Lizzie Maguire star Hilary Duff called out a photographer who showed up at a children’s football game. The actress posted the entire confrontation on Instagram Saturday, and earned powerful support from her celebrity friends. Even Busy Philipps chimed in to call the man’s appearance at the game “infuriating.”
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“Paparazzi shooting KIDS,” Duff wrote, alongside the one-and-a-half-minute video. “Go ‘practice’ your photography on ADULTS! Creep! Laws need to change! This is stalking minors! Disgusting!”
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In the clip, Duff asked the photographer who he was there with and if he knew anyone on the football team. Duff then asked the man to stop taking pictures, but he insisted it was “legal.”
“It’s making me feel real uncomfortable,” Duff replied.
“Well you shouldn’t feel uncomfortable,” the man told her. “You want me to show you ID?”
“I’m not asking for your ID. I’m asking you to stop taking pictures of our 7-year-old children if you don’t know anyone that’s here,” Duff fired back. “I’m asking you human to human, as a mother, if you don’t know anyone here, can you please stop taking pictures of our children playing football this morning.”
The man insisted he was not doing anything illegal and was just “practicing photography.” He then told Duff her “paranoia is unwarranted.”
“No, it’s just an uncomfortability factor that these are 7-year-old children and you don’t have a child here,” Duff said, notes E! News. “They’re our children and we would like to protect them.”
Duff then told the man she was posting the video to Instagram to show her millions of followers. He told her she was the one making it “creepy” and put his hand on Duff’s phone camera lens, which marked the end of the video.
Duff’s fans and famous friends voiced support for her. Philipps strongly agreed with Duff that laws should be changed.
“THIS IS INFURIATING,” Philipps wrote. “This isn’t about his job or his ‘rights.’ This is about his OWN perceived POWER over others. I imagine it’s the only time this pathetic person feels any power in his life. I know it’s illegal for an adult not with a child to be inside a playground- how is taking pictures of children without parental consent legal?!??”
“Wait, it’s NOT illegal to take photos of someone’s children?! IT SHOULD BE,” one fan wrote. “The laws always protect the wrong people [shake my head].”
“Kudos to you for saying something! So weird!” another fan chimed in.
“He invalidating your feelings,” one fan wrote to Duff. “Saying because you feel a certain way that that’s not a good enough reason. He needs to GEEETTT OUUUT.”
Duff, who is mom to Luca, 7, and Banks, 1, has complained about paparazzi trying to get photos of her on social media before. Back in 2018, when she was nine months pregnant with Banks, Duff told a man in a car to stop taking photos of her while she was at her son’s soccer game.
Photo credit: Sarah Morris/Getty Images
