Lindsay Lohan and Hilary Duff | 60

All right, Sydney, were you ever part of a teen love triangle? Yes, actually. I was about to scoff at you and be like, what? No, never me. But my senior year of high school, me and one of my best friends both had a crush on the same guy. And I think in technical terms, I did end up winning. She's married now and very happy, so good for her.

I was in a self-imposed love triangle, i.e., I was the one on the outside. I was about to ask what that meant. I fell in love with my like straight best friend in college and then Oh no. Yeah. Oh well, RAP to them. Is he dead? No. I don't know, maybe. We haven't kept in touch. Anyway Yeah. Today we're getting into what we're doing.

Starts as a love triangle and then sort of devolves into a good old-fashioned teen tabloid feud. We're starting off on the set of SNL circa 2004, so this is the early aughts. Heyday of this era of SNL, Maya Rudolph, Amy Polar, Fred Armison, all our faves. And the host. That week is Lindsay Lohan. And she's only 17 at the time, and basically fresh off of Mean Girls.

Wow. Right. So it's kind of on the cusp of becoming the huge Lindsay Lohan that we end up knowing. But yeah, newly famous Lindsay Lohan. And we talked kind of a lot about this era in the episode that we did about Lindsay and Paris Hilton. So people can go listen to that and catch up. But basically, yeah, this is the height of her teen queen startup. And She kicks off her monologue. She introduces herself as the girl from Mean Girls and Parent Trap.

And then she admits that maybe you know her from somewhere else, and this is what she says. Of course you might also know me from the pages of Us Weekly as the girl who's always fighting with Hillary Duncan. Yep, that's me too. But Hillary and I are not mad at each other. We were in a fight because we both dated the same guy and the whole thing was very high school. But we're both over it now, and to prove it, I invited Hillary Duff to be here with me tonight. So come on up, Hillary.

Are they gonna do her dirty? Who is going to play Hillary? I'm scared immediately. Yeah, you called it right. They are about to do Hillary very dirty because it's not Hillary Duff who walks out on stage. It's Rachel Drach. Oh, well, I love Rachel. Rachel comes out dressed as Hillary Duff in this all-pink outfit, a very 2004 beret, and she plays Hillary Duff as this very ditzy girl. She speaks in a baby voice.

The whole thing is a kind of not very funny sketch that is meant to make Hillary Duff look bad. and make Lindsay Lohan look more mature. Oh. And the reality is kind of the exact opposite because Lindsay is the one who is dragging this. Feud into the spotlight now. She is the one that's talking the most smack, and she is the one who. started dating the same guy as Hillary at the same time as her. My mouth just dropped.

This is way too much. I can't imagine the love triangle I had when I was seventeen being blown up to this level. It was embarrassing enough that other people could perceive what was happening. Wow. I mean, in a way, that's kind of A micro version of what is unfolding today. Do you think I was the Lindsay or the Hillary? Will I find out by the end of the episode? Well that'll be what we determine. From Wondery, I'm Matt Belisai. And I'm Sydney Battle. And this is

Right, so like I said before, this is not our first Lindsay Lohan feud. You know, we got to know some of her feudy ways in her beef with Paris Hilton. But this is a feud that begins before Lindsay Lohan reaches her ultimate tabloid height. Which she kind of does in her Paris Hilton feud. I would say this is almost like where Lindsay Lohan develops her feudy chops with Hillary Duff. It's a good starter opponent. Yeah, this is like a feud with training wheels. And Even though...

Well, basically, this is just kind of a teenage feud over a boy and like a love triangle. It does get covered and encouraged by the media who treats the two of them, like they're fully adult women who are in a fight for their lives. It is wild to behold. It is playing out on this very adult stage. This really was an era when like teen stars were stars. And they were treated as such, for better or worse. Yeah, they were like, look at this grown woman, and she's fully fifteen years old.

And literally splashing their photos on the pages of people and us weekly. And shoving cameras in their faces and encouraging these fights between them. Under their dresses, you know, pulling at them as they walk down the street. It used to be insane. Yeah. So we're gonna see all of that. We'll also see one of my favorite few tactics, I think we've seen to date, which is

Crashing a red carpet premiere. No. It doesn't get any better than that. I can't wait. We're getting into all of it. This is Lindsay Lohan and Hillary.

