They’ve both moved on since their breakup last year, but Hilary Duff and her ex, Joel Madden, still e-mail all the time, she says in a new interview with Cosmo Girl! magazine.

“Joel was my boyfriend for two years and I loved him - he was a very important part of my life,” she tells the magazine. “All that stuff about the age difference between us being the reason we broke up is just not true; I never felt the age difference. Breaking up was just something that I felt needed to happen between us … we e-mail all the time now and are at a really good place.”

Duff, whose new album, “Dignity,” was released this month, says that even though she and Madden seemed very different, they actually had a lot in common.

“People thought we were an unlikely couple, but we really weren’t that different,” she says. “After two months, I didn’t even see his tattoos anymore, because that’s not who he is. He used to say, ‘I don’t think there are too many people out there who really get you, but I do.’ And he did. I could be stupid, silly, funny, or crazy, and he got it. He gave me a sense of confidence and independence I didn’t have before.”

Madden is currently dating “Simple Life” star Nicole Richie. Rumors circulated that songs Duff’s album - including the song Gypsy Woman - were about Richie. Duff told USA Today recently that Gypsy Woman is actually about the other woman who broke up her parent’s marriage.

“It’s interesting - half the record was written when I was in a relationship with Joel, and the other half was written after we’d broken up. So together, the album is just really personal,” she says. “So many of the songs are about things my family has gone through. I was scared to write about that stuff at first, but then I thought, ‘Why try to make it seem like I have a perfect life when I don’t'?”

Duff also fesses up to being insecure about her body and admits that she got a little too skinny recently.

“I have the same insecurities about my body that every girl has, and I made a conscious choice to get in shape. I’ve always been a junk food eater, but I started paying more attention to what I put in my body and cut out foods like pizza, chicken fingers, and french fries,” she says. “But I hit a period when I got too skinny. I wasn’t too obsessed with it, but I did learn that there have to be days when you just don’t think about it.’”

The new issue of CosmoGirl magazine hits stands April 17.

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There’s a few rumours circulating around the web that Hilary Duff is in talks to star in a new Australian film, “The Emancipation of Jonny”. We had the chance to talk to Duff’s local PR arm who kindly debunked the whisper.

Hilary Duff’s publicist, Karen Griffin has today confirmed Hilary will not be in Australia to film ‘The Emancipation of Jonny’ later this year.

‘At no time was Hilary Duff confirmed to star in this movie and the announcement is both false and misleading to Hilary’s fans. We do expect to see Hilary in Australia on her 2007 Dignity concert tour. Dates are yet to be announced.’

It’s approaching 10am in an unseasonably murky Los Angeles and Hilary Duff has already been up for hours. “I never, like, sleep in, no matter how late I’ve stayed up,” she says perkily. “Sometimes I wish I could just slob out but it’s not in my nature. I’m a do-er.”

That’s something of an understatement. The measure of Duff’s pro-activity over the past seven years is, to use one of her own pet adjectives, “awesome.”

She’s starred in several TV series, appeared in movies, released million-selling albums, presided over a highly successful fashion line and started her own kids’ charity.

At 19, she’s worth an estimated US$25 million. But if her name means nothing to you, you’re probably the wrong side of 20; Duff is the original US Tween-Teen Queen.

Forget Britney or Jessica Simpson or any of the other pretenders; thanks to her embodiment of the Every-Tween title character in the Disney Channel’s hit series Lizzie McGuire, Duff became an icon for the new breed of adolescent girl; media-savvy and street-smart, but still subject to the same old growing pains.

Such is her standing in this peer group that Elizabeth Arden, the makers of Duff’s new scent With Love, have proclaimed that she “personifies the many dimensions of today’s modern young women”. What, I ask Duff, does she think they mean by that?

“Um, wow, I’ve never thought about it that deeply,” she said, somewhat abashed. “That’s a lot to live up to. I guess they’re saying that today’s girls want to be independent, they want to have fun, they want to work hard and they want to be successful. We want it all,” she said. “But we want it on our own terms. And in many ways, I represent all of that.”

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Hilary Duff is appealing to directors to cast her in a gritty, challenging role after she was turned down for a series of meaty parts.

The Cheaper By The Dozen actress, 19, said she recently fell for a juicy script, but was told the studio weren’t interested in auditioning her.

She says, “It always shocks me the lack of openness, the lack of imagination that some casting directors have.

“I would read a script and be so in love with that, and someone would be like, ‘Hilary Duff? Oh no, we don’t want her for that.’” As talented as she is appealing, the bubbly blonde actress Hilary Duff became a showbiz veteran at an early age, making her professional debut in the Columbus Ballet production of “The Nutcracker” at the tender age of six.

