What's Inside?
- Hilary Duff shocked her son revealing calf fries truth after Houston Rodeo performance memory from her Texas childhood years ago.
- Singer calls hometown rodeo show proud moment despite bizarre food prank and overwhelming crowd of 100,000 fans present there that.
- Duff says intimate comeback shows felt emotional, easing fears and proving her long awaited music return was welcomed warmly again.
Hilary Duff has lived much of her life in front of crowds, cameras, and screaming fans. Yet some of her clearest memories are not about the spotlight itself, but about where it took her and what came with it. In a warm, funny, and slightly gross conversation with her 13 year old son Luca for Billboard, Duff revisited one of the biggest moments of her early career. It was a hometown show at the Houston Rodeo. Pride filled the air. So did the smell of manure. And somewhere along the way, there were also calf fries she never saw coming.
Hilary Duff Opens Up About Bizarre Family Prank That Turned Dinner Into Lifelong Trauma
For Hilary Duff, performing at the rodeo was more than just another gig. It was personal. “I have two,” the Lizzie McGuire star shared. “I think when I was younger, I played the Houston Rodeo and I’m from Houston, and it was 100,000 people-plus. Like huge, huge, huge. I don’t really remember the performance part, but I do remember they put you in a car and drive you around the arena to wave to everybody and it just smells like cow manure and dirt.”
That detail stuck with her. The scale impressed her. The smell did too, though for different reasons.
Her son, raised in Los Angeles, struggled to picture it. Duff laughed at the cultural gap. She teased him for being such “an L.A. boy,” before dropping another memory that caught him completely off guard.
“And my parents used to feed me calf fries. You ever heard of that?”
“Calf fries?” Luca asked.
“Yeah, and they told me they were chicken fingers. They were not.”
He tried to guess. “baby calf,” he offered.
Duff finally told him the truth. “It’s a portion of the calf… balls. And I ate them and I thought they were chicken tenders.”
His reaction came fast. “Oh, that’s nasty, that’s disgusting.”
When he asked if she was upset, her answer carried the honesty of a child who never forgot. “Devasted. How would you feel?”
Despite that betrayal, the night itself remains special. Duff explained that playing the rodeo was “a standout moment in [her] young life” because “I felt really proud to do that in my hometown.”
Hilary Duff Reflects on Comeback with Luck… Or Something and the ‘Lucky Me’ Tour
These days, Duff is standing at another turning point. Her new album, Luck… Or Something, arrives as her first full length release since Breathe In. Breathe Out. in 2015. The years in between were filled with acting, motherhood, and stepping away from music’s demands.
Coming back changed her.
“As an adult, a standout moment, I know it was small, but the underplays that I just did,” she said. “Going back into it meant so much to me. Going back into it, feeling the support. It was really, I keep saying a warm welcome, but it was. It was so nice. And I feel like my shoulders dropped like 3 inches and I was just like it’s going to be okay.”
That sense of relief is guiding her into the Lucky Me Tour, her first world tour in nearly two decades.
Away from the stage, life looks different now. Duff shares Luca with former NHL player Mike Comrie and three younger children with husband Matthew Koma. Her world is fuller. Busier. Sometimes conflicted.
She even joked that her daughter was watching Bunk’d instead of her own show. “I was like, ‘What about Lizzie McGuire? Hello!’ “
It was said with humor, but also pride.
From rodeo arenas to global tours, Duff’s journey has never been just about performing. It has been about growing up, coming home, and learning to laugh at the strange moments along the way. Even the ones that came deep fried and disguised as chicken.