Alright, so we're gonna take it all the way back to the early 2000s. Sometime around the start of 2001, a simpler time. So we're on the set of Lizzie Maguire the series, and it is the Christmas episode, an iconic episode of Lizzie Maguire. This is the one with 13 years old at the time. How old was Hillary? Hilary Duff is around the same age at that time. Okay. Aaron Carter, of course. younger brother of Nick Carter of the Backstreet Boys, but Aaron is sort of making a name for himself.

In his own right, his own career is off to the races. He's already released his first studio album at 13. I think I remember this CD. Wasn't it like Like a little baby Aaron jumping up in the air and like kicking his legs out to the side. Yeah, that sounds right. So yeah, Aaron Carter was becoming this little teen pop sensation. And he was on Lazy McGuire playing himself. The plot of this Christmas episode is that pop star Aaron Carter is coming to town for a music video.

And Lizzie and her friends are going to try to sneak onto set to meet him. And the thing is, in real life, Hillary and Aaron. Are already dating. Or at least according to Aaron, the timeline here is a bit disputed. Some sources say that they'd only just met a few weeks earlier at his birthday party. Oh. Yeah.

Either way, this is sort of the first time that the public is getting a glimpse of them together. That's wild because in Lizzie McGuire she's obviously playing like a normal teen girl, and so if I remember correctly, the premise was like Lizzie wants her first kiss to be Aaron. And when I watched as a little kid, I was like, that is her first kiss.

It's so beautiful that they captured it on camera. Yeah. Like you said, at the end of the episode, Erin and Lizzie share their on-screen kiss under the mistletoe. It sounds more romantic and perhaps you remember it as more romantic than it actually was. We have a clip, we just have to watch it. Is this yours? Merry Christmas, Lizzie Maguire. Oh my god. In my head, I swear to God, I remembered it as like a genuine kiss. Like they touched lips for maybe 0.2 seconds.

Yeah, their lips like graze one another, if that. Yeah, incredible. So for those who haven't seen, it's Lizzie going to Aaron's trailer and he opens the door and is like, is this yours? Is this tape recorder or whatever? And Up and there's mistletoe. And seemingly on cue, maybe it's like this Pavlovian response for Aaron Carter. He sees this and immediately leans in to kiss her. And also, her hair is crimped in a way that is so authentically.

Early aughts. That's all I could focus on. Her hair is crimped within an inch of its life. There is not a single strand on that head that has not been inside a crimp iron. Is that what you use? I don't even know. A crimping tool or whatever. Also, he He looks like he's wearing a costume from Xenon. Pretty amazing. There is like a very sweet innocence about it. They both genuinely look like what they are, 13-year-olds, and they're having a very awkward kiss. Yeah. But I mean there's

there's some really real and genuine feelings behind this because they are dating in real life. Whatever that means when you're thirteen. It basically plays out over the next year and a half as them holding hands, hugging. Kissing, going to the movies together, just all the cute innocent stuff. But yeah, about a year and a half into their relationship. Aaron says that he gets a little bored. Oh. Yeah. Well he is fourteen or fifteen at that point, so.

Okay. So around this time, his eyes start to wander and they land on none other than Lindsay Lohan. We don't know how exactly they met for the first time, but Aaron says. But he just starts getting to know Lindsay. And pretty soon they start dating. He hasn't broken up with Hillary yet. Right. There does seem to be some pretty obvious overlap where he's dating both of them at the same time.

Oh dear God. Listen, we don't know the rules of their 13-year-old relationship. Maybe they were open, but there ends up being very real repercussions here. It is possible that Lindsay just didn't know about Hillary, so we can't necessarily fault Lindsay. I don't know about that. Maybe. I mean she saw the kiss. Some sparks flying. And also none of this is happening in secret. These are very public relationships, which I'm still using that word very lightly.

But Aaron, he was out there going to Lindsay's sweet sixteen party in Miami. And taking pictures of them cutting cake together like they're a married couple. Here is some photos from that event. I just want you to see and describe. I feel like the first thing we have to comment on is Lindsay's tan. Yeah. It is a Trumpian shade of orange. They are, as Matt said, standing at this giant sheet cake, cutting it together.