Source: Female First

Hilary Duff, along with her sister (not pictured) and Heroes star Hayden Panettiere, partied the night away to celebrate the release of Duff’s new album, Dignity.

Although she is only 19-years-old, Hilary Duff has been very level-headed about her breakup with Good Charlotte front man Joel Madden.

While many stars drown their sorrows with drinking and partying after a break up, Duff has been busy working and discovering the wonders of single life.

She recently said, “The last thing I want right now is to be in a relationship. When you’re in a relationship, you make decisions based on what’s good for both you and someone else. So now it’s nice to make decisions based on what I want - it’s empowering.”

Duff even kept her composure when she had a run-in with Madden on MTV’s “TRL.”

The two musicians were scheduled to appear on the same day, meaning she was faced with seeing her ex - who has just exchanged promise rings with new girlfriend Nicole Richie.

Duff told PEOPLE, “I just did ‘TRL’ today and Joel was there, and it was the first time we’d seen each other and it was so, like, nerve-wracking. I knew that he was going to be there and he knew. It is what it is. I mean, what am I going to do? It’s life.”

Duff didn’t throw a tantrum about seeing her former boyfriend of two years. Instead, she held her head high.

She continued, “It was a little strange at first, but I wish nothing but good for him and I know that he wishes the same for me. I’m happy and he’s happy and I think that’s all that counts.”

The Hilary Duff Video Podcast presents a sneak peak into Hilary’s exciting entertainment and business ventures. The latest episodes feature personal messages from Hilary on location in London and Milan. In recent weeks, the podcasts have been consistently ranked in the top 100 most popular podcasts on iTunes and reached the #1 spot of iTunes’ Fashion and Beauty category.

“Podcasting is an exciting creative outlet for me and a great way to connect with my fans, sharing more of my life and future plans, on a more personal level,” said Hilary. “I am excited to work with Wizzard Media as they continue to expand the distribution of my podcast to computers, iPods and cell phones of my fans worldwide.”

Hilary Duff has admitted that she would give up her music career to further her acting career.

The 19-year-old has sold 13 million albums and starred in a number of successful films, including Cheaper By The Dozen and A Cinderella Story.

When asked whether she would give up pop music to earn a top film role, she told the NME: “‘Yes I would. I don’t think that could ever happen though. I don’t think anyone would ever say, ‘If I give this to you, young grasshopper, you will have to stop this singing.’

“But if I had to choose between the two it would definitely be acting.”

Source: Digital Spy

Until now, Hilary Duff and Joel Madden have been fairly tight-lipped about their break up last November. The couple of about two and a half years ended things quietly and stayed away from the public mudslinging. But since they both have new albums to promote, they’re starting to open up about the split. So far, though, they still haven’t traded insults.

People magazine ran into Hilary at 18th annual GLAAD Media Awards in NYC on Monday. She told the mag, “I just did TRL today and Joel was there, and it was the first time we’d seen each other and it was so, like, nerve-wracking. I knew that he was going to be there and he knew. It is what it is. I mean, what am I going to do? It’s life.”

Despite Duff’s initial response, she explained that seeing her ex was not actually that hard. She said, “It was a little strange at first, but I wish nothing but good for him and I know that he wishes the same for me. I’m happy and he’s happy and I think that’s all that counts.”

Madden himself spoke with People later on and reiterated the fact that he and Duff bear no grudges. He said, “Every girl I’ve ever dated I have respect for, and I always try to leave them in good terms. I don’t see the necessity to be friends with anyone you’ve dated but definitely out of respect of the time, you have to be kind of respectful and that’s what I try to do.”

When it comes to Joel’s new girlfriend, Nicole Richie, though, he stayed mum. He told People, “I don’t really talk about her at all but I will say I am really happy and everything’s really good for me right now.”

Source: The Bosh

Hilary Duff considered scrapping love album after she and Joel Madden split. The Good Charlotte rocker almost wrecked his ex-girlfriend’s new album when he split up with her - because most of the songs on the record were about how deeply in love she was.

The pop star thought about scrapping the album tracks after the break-up at the end of last year, but instead decided to write a handful of tunes about love gone bad to balance out the songs on Dignity.

She explains, “There are some songs about being in love and it being great, and songs about it not feeling as good.

“It made me nervous at first, because I thought, ‘I wrote these songs and I want to use them for my record and I can’t.’ Then I was like, ‘Wait, I can.

Source: Female First