sometimes they’re wrong and sometimes they’re right,” she told CBS Mornings, echoing sentiments she shared in a Glamour cover story published just days earlier. The scrutiny, she admitted, can be both “pissing me off” and “hurtful,” but it’s a reality she’s learned to accept as part of her career.
Hilary’s openness about her family doesn’t stop with her sister. In the same Rolling Stone interview, she spoke candidly about her complicated relationship with her father, Robert Duff, referenced in another album track, “The Optimist.” “There’s times where I talk to my dad and times where I don’t talk to my dad,” she said. “I do have a pretty sunny disposition, but a lot of shit has gone down, and that’s life.” For Hilary, these family stories aren’t just tabloid fodder—they’re the raw material of her art.
Fans, for their part, have long speculated about the meaning behind “We Don’t Talk.” The song was first performed live during Hilary’s Small Rooms, Big Nerves concerts, sparking immediate theories about her relationship with Haylie. According to People, Hilary acknowledged that her audience is intimately familiar with the cast of characters in her life. “People have known my life since I was a child, and so they know all the characters in it and they know what I’m talking about,” she told Rolling Stone. Still, she pushed back on the more far-fetched fan theories—particularly those about hidden Easter Eggs in her lyrics. “That is absolute bullshit, and totally not true and crazy,” she said, adding, “I don’t have the time to make threads for people to catch on to about that. I have a full life and a busy family, and this was literally just a song about my truth, and that was it.”
Hilary’s willingness to share her struggles with estrangement is, in part, an acknowledgment that she’s not alone. “As a person that exists in the world without my, like, other half, so many people are having that experience,” she told CBS Mornings. “A lot of conversations I have with people are, like, ‘Yeah, me too.’” The experience of familial rifts—especially among siblings—is more common than many care to admit, and Hilary’s vulnerability has resonated with fans who see their own stories reflected in hers.
Yet, even with the album out and the truth laid bare, uncertainty lingers. Hilary confessed she doesn’t know if Haylie will ever hear the song, nor how she might react. “I don’t know if she’ll hear it. I don’t know how she’ll react to it,” she said. “But it is a really personal part of my life that doesn’t get to stay personal, so I might as well say how it is for me as an experience.” She emphasized that her intention wasn’t to cast blame or air grievances, but simply to share her side of the story. “That’s all I’m trying to do. I’m not trying to say anything bad. It’s literally just my experience, and that’s really all I feel like sharing.”
Hilary’s reflections extend beyond her own family. She offered advice to others facing similar situations, telling CBS Mornings, “I hope that for everyone that is where I’m sitting, you have to do what you want to do and you have to do what feels good for you. It’s taken me a lot of time to get there and to live that way and to not care what the noise is going to be around it and just be me.”
For a celebrity whose life has played out on screens big and small, the act of reclaiming her narrative—however painful—has been a form of healing. “It was honestly like healing to say,” she reflected. “It’s hard because I am me, and people know everything about my life since I was a child. I didn’t necessarily choose that part, but it’s my reality.”
As luck... or something climbs the charts and “We Don’t Talk” finds its place in listeners’ hearts, Hilary Duff’s willingness to share her truth stands as a testament to the power of vulnerability. She’s not just singing about her own pain—she’s giving voice to countless others who know what it’s like to miss their “other half.” And in doing so, she’s turned the most lonely part of her existence into something that connects her to the world.