And she's like leaned back against him. He's wearing it's not Puka Shells, but it's some kind of necklace that's reminiscent. It's in the family. It kind of looks like a bad Hollister ad. I also just I'm like they're holding the knife and cutting the sheet cake together like they're a married couple. He's so messy. He had to know that these photos were gonna get out everywhere.

So yeah, I mean they weren't hiding anything. Lindsay and Aaron are very kind of openly flirtatious, I suppose. Mm-hmm. But then, what do you know, Aaron Carter apparently gets bored with Lindsay. And goes back to Hillary. Oh no. It's like I wanted to be angry at him, but also he is a sixteen year old. He's a sixteen year old who is one of the primary breadwinners for his giant family. He has hordes of screaming girls all over the country.

He has probably at this point already been through the ringer in the music industry. So I'm gonna imagine that he doesn't have the best. judgment. No, exactly. And believe it or not, that judgment drives him to yet again, a few months later, cheat on Hillary once more. Not with Lindsay this time around. with another girl. No. So just to recap, he starts off with Hillary, gets bored of her, starts flirting with Lindsay, gets bored with her, goes back to Hillary.

Sheets on Hillary again with a new girl. If this was John Tucker must die, they would have had a lot more fun. They could have banded together at an Taken him down. Yeah. I mean that is the ultimate confusion of this episode is it's just why wouldn't they turn on him? Right. But instead of taking things out on their ex boyfriend, Both Lindsay and Hillary seemed to directly.

all of their anger at one another. So yeah, apparently Lindsay starts bad-mouthing Hillary, and Hillary kind of tries to downplay any of the bad blood. This is what she tells Allure magazine, if you'll read it. I've never stolen anyone's boyfriend. I don't know how you do that. She was talking about it and I wasn't. It made us both look bad and put up a big weirdness. I agree. It didn't make them look good. I love the phrase a big weirdness.

And I will be employing that. God, there were some real gems during this time. Horrible, horrible things as well. But such a fun time for words. So cut to a few months later. And both Lindsay and Hillary are booked for one of the most iconic cover shoots of Vanity Fair magazine. You may remember this. The cover was It's Totally Raining Teens. had pretty much every like major teen girl

Star on the cover, we have a picture of it. It's got Amanda Bynes, the Olson twins, Mandy Moore, Alexis Bladell, Evan Rachel Wood, Raven Simone, and then of course Hillary and Lindsay. Oh my god. I do remember this cover. So all of these people are there. Out of all of them, Hillary says that she only has Anxiety about meeting one person. And that would be Lindsay, because until this point, they haven't actually met in person. Oh well no, Aaron knew to keep his girls separate.

We do know that they do officially meet here for the first time. And you'd think that maybe that they would come together and realize, okay, now I have met this person. I have a better sense of who they are. Maybe we can focus on things like, you know, how Aaron Carter is the one we should both be mad at. I think you're putting a lot of faith in the will power and wisdom of teenage girls.

I just had this dream of all of these teen girls coming together and empowering one another to focus on the real enemy. Aaron Carter. I think that would have been possible if they had more than like ten almonds to eat that day, but if I had to guess. I think it was probably not an environment that fostered friendship. That is extremely true. As far as we know, there is no Kumbaya moment where they hug and

Put their differences beside them. But things take a very odd turn in August of 2003. This is when Lindsay is at the premiere of her new movie Freaky Friday, starring Activia Queen. Jamie Lee Curtis. This is Lindsay's first huge blockbuster since the parent trap, and it's a big moment for her. And who shows up to her premiere unannounced and presumably uninvited? Hilary Duff. Here is a photo of Hillary on not the red carpet, the purple carpet. This is the most mischievous.

smile I've ever seen on someone. For the listeners, she's looking back over her shoulder at the photographers. She's wearing What I can only describe as like your mom picked this outfit out for you to go to church. And she has a little, I think it's a Prada bag. It's not helping. It is so funny to roll up with this much confidence when you are wearing this outfit. I mean, 10 out of 10.

