Hilary Duff Reveals Details Behind ‘Lizzie McGuire’ Reboot Cancellation

Fans of the Disney Channel classic show Lizzie McGuire were thrilled when Disney+ announced that they would be rebooting the series with Hilary Duff returning as the iconic character. The series would follow 30-year-old Lizzie as she pursues a career in fashion, and most of the original cast was slated to return. However, after the pilot was filmed, Disney decided to scrap the project. Duff shared her disappointment on Instagram, and followed up on The Jess Cagle Show, explaining that the project wasn’t “family-friendly” enough for Disney+.

“I think they are really trying to figure out what kind of content they want living on Disney+, and that doesn’t totally align with, like, where I see Lizzie right now,” Duff explained. “I’m very protective of her and they’re very protective of her.” From the sounds of things, Disney balked at the idea of Lizzie behaving like a modern millennial does. “The one thing for me was just the way that she could connect with what was going on in people that were watching the show,” Duff said. “And so for me, it only makes sense to me to shoot a show where she’s acting like a 30-year-old in a modern world.”

“There [were] a lot of creative discussions where maybe they were thinking that’s not quite right, and we were trying to make it work,” Duff continued. “And, you know, there’s always, like, lots of conversations, but I don’t think it’s going to be happening.” Ultimately, Duff had fun stepping back into Lizzie’s funky shoes, even if it was only for a brief moment. “It was lovely to relive that even for three weeks of my life because, you know, there was a point in my life where I couldn’t stand Lizzie McGuire,” she concluded. “And I was like, ‘I don’t want to hear that name ever again.’ And now that I’m my age, I’m like, I love her. She’s, you know, this is where it all began for me. And she is me and I am her. And I brought what I could to that, which was very much just who I am inside. And so to tap into that again, even for a moment, was really a great experience.”

This project may not have panned out, but Duff is staying plenty busy. The final season of her show, Younger, is currently airing, and she has signed on to star in How I Met Your Father, the sequel reboot of the wildly popular sitcom How I Met Your Mother. Lizzie McGuire will just have to live on in streaming, perpetually stuck in puberty.