Hilary Duff hasn’t given one clear, detailed “this is why I stopped talking to my sister” explanation, but recent interviews and coverage make a few key points very clear.

Quick Scoop: What’s Going On?

  • Hilary and her older sister Haylie were extremely close and often worked together earlier in their careers.
  • Fans noticed that they stopped appearing together and interacting much on social media around 2019.
  • Hilary has recently called their situation “complicated” and talked about “family drama” and “emotional eviction,” but she still hasn’t gone into full, specific detail about one single incident.

So the honest answer: there is a real rift and distance, but the exact “why” is still partly private and mostly pieced together from hints, lyrics, and gossip coverage rather than a blow‑by‑blow explanation from either sister.

What Hilary Has Actually Said

Hilary has carefully acknowledged there is tension without dragging her sister publicly.

  • In late 2025 and early 2026, she started saying “family drama” contributed to her long break from music.
  • She’s described some family relationships (including with Haylie and their dad) as complicated and said not every family you’re born into “always stays together.”
  • In interviews promoting her new album, she talks about the “lonely” reality of being distant from a sibling, framing it more as emotional pain and growth than as a tabloid-style feud.

She strongly signals there’s a fracture, but she also seems intent on processing it through her art rather than spilling specifics in an interview.

Clues From Her New Music

A lot of current speculation comes from her new album and especially the song “We Don’t Talk.”

  • The track “We Don’t Talk” is widely believed to be about Haylie.
  • The lyrics, as reported, focus on not really knowing how the distance happened, wondering if she did something wrong, and wishing she could at least be “heard out.”
  • She’s called the situation an “emotional eviction,” which suggests she feels pushed out or shut out more than mutually drifting away.

So musically, she’s describing confusion, hurt, and a lack of closure more than a clear villain or single triggering event.

Reported Reasons: What The Press and Gossip Say

None of this has been fully confirmed by Hilary or Haylie, but several outlets and gossip writers keep circling around a similar cluster of theories.

1. Tension involving their partners

  • Entertainment and tabloid pieces have reported that the rift may trace back to friction between Hilary’s husband Matthew Koma and Haylie’s fiancé Matthew Rosenberg.
  • A popular gossip explanation is that the two men “do not get along” and that this bled into the sisters’ relationship, adding stress to family events and dynamics.

This is still described as rumor and background “chatter,” not something either sister has confirmed outright.

2. Old family issues and their parents’ divorce

  • Hilary has said the album also gets into her complicated relationship with her father, Bob Duff, and the impact of her parents’ messy divorce.
  • Bob previously suggested that the intense focus on Hilary and Haylie’s careers contributed to the breakdown of his marriage.
  • Those long-term family stresses seem to be part of the emotional backdrop for how the sisters ended up in a strained place as adults.

So it’s not just “one fight,” but layers of old family tension now surfacing in adulthood.

3. Possible jealousy and career imbalance

  • Some reporting and commentary suggest that Hilary’s bigger, longer-lasting fame may have created feelings of jealousy or imbalance.
  • One article mentions that a song on the new album hints at Haylie possibly feeling jealous of Hilary’s success.
  • Longtime gossip coverage has also framed their dynamic as one where the sisters’ public images grew apart as their careers diverged.

Again, this is heavily interpretive—driven by lyrics and outside observers, not explicit statements like “my sister is jealous of me.”

4. The Ashley Tisdale “toxic mom group” ripple

  • Speculation ramped up when Ashley Tisdale published a viral essay about leaving a “toxic mom group,” which many readers believed was subtly referencing a circle that included Hilary.
  • Fans noticed that Haylie liked the essay, and then Haylie and Ashley were photographed getting dinner together afterwards.
  • Internet forums interpreted this as Haylie publicly siding with Ashley and indirectly against Hilary, reinforcing the idea of a split.

This may not be the cause of the rift, but it became a visible flashpoint that made the distance harder to ignore.

Timeline Snapshot

Here’s a simple outline of how things seem to have unfolded:

  • Pre‑2019:
    • Sisters appear close, do joint projects, and show up at events together.
  • 2019:
    • Last time they’re clearly photographed together is around Hilary’s wedding.
* After that, public and social-media overlap drops sharply.
  • 2021–2023:
    • Haylie moves to Austin, Texas, while Hilary stays in Los Angeles, further widening the physical distance.
* Online gossip and fan forums start openly talking about a possible feud.
  • 2024–2025:
    • Hilary begins easing back into music, hints at “family drama” without naming Haylie.
  • Late 2025–Feb 2026:
    • She promotes her new album, talks explicitly about strained family relationships, and releases/teases songs like “We Don’t Talk.”
* Multiple outlets frame it as her “finally breaking silence” about a long-rumored feud with Haylie.

Multiple Viewpoints: How People Interpret It

Because neither sister has given a detailed public breakdown, different camps have emerged in fan spaces:

  • “It’s mostly partners and logistics.”
    • This view says the main issue is the husbands/fiancés not getting along plus separate lives in different states, not deep sister-on-sister betrayal.
  • “This is unresolved childhood family stuff.”
    • Here, people see the parents’ divorce, fame at a young age, and old resentments as the real core; the recent drama just brought it to a head.
  • “Jealousy and career imbalance.”
    • Others focus on the narrative of one sibling being the bigger star and the other feeling overlooked, pointing to the lyrics and gossip analysis.
  • “We don’t know, and that’s okay.”
    • A quieter camp emphasizes that the sisters have a right to privacy and that fans are reading a lot into vague clues and half-lyrics.

Realistically, the situation is probably a mix: long-term family issues, different life paths, partner friction, and hurt feelings that haven’t fully been processed in public.

So, Why Did They Stop Talking?

Putting all of that together carefully and respectfully:

  • There is clear, acknowledged distance between Hilary and Haylie Duff since around 2019.
  • Hilary has said “family drama” and a “complicated” relationship with her sister and father contributed to her stepping back from music and to the current estrangement.
  • Reported (but not fully confirmed) contributing factors include:
    • Tension between their partners,
    • Old family issues from their parents’ divorce and the pressures of child stardom,
    • Possible feelings of jealousy or imbalance,
    • And social-media/friend-group moments like the Ashley Tisdale essay.

What we don’t have is a single, verified, on-the-record story like “They had this one big fight, and that’s why they stopped talking.” The public picture is more about slow drift, hurt feelings, and complicated family history than one dramatic incident.

Information gathered from public forums or data available on the internet and portrayed here.