The story that kind of emerges from this is that Hilary Duff wasn't invited and that she kind of crashed the red carpet or the purple carpet. The rumor was that she was actually there as Chad Michael Murray's date. Chad Michael Murray was one of the heartthrobs, probably best known for being in One Tree Hill. And now he's in Freaky Friday as Lindsay's love interest.

We did some digging and really there aren't any images that I could find of Hillary and Chad together at this premiere. So who knows? Either way. It kind of just seems like Hillary showed up to spite Lindsay. Either she crashed. Or she was Chad Michael Murray's date. Both ways. are kind of a slap in the face to Lindsay Lohan. Yeah. And even though as far as we know, no words were traded between the two of them, pretty soon Lindsay is

More than willing to up the ante. Oh? Later that year, Hillary's movie Cheaper by the Dozen premieres, and Lindsay decides that she's gonna return the favor from her own premiere and show up unannounced. Definitely uninvited. Definitely. There are a lot of people in that movie. She couldn't have been, what, Tom Wellings plus one? Apparently not.

But here she is at the premiere looking quite pleased with herself. It's funny because this is how you do business casual for the red carpet in the early aughts in a way that works. She is wearing a pale pink blazer. And then she has a cami and she has another shirt over that, and then some low rise jeans, a nice little clutch. She looks good. And I think she knows it based on that smile. Yeah. The jeans are so low rise. There cannot be more than an inch.

of zipper on those jeans. No no no. Anyway, reportedly Hillary Duff is so upset that Lindsay Lohan is at this premiere that Hillary's mom tries to get Lindsay. kicked out of the premiere. Oh now come on girl. You can't do that. Come on, you're going tit for tat. But security won't remove Lindsay and Hillary's mom says something along the lines of like, well if she doesn't leave then we're leaving. Oh, that's a bad choice. And yeah, apparently Hillary leaves her own premiere. Uh.

God. That's the rumor. Okay. Later on, when she's asked about it, Lindsay says one of the craziest quotes. If my mom got involved in something, I'd be very embarrassed. My mom would never do that. Well, first of all, very funny. Second of all, your mom should have done a lot more for you. Love you, Lindsay Lohan, but I don't think we should be comparing anyone to your parents. Right. And even if it wasn't like

the decision I would have made, I'm gonna guess that Hillary's mom was operating from a place of, I need to protect my daughter. My daughter's upset. Let me get her out of here. So you saying that your mom wouldn't do that does not surprise me because I think she's way more beholden to fame than to you.

In my opinion, you have been wronged by your family. Yeah. So after the premiere stuff goes down, Lindsay was apparently not done trying to steal Hillary's thunder. So she shows up at this premiere, pisses off Hillary, refuses to leave, and now after the fact. She apparently goes so far as to call up Chad Michael Murray, heartthrob and her former co-star from Freaky Friday, and she wants to talk shit about Hillary with him.

Okay. And this is right before he's about to star in a Cinderella story with Hillary. Oh God. Of course. This rumor of Lindsay shit talking Hillary to Chad Michael Murray gets out, starts spreading around town. Lindsay goes on TRL and she's asked if there's any dirty laundry that she wants to get out in the open and she says, I love you, Hillary Duff.

And a lot of people think that she's saying it sarcastically. Yeah. We have a clip of it so people can judge for themselves. I love you, Hilary Duck. Yes, that was sarcastic. I don't know. That was the smile from Mean Girls. I can see it. Either way, even if this was genuine, it's still like

Explains the comment. We have a clip of that. Wow. I just kind of wanted to put it out there that I have no problems with anyone and it's not necessary to go out of your way to try and take somebody down. So I just wanted to let her know that I have no problems and neither should she. She's so me. She's so me for that. I'm very good at

acting very calm when I know that I've poked a bear. And that is exactly what she's doing. The more that she doubles down on being like very kind and mature about it. The more it's going to enrage Hillary and Hillary cannot say anything about it because if she does, then she looks crazy and she looks like she's holding a grudge. Lindsay is in a beautiful position right now. Yeah. Even though she's kind of the only one who's like adding fuel to the fire. Yeah, she's a little trickster.

