Hilary Duff Is Now 39, the Same Age Hallie Todd Was When She Played Lizzie Mcguire’s Mom

19 Oct 2026, 00:55 by Sari Moon · Thought Catalog

Rebecca Sapp / Getty Images

Updated 22 minutes ago, October 18, 2026

Hilary Duff turned 39 on September 28, the same whole-year age Hallie Todd had reached when “Lizzie McGuire” first hit Disney Channel in January 2001, with Todd playing Lizzie’s mom, Jo McGuire.

Hilary Duff makes an in-store stop at Sydney’s Myer city location to promote her fragrance ‘Wrapped With Love’ during her 2008 Dignity tour. Photo by Lisa Maree Williams / Getty Images.

Duff is also a mom of 4: son Luca with Mike Comrie and daughters Banks, Mae and Townes with Matthew Koma.

Hilary Duff backstage at MTV’s Total Request Live in Times Square, New York City, on June 26, 2006. Photo by Evan Agostini / Getty Images.

Todd was born January 7, 1962, so she’d just crossed 39 when the show sneak-previewed after “Zenon: The Zequel” on January 12 and officially premiered January 19. Duff, born September 28, 1987, was 13 and playing a middle-schooler. That puts the two women almost exactly 25 years apart.

At Bryant Park during New York Fashion Week, the front row of the Michael Kors Spring 2007 show seated Hilary Duff alongside Maria Menounos and Usher on September 13, 2006. Photo by Bryan Bedder / Getty Images.

The match only holds for the premiere. By the time the series ended on February 14, 2004, after 65 episodes, Todd was 42.

Hilary Duff takes the stage at the Grammy Museum in Los Angeles for a Recording Academy event on September 23, 2026. Photo by Rebecca Sapp / Getty Images.

Duff has said the Lizzie-and-Jo bond was her favorite part of the show. In 2019 she told Business Insider the pair were “so sweet and so tender,” and that crying on Todd’s shoulder during their on-screen fights felt like leaning on “my second mom.”

Hilary Duff photographed by MEGA.

She has described the show’s appeal in those everyday terms, recalling “drama with friends or having to go bra shopping with my mom, kind of being uncomfortable and klutzy in my own skin.”

Todd came back as Jo for the Disney+ revival that started filming in October 2019, before Duff announced in December 2020 that it had been scrapped after two episodes.

“No time had passed,” Todd later said of being back on set, “except that all of a sudden these kids were adults.”

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