Hilary Duff Talks About Losing Virginity, Hints That She Was With Much-Older Boyfriend Joel Madden

Hilary Duff is opening up about how she lost her virginity, addressing the lingering speculation from fans as to whether she slept with her much-older boyfriend Joel Madden while she was still a 16-year-old.

Duff and the Good Charlotte rocker began dating in 2004, when the Disney actress was 16 and he was 25. There had long been speculation – deemed “creepy” by The Huffington Post – over whether Duff and Madden slept together, and now the actress appears to be addressing that point.

In an interview published in the April issue of Cosmopolitan, Hilary Duff said people are free to assume what they want about her virginity.

“I had a 26-year-old boyfriend,” Duff said. “So everyone can make their own assumptions about what I was doing.”

Hilary Duff and Joel Madden have since parted ways, with Madden going on to marry Nicole Richie and having two kids with her. Duff hasn’t had as much luck, filing for divorce from husband of five years Mike Comrie last month.

Even acknowledging her virginity shows that Hilary Duff has come a long way from her child actress days. She rose to fame at a time when other young stars were in trouble off screen, but the Lizzie McGuire star stayed away from the fast life of Hollywood and kept mostly quiet with her relationships. In 2005, Katie Long from the Centre of Parent/Youth Understanding wrote about Duff serving as a role model for young girls, saying Duff “is not like Britney Spears or Christina Aguilera.” But the relationship with Joel Madden raised some eyebrows at the time given their nine year age difference, leading to questions of whether Duff lost her virginity to him.

In the Cosmo interview, the once squeaky clean Duff also opened up about her love life, answering a question about whether she would ever have a “f buddy.”

“I’ve enjoyed myself,” Duff said. “I think everyone should have something where you know it’s not exactly what you’re looking for but you just have a wicked good time.

“That was freeing for me and a bit of an awakening. It’s fun to have a secret.”

Hilary Duff hasn’t been one to hold back about her private life. In 2012, she opened up about her pregnancy with son Luca, saying that she wasn’t too worried about getting her body back into shape.

“There are some women who look the same right after — I think they are freaks of nature! I don’t know how that happens,” she told Parents magazine in October 2012. “I’m not one of those people. It takes your body nine months to get there — really 10 months. So I’m trying to be patient but I’m working hard. And I think now more than ever, I appreciate my body and what it’s done for me.”

Hilary Duff is now opening up about her virginity as well, though her lack of a definitive answer may still leave lingering questions for the “creepy” fans obsessed about the decade-old relationship.

[Image via Us Weekly]