But yeah, the feud certainly gets its fair share of coverage because it doesn't just kind of stay in these teen circles. Here we have this example of an edition of this magazine twist. Which came out a few months after Lindsay's TRL statement. If you could just describe the cover. I'm obsessed with this. Okay, so the main story is Hillary versus Lindsay. Hillary on one side, Lindsay on the other.

It has pull quotes for each of them. Hillary says, Every time I see her, she talks bad about me. And then the other side is Lindsay and it just says, I love you, Hillary Dove. And it says, Who did Erin cheat on? Why do girls always fight? How's Avril involved? Wow. They have made a cover story out of what they're calling a rivalry. Yeah. This is flashing the front page, and it's official that this feud has gone from a tiny spat.

on the Disney Channel to a full blown battle of the Teen Queens. And as Twist magazine so eloquently puts it, it's Hillary versus Lindsay. Whose side are you on? I don't know yet, but I do know who's winning. Currently. Hello, I'm Matt Ford. And I'm Alice Levine. And we're the hosts of British Scandal. Now, Britain loves a royal scandal. Abdications, affairs, Uncles, we've had the lot. But this series is about two brothers. Raised in palaces bound by tragedy, supposed to be.

So how did they end up barely speaking? Was it jealousy, the press, the firm? Or was this royal rift always inevitable? This is the story of Harry and Will. That split the House of Windsor. Follow British Scandal wherever you get your podcasts or listen early and ad-free on Audible.

So the feud between Lindsey Lohan and Hillary Duff has been heating up for about two years now. They've had this weird, silent red carpet war. There have been a few public Tons of tabloid coverage of this fighting. And now Lindsay Lohan is about to send things to a whole nother level because she's hosting.

Saturday Night Live. Oh goodness. This is what we talked about earlier. Hilary Dupp hears that Lindsay is going to host, and I'm sure her gut sinks because She knows they're probably gonna make fun of her and sure enough it's a few seconds into her monologue and Lindsay brings Hillary up. God. This is that moment when Rachel Dratch comes on stage as this over-the-top. hyper enthusiastic version of Hillary.

It's not flattering. It's clear that they're just kind of making fun of her for the bit. Let's watch a little clip of that moment. Hilary, I just wanted to say right to your face that if I ever did anything to hurt your feelings, then I'm sorry and I apologize. Oh, thanks, Lindsay. And if I ever send out a mass email to everyone at the Disney Corporation saying that you're addicted to laxatives and that your hair is a weave, then I'm sorry too.

Wait a minute. You did what? I'm so glad we made up! Very funny attempt to flip the script. Which like, you know, obviously she didn't write this, but just the fact that she agreed to it and is playing this role of like She's the innocent one who's genuinely apologizing and Hillary is the vindictive one who like won't let it go. For all we know, she went in there and pitched that idea right off the top. Possibly. They were like, Lindsay, you have any ideas? Like

thing she wanna do and she was like, I have the perfect one actually. So there's this bitch. It's the perfect setting for plausible deniability going to SNL and being like, Well it's just what the writers pitch me'cause you know, we're in the news.

Well, after the SNL episode airs, Hillary is filming a music video for one of the songs for the soundtrack of a Cinderella story. If you'll recall, movies used to have Original soundtracks. We used to have culture. Yeah. It used to be a movie would come out and you would get one of the best songs you've ever heard. That was a song that played over the credits at the end.

Even Freaky Friday, it's like, why wasn't that a real band? Yeah. Now the closest we get is like Lady Gaga will do a song for like Top Gun. It's like low key. A like America propaganda song. America! Well, okay, so Hillary is filming this music video for her song on the soundtrack of the Cinderella story, and Access Hollywood is there covering the music video.

And they ask her about Lindsay's monologue and this is what Hillary has to say. We have a clip. I wasn't honored. I don't think it's an honor to be made fun of on Saturday Night Live. I'm not here to talk bad about her like she talks bad about me all the time. Okay. The problem here is that Hillary is too much of a real person. Right. Too authentic to really be in this arena in this specific kind of feud. Because if

You were better at putting on a mask, you could say something like, Oh, you know, SNL, always an honor to be mentioned. Is it in the way I would like? No, but you know, really cool to get a shout out up there, even if it's not how I wanted it. Even the stars of today like Joshua Bassett and Sabrina Carpenter navigated their involvement with SNL way better. Yeah. And I think she's just She's being a little too real. Like you can tell she's really pissed off in those sound bites.

