Ask any parent and they’ll tell you that their kids are not impressed with what mom or dad does for a living, even if that job is world-famous pop star. Which explains why when Hilary Duff and her 13-year-old son Luca sat down for a Billboard Family chat the first thing he did was make fun of his mom’s outfit.
“It’s… it’s not it,” Luca said with a smile, his foot propped on a soccer ball, when Duff asked him if he had any comment on her cute top honoring legendary English football club Arsenal. When Duff protested that she wore the kit just for him, Luca laughed, “at least make it a Man City jersey… Arsenal’s trash.”
Luckily, they were not here to talk about soccer, but rather the Lizzie McGuire actress’ first new album in 10 years, Luck… Or Something, which is due out tomorrow (Feb. 20). Duff said the LP first started taking shape about a year ago, reminding Luca that he probably heard the genesis of his mom’s first full-length album since 2015’s Breath In. Breathe Out. when she played some early sketches on her phone.
In another cute testament to teenage indifference, after Luca asked how she came up with the title, Duff laughed that in the car on the way over she asked her son what the LP was called and he had no idea. “I would play you guys songs in the car on the way to school but you don’t know the title of my new album,” she laughed.
The answer, as it turns out is a cheeky reference to the answer to the question, “how have you stayed normal and sane being in a pretty intense industry for such a long time?” Duff explained to Luca that working on the new album was liberating because, unlike in her early days, she wasn’t “swinging for a hit,” but rather got to create it on her own time, in her own way.
“It feels like my old self and my new self blended together,” she said. When Duff asked what Luca thought, he agreed that it felt like a mixture of his mom’s old school and new school musical personas. “It kind of like, keeps it well-balanced,” he said, noting that her voice sounds “older,” but in a good way.
Duff definitely got some cool points when Luca asked who she’d like to collaborate with in the future and she mentioned “Ransom” rapper Lil Tecca, who happens to be her son’s favorite. “That’s a good one, I like that one,” Luca laughed, with Duff reminding him about the time Tecca commented on one of Luca’s birthday posts.
As for whether Luca would like to follow in his mom’s footsteps, the teen said he hasn’t found a role that he’d be interested in, but he’s more likely to follow his dream of being a soccer player and model. The cutest moment came when Duff responded to a question about a stand-out career moment by recalling that she played to 100,000 people in her hometown at the Houston Rodeo early on in her career and though she doesn’t remember the performance, she did recall being driven around the arena in a car and recalling that it smelled like cow manure.
“Smells like cow manure?” Luca winced. “Yeah, you’re in a rodeo,” she explained, lamenting that she fears she’s failed as a Texas-bred mom by not taking her son to a rodeo. After describing to him what happens at a rodeo, Duff told Luca her parents used to feed her “calf fries,” which they told her were chicken tenders. “It’s a portion of the calf… balls,” she said as Luca looked at her like she was nuts.
Mom and son also talked about what it felt like for Duff to perform her Lizzie McGuire staple “What Dreams Are Made Of” for the first time in two decades recently and whether their lives will change a lot now that she’s back on the pop train.
Watch the full interview above.
