Hilary Duff Explains Her “Mature” Lyrics About An Age-Gap Relationship
But she still won’t reveal the ex who inspired the track.
Hilary Duff has no interest in digging up the past. While her latest lyrics uncovers some deeper themes, Duff has not spoken directly about most of the inspiration behind her new music — even if theories are flying about “Mature,” her track about an “inappropriate” age-gap relationship.
The song’s lyrics are about an ex who habitually dates younger women. In the chorus, Duff describes this pattern: “She looks / Like all of your girls but blonder / A little like me, just younger / Bet she loves when she hears you say / ‘You're so mature for your age, babe.’”
During a Glamour cover story, published Feb. 17, Duff refused to share which ex she penned the song about. “If I wanted to say who, I would,” she told the outlet. While she did not name any names, Duff did reveal that a short-term romance inspired the song.
“It’s definitely about a relationship that I had. It was very brief with someone older than me, and that was not illegal, but inappropriate when you have this much time removed from it,” she told Glamour. “Everybody speculates, but I’m not sure they got it right…. I think that it’s super nuanced and it’s hard to defend certain things that have happened in my life.”
However, she acknowledged how her childhood acting career made it difficult to date those closer to her age. “But the one thing that I’ll say is, working as an adult since I was 10 years old, it’s very hard to have relationships with people your own age,” she added.
Some fans think Duff’s track is about Good Charlotte’s Joel Madden. From 2004 to 2006, Duff dated Madden. (When they started seeing each other, Duff was 16 and Madden was 25.) However, when speaking to Glamour, Duff seemed to imply that the speculation has been off. Plus, a two-year romance would hardly be considered “very brief.”
Not to mention, Madden and his wife Nicole Richie have been supportive of Duff’s latest music venture, showing love to “Mature” on social media, which seems unlikely if the song was really about Madden.