I think it's so true when you say like she is being too much of a real person. Cause fast forward 20 years now, that's kind of how things ended up. Lindsay kind of got mired in the celebrity culture of the 2000s and like kind of lost some of her humanity and Hilary Duff is still just like a woman. Yeah, she's still down to earth in a way. Lindsay Lohan is way more of a tragic story. So of course the media goes back to Lindsay and asks her what she thinks about what Hillary has said.

And Lindsay is like, we didn't do anything derogatory towards her. Here's a little bit more of her response. I'm sorry if she felt offended, but I thought things were cool. So uh Hillary, I don't want to start anything again. Once again, having the time of her life, feeling at home and messiness.

She is winning the battles, but ultimately I think we know she loses the war. But at the time she was winning. Yeah, it is very high school. But yeah, with this SNL performance, the feud has now kind of officially gone beyond on just the pages of teen magazines and it's on a national stage now. It's kind of gone mainstream. And apparently Hillary Duff is at a breaking point.

After Lindsay makes fun of Hillary on SNL, Rolling Stone reports that Hillary is. So pissed off that she bans Lindsay from showing up to the premiere of a Cinderella story. Is that gonna stop her? Right. Obviously they have a history of showing up uninvited at one another's premieres. So Hillary is just preemptively like, No Lindsey Lohan.

You know Lindsay was getting a high off of how much she was under Hillary's skin. As much as we've seen Hillary be outspoken in this feud, this is as loud as she gets, because she's been kind of the quieter of the two. But in October of 2004, so about five months after the SNL thing, Hillary tells Blender magazine Sometimes I really hate Lindsay Lohan.

She's being too real. Yeah, it's like you're too busy addressing the facts in front of you and not going for the bigger picture. You need to be thinking three steps ahead, Hillary. Exactly. If someone is getting under your skin this much You cannot let them know. Right. Well, around this time, one of my favorite things to happen in this feud happens. I'm gonna try to get through it without laughing because it delights me so much.

So Hillary is 16 years old and she's just started up a new relationship with the lead singer of Good Charlotte, who is the 25-year-old. Joel Madden. No. To be clear, that is not The thing that I am giddy about. Okay. Here's where the ridiculous thing happens. So apparently Lindsay has a younger brother, Cody, who's eight years old at the time, and he is a huge fan of good Charlotte. And at one point, Cody goes to a good Charlotte concert and he ends up back.

Backstage and he goes up to Joel Madden and asks for an autograph. But Joel, who's dating Hillary, is like, No, I'm loyal to my girlfriend. And he tells this eight-year-old that he'll only give him an autograph if Lindsay Lohan publicly apologizes. This a 25 year old man. I was about to say I don't know why I'm shocked that a 25 year old man who's dating a teenager is acting like a child. But

That's wild. You're doing this to an eight-year-old? Yeah, I cannot imagine being a twenty-five year old man and telling an eight-year-old I won't give you my autograph unless your sister apologizes to my girlfriend. You could be his father. Apparently uh Cody burst out into tears. Why wouldn't you? You're eight years old. You know how crazy your sister is too. You're like, oh well great, that's never gonna happen. That's exactly what I was gonna say. Anyway

So yeah, Hillary is dating this 25-year-old singer, but she's not just dating a singer, she of course is a singer herself. Because This is the early aughts, and it's not enough to just be an actress. You have to be a multi-hyphenate. She made some bops. We cannot disrespect her career. Let the rain. And for the record, so is Lindsay. Lindsay is also putting out some songs. Oh yes, who could forget? Perhaps less successful at it than

Hillary. And both of them are putting out albums around this time. Neither of them as successful at singing as they are at acting, I would say, but But they're both, you know, wildly popular teen stars. Obviously they had some songs and obviously they had diss tracks about each other. So Hillary goes first and she has her song Haters and she doesn't call out Lindsay by name, but pretty much everybody is like, this is obviously a diss towards Lindsay Lohan. Here's a little clip from that.

