Hilary Duff Gives the Most Honest Update Yet on Long-Awaited ‘Lizzie McGuire’ Reboot
Hilary Duff says a Lizzie McGuire reboot is off the table for the foreseeable future, pointing to her upcoming world tour and suggesting she can’t envision the character at 40.
But she did, however, float the possibility of revisiting Lizzie decades from now.
During the March 9 episode of the On Purpose with Jay Shetty podcast, the 38-year-old actress and pop star was asked directly about the long-awaited reboot. Her answer was candid.
“I can say that, right now, it’s not in the cards,” she said, alluding to her busy schedule. “I have a world tour to go on and that’s going to take me a few years, I think.”
Duff didn’t shut the door completely, but she made clear the version of a reboot she once imagined has evolved.
She said she was always “really excited” to think about Lizzie in her 30s “and going through 30-year-old things,” but now she “can’t really see her at 40.”
Instead, she floated a timeline that might surprise fans.
“Maybe I could start to see her around 55 (or) 60, and I think that’s interesting,” she added. That puts any potential return decades away rather than around the corner.
A History of False Starts
The idea of revisiting Lizzie McGuire is far from new, and its history is filled with near-misses.
Lizzie McGuire is a popular Disney Channel television series that ran for 65 episodes from 2001 to 2004. At the height of its popularity, Disney released The Lizzie McGuire Movie in 2003.
After the original run, the company wanted to transition the show into an ABC spinoff that followed Lizzie into high school, but it fell through.
The most significant revival attempt came years later.
In 2019, at the D23 Expo, it was revealed that Duff was in talks to reprise her role for a show about Lizzie McGuire in her 30s for Disney+ with original creator Terri Minski returning as showrunner.
That project generated significant excitement among fans but was short-lived.
The series only lasted two episodes before being canceled in 2020. Duff announced the cancellation in an Instagram post on Dec. 16, 2020.
With that effort now half a decade in the rearview mirror, Duff’s latest comments suggest a revival is not something she’s actively pursuing.
Making Peace With the Character
While the reboot may be off the table for now, Duff has opened up recently about the complicated relationship she has had with the character that made her famous — and how she’s finally found peace with it.
During a March 3 appearance on The Drew Barrymore Show, Duff revealed that it took a solid decade to “make peace” with her Lizzie McGuire character.
“It’s weird to play a character that people fall so in love with that doesn’t grow up. She stays that age and then I grew up,” she told Barrymore.
Duff described how the disconnect between who she was becoming and how the world continued to see her was a source of friction for years. “But for a while, it was a hard thing to be changing and evolving, but everywhere I went I was this to people,” she said.
She said the end of her Lizzie era was a big reason why she wanted to become a pop star. “The second I finished filming Lizzie, I was like, ‘Cool, I don’t want to be called that anymore,” she said.
But that struggle has given way to something warmer. Duff said she’s now “obsessed” with Lizzie. “I get to join the fandom and be excited like everybody else, even though I was her,” she said.
Lizzie Still Lives ‘Rent-Free’ in Her Head
In a lighter moment on Shetty’s podcast, Duff participated in a would you rather round that showed just how much she has embraced the character.
“Would you rather have to say, ‘Hi, I’m Hilary Duff and you’re watching Disney Channel,’ every time you introduce yourself or have the Lizzie McGuire animated character in your head at all times?” Shetty asked.
“Oh, she lives in there rent-free baby,” Duff replied. “I think I would have her living — I mean, I’ve accepted her in my head, so I’m choosing the latter.”
For fans still hoping to see Lizzie McGuire return to screens, Duff’s comments paint a clear picture: the reboot isn’t dead, but it’s not alive, either.
With Duff focused on her music career and unable to envision Lizzie at 40, any revival would require a significant passage of time — potentially decades, if Duff’s own projection of a character in her mid-50s or 60s is any indication.
BOTTOM LINE: A Lizzie McGuire reboot remains a distant possibility at best, with Duff focused on her world tour and floating a return only when the character might be in her mid-50s or 60s — putting any revival potentially decades away.
Production of this article included the use of AI. It was reviewed and edited by a team of content specialists.
