Nicole Richie Wants You To Know Hilary Duff's New Song Isn't About Her
Her husband Joel Madden has also weighed in.
Hilary Duff didn’t just give us an infectious pop gem with her long-awaited musical comeback — she also dropped some juicy lyrics for listeners to decode. On her new single “Mature,” Duff sings about a past experience with an older partner. And although it may sound like she’s taking shots at Nicole Richie in the chorus, the socialite is making it pretty clear why that’s not the case. Or, even if it is, Richie is so not bothered by it.
The telling lyrics of “Mature” have resurfaced the interest in Duff’s most infamous age gap relationship, when she dated Joel Madden from 2004 to 2006. The romance began when Duff was 16, and Madden was 25. Shortly after they broke up, Madden moved on to start dating Richie. That pair has remained together ever since, and are now married with two children.
That’s why some listeners interpreted the chorus of Mature as being a description of Richie: “She looks / Like all of your girls but blonder / A little like me, just younger ... She looks / Like she could be your daughter / Like me before I got smarter.”
While Richie would have been considered “blonder” than Duff in 2006, the rest of the descriptions don’t really add up. Mainly, because Richie is six years older than Duff. And she’s only two years younger than Madden, so it would be a definite stretch to say she looks like she could be his daughter.
Sure enough, Richie laughed off the speculation by proving how close she is with Duff, celebrating the new release. “‘Mature’ is not the world I would use to describe us, but regardless, this song is a BOP,” Richie wrote in a Nov. 11 Instagram Story, along with a photo of herself and Duff rolling around in the grass together.
In case you weren’t aware, Richie and Duff’s friendship is actually pretty well-known. Duff and her husband Matthew Koma live near Richie and Madden, and have even been spotted going on double dates. In line with his wife’s response, Madden also shared his support for “Mature” on Instagram by posing with Koma after its release.
This isn’t the first time fans speculated Duff had released a pointed song about Richie. When her 2007 album Dignity was released, many listeners believed the title track about a shameless socialite was directed at her. But Duff was quick to clear that up.
“It was not aimed at Nicole Richie at all,” Duff said at the time. “When I found out that my ex-boyfriend was dating someone else, my record was already finished.”
Now, nearly a decade later, the two are still setting the record straight.