How many years had it been since the Aaron thing at this point? Okay, so that A very latent disc. Yeah, I mean all of this is stemming from one slight that's just kind of snowballed. I wonder if that's like a direct reference. to a quote Lindsay had said somewhere, or if it's just I mean, without sounding like too much of a hater, the audio of that song was actually Much worse than I was expecting. Not one of her strongest songs, I will say. No. It is funny because we've had some like rap beef.

in the last year. There was one tweet that was like You don't get this type of diss track in any other genre. And then everybody was like, Hold up. There are diss tracks in every genre. Oh, I saw that person get ratioed to hell. Basically, Hillary and Lindsay were the Drake and Kendrick of The early two thousands. So yeah, haters comes out from Hillary with what people assume are allusions towards Lindsay.

Then of course people start expecting what is Lindsay's response gonna be. Some people turn to rumors, which is one of Lindsay's bigger songs. It seems like a little bit of a stretch. Like That is a song about her relationship with the paparazzi more than anything. But it's just more evidence people are parsing every single thing that both of them are doing and trying to cram it into this.

narrative of these two women hate each other. Yeah, I'm gonna be honest with you. I don't know if Hillary lives in Lindsay's mind in the same way that Lindsay lives in Hillary's. Well, the following year, after they both put out songs E reports that Lindsay tries to call Hillary and end their feud for good, which of course this is a Lindsay Lohan move, so we don't know whether it was genuine. Do we know if she actually did that or if she just told them that she did that?

Apparently what happens is Hillary's sister, Haley Duff, also a singer, picks up the phone when Lindsay calls, and when she hears Lindsay on the line, she hangs up. Ugh I know Hillary was mad at that. At the very least, Haley Duff, as opposed to Cody Lohan, is loyal to the sister in question. Right. Anyway, regardless of Haley's interference. The feud kind of just fizzles out as they both get older and more mature and move on. By 2007, Hillary tells People magazine, We're both adults.

And whatever happened happened when we were young. It's over. We were hanging out the other night, and she's a nice girl. I'm gonna tell you what I think happened. I think she went to therapy. I think she finally realized, oh, I'm not the problem. Lindsay has a lot going on. And the less that I feed into this, The better we'll both be. Right. I think this was around when Lindsay's life started to spiral. And I wonder if Hillary was like, Oh, okay, I'm good actually.

Ironically, it is very much like the plot of Mean Girls. I know we talked about that during the Lindsay Paris episode, but it does feel like Like Hillary really took the moral of that movie to heart, which is like, you know, the more popular you sort of get in the pursuit of that, you lose a part of yourself and become this monster. And I think Hillary was like, I don't want that life.

and I'm gonna choose the road where I like maintain myself. So yeah, ultimately Hitlery and Lindsay kind of go their separate ways.

Until about 15 years later, when a very tragic event throws them both back into the spotlight together. Okay, Sydney, so it's about fifteen years after Lindsay Lohan and Hillary Duff's feud has pretty much died down, but sadly they're thrown back together in the headlines when tragedy strikes. November 2022, when their shared ex-boyfriend from their teenage years, Aaron Carter, passes away.

It's initially reported as a drug overdose, although later the cause of death is confirmed as drowning while under the influence. And you know, this is the guy who kind of kicked. things off between them. And you would think it's been nearly two decades since the heart of all of that drama went down. They're both adults now and they can sort of look back and

reflect on everything more maturely. And that's kind of what happens. You know, people tend to come together when tragedy strikes. This is the message that Hillary posts on Instagram, if you'll read it for us. 4 Erin. I'm deeply sorry that life was so hard for you and that you had to struggle in front of the whole world. You had a charm that was absolutely effervescent. Boy, did my teenage self love you deeply. Sending love to your family at this time. Rest easy.

