Hilary Duff vs. Haylie Duff

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Hello and welcome to Gossip Time, a weekly guide to the stars by Allie Jones. Today, I’m bringing you a very special edition on the family feud that has transfixed me for years: Hilary Duff vs. Haylie Duff. They used to be close, but now they’re not. What happened?

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Back in the 2000s, when you heard the name Hilary Duff, you probably thought of her older sister Haylie Duff, too. Haylie was never as famous as Hilary, but she was around, playing Summer in Napoleon Dynamite and tagging along on several of Hilary’s projects (Material Girls, advertisements for Ice Breakers, a set of Hilary and Haylie Duff-inspired Barbie dolls called “Shopping Sisters,” a particularly ill-advised cover of “The Siamese Cat Song” for Disney Mania Vol. 2, etc.). Even when they got older and married and started having kids, Hils and Hayls frequently did tabloid interviews and pap walks together in L.A.

Things have changed. Hilary and Haylie have not been photographed together in years. They do not “like” each other’s Instagram posts. They don’t even live in the same state anymore (Haylie moved to Austin, Texas in 2021). Many have asked, so it’s time we finally investigate: What happened?

I have created a detailed timeline of the breakdown of this sister relationship, which you may peruse as you take a break from your own family gatherings. And please, share your own theories in the comments!

February 19, 1985: Haylie Katherine Duff is born to Bob and Susan Duff in Houston, Texas.

September 28, 1987: Hilary Erhard Duff is born. (Same parents.)

1993: The sisters move to L.A. with their mother to pursue stardom. Bob stays in Houston to run the family’s convenience-store business.