Yeah, I think he occupied a very odd special place in her heart and I think her having to watch him spiral after their teenage years was probably really hard and bizarre, quite honestly. Yeah. But I think she knows him in a way that the rest of us just never will. I think she's just so grateful to have come out of her teenage Stardom with her humanity intact. and tethered to earth and not like this wayward soul. Right. Because she's seen

what that can do to someone. Mm-hmm. And Lindsay, she liked Hillary's post, which is huge. And then she did, I believe it was an interview with Entertainment Tonight, and she said My heart goes out to his family and may he rest in peace and God bless him. And yeah, just a lot of love there. So I think that's like a spoken thing as opposed to Hillary's which was written, so it's a little less formal, perhaps.

But yeah, here we have this moment 15 years later where both of them perhaps are able to reflect back on what started this all and sh the animosity between them and They're on the other end of it, and I hope that we can get a Lindsay and Hillary reunion. I think all I would want it to be is like them running into each other on a red carpet. Or a purple carpet, God forbid. That is sort of where the feud leaves off.

Perhaps we'll have to wait a little bit longer for an official bow to tie this feud up. But yeah, what do we make of it? I think it's been tied up really nicely already. I mean, Lindsay is sort of slowly making her way back into Hollywood. They're both moms now. They're, I have to imagine, completely different people than they were when this feud started. And for as much drama as it caused, I wonder if in retrospect,

Hillary is almost a little like grateful for it because it did give her a bump. A lot of people have to try really hard to lose their Disney Channel persona. And I feel like being thrown into a feud with Lindsay Lohan is actually a really great way to do that. Yeah. Teenagers, but the media was covering them in the way that they would cover two fully grown adult actresses in a feud with one another, you know, putting them on the cover of tabloids. And on the one hand, it seems very exploitative.

On the other hand, to your point, having a feud like that that is treated like adults. It does kind of advance their careers and put them in a different category that other Disney Channel stars weren't in. Yeah, and I think Hillary is probably grateful now that she got out when she did. Ultimately, even though Lindsay won a bunch of those little battles, I think Hillary won the war. Yeah. Because Hillary did not have to have a huge fall from grace.

One thing I was thinking about with this feud is that I'm sort of fascinated by the idea that Lindsay Lohan was leaning into this mean girl caricature of herself and ultimately it kind of launched her career further. Do we think it was a caricature? I'm gonna say that maybe in a very mean girls of the movie, Life Imitates Art Way. She was sort of playing this caricature of the mean girl and then kind of became the monster and it took over the real Lindsay.

I have this view of child stars, not all of them obviously, but I think it is very hard to retain who you are or even know who you are. when you're pretending to be other people from such a young age and when you're put under a microscope for so long. And so I don't even know if she knew who Lindsay was at that point. maybe getting a thrill from playing these games and feeding into the drama is where she felt comfortable at the time. But who knows, maybe that was the real her for a little bit.

I think it's fascinating to think about both of their kind of transition from child star to adult star and like I g I would say that Lindsay did it more successfully by Hollywood success standards. By like a therapist standards, Hillary for sure. I feel like Lindsay crashed and burned before she like.

took a break. Her success is just so tragic to me that I can't even view it through the lens of like, she did better. Yeah. I mean the moral of the story is absolutely never fight over a man with highlights.

Oh, that means that me and Nicole Kidman can't scrap it out for Keith Urban. She's Australian. You cannot go up against Nicole. That's true. She'll claw your eyes out like a koala. From Wondery, this is Dis Ann Tell, Lindsay Lohan, and Hilary Duff. The show is hosted by me, Matt Belisai. And me, Sidney Battle. We use many sources in our research. A few that were particularly helpful were BuzzFeed's The Great Lindsay Lohan Hillary Duff Feud of two thousand four by Bryce Sander,

And VH1's More Awesome Celeb Beefs, Hilary Duff and Lindsay Lohan. Our senior story editor, Alex Burns, wrote this episode. Kate Downey is our lead producer, Yasmin Ward is our producer, and Jake Dvorsky is our associate producer. Our story editor is Greg Castro. Sound design is done by Kelly Cromeric with additional audio assistance provided by Adrian Tapia. Fact checking by Gabrielle Drolet.

Our music supervisor is Scott Velasquez for FreeSun Sync. Sophia Martins is our managing producer, and Joe Florentino is our coordinating producer. Our executive producers are Janine Cornelo, Stephanie Jens. Marsha Louie and Aaron O'Flarity for Wondery.