The Stunning Transformation Of Haylie Duff

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Haylie Duff may not be quite as famous as her little sister, "Lizzie McGuire" star Hilary Duff, but she is still a celeb in her own right. In fact, if it weren't for the elder Duff, Hilary may have never embarked on a performance career at all. "I always wanted to be like my older sister, Haylie," she once said (via Biography), explaining that, growing up, she wanted to do everything her sister did, taking ballet and singing lessons because she wanted to follow in her sibling's footsteps. "I took singing lessons because she did. It all just got more intense until it turned into careers for both of us," Hilary said.

She eventually followed her sister, Haylie, into acting, becoming a household name. The two would go on to collaborate on several projects, but Haylie would also make a name by herself in films like "Napoleon Dynamite" and "The Wedding Pact." Today, Haylie has dozens of acting credits to her resume and is also a successful entrepreneur, mom, and, of course, a proud big sis.

Born on February 19, 1985, Haylie Duff has changed a lot over the years, from acting in minor projects as a kid to becoming a bonafide star. Here's a closer look at her incredible rise to fame — you'll never think of her as just Hilary Duff's big sister again.

While Haylie Duff is multi-talented, her success didn't come overnight. When Haylie was just a kid, the entire Duff family moved from their home in Texas to Hollywood, California, after she and Hilary Duff filmed a couple of commercials, as noted by Rolling Stone. Breaking into film and television proved to be more difficult, though. Per IMDb, Haylie's acting career got off to a slow start with a string of small and sometimes uncredited roles. Her first job was an uncredited role in the show "True Women" in 1997, followed by playing Martha Jean Pruitt in the made-for-TV movie "Hope" that same year. In 1998, she appeared in "Addams Family Reunion," the third — and only straight-to-video — film in the series.

After this, Haylie hit something of a dry spell, not appearing in anything for a couple of years until she landed an episode of "Chicago Hope" in 2000. She had a series of small roles and guest appearances over the next two years, but her career wasn't exactly popping. Her sister Hilary's career wasn't going too great, either, at the time, and the Duff girls were prepared to pack up their bags and head home to Texas. It was Hilary landing the lead role in "Lizzie McGuire," though, that convinced them to stay, and the rest, of course, is history.

While Haylie Duff began her acting career in the '90s, it was her role as Summer Wheatley in 2004's "Napoleon Dynamite" that really brought her to a wider audience. The film would go on to become a cult classic, helping the 19-year-old make a name for herself. No one knew just how big it would become, though, with Duff's manager telling her ahead of her audition that "a lot of people don't really get" the movie, as she recounted to Entertainment Weekly.

Duff, though, knew that the film was going to be huge. "I read it and immediately knew it was going to be really funny," she said. "All of those dead spaces that you see in the movie were actually on the page, too."

Sadly, the three-week shoot ended up being life-changing for Duff in more ways than one. Duff lost her dog while filming the movie and, despite her best efforts to track him down, she never saw him again. "It was one of the most devastating experiences of my life," she said.

In the midst of her film and television roles, Haylie Duff also got the chance to show off her singing and dancing skills on stage. As noted by Playbill, Duff made her Broadway debut in "Hairspray," playing Amber Von Tussle from July 18, 2006, to October 22, 2006. Amber is the mean girl of the show, and Duff had a blast playing her. "I get to kick and scream and throw a nasty little temper tantrum," she told The Daily News. "I also find the music so great. I grew up watching the movie, and I was a huge fan of it."

Per Broadway World, she also appeared in the Off-Broadway production "Love, Loss and What I Wore" in 2009. Duff told the outlet that theater is a very different beast from film, as it's more of "a united front." She explained that she was one of just five performers in the production and enjoyed watching her castmates "knock it out of the park" when the spotlight wasn't on her. She said, "We pull for each other. With film and television, your scenes are by yourself."

Playing a pregnant woman at the age of 20 on "7th Heaven" may have been a new experience for Haylie Duff, but it wasn't the only time she portrayed an expectant mother. Several subsequent roles also featured her as a mom-to-be, including the role of Annie in the "Love Comes Softly" film series. "I think I've had [five] babies on TV now," she joked to Real Style Network in 2012. "I don't know why I'm always hired to play the pregnant person ... I guess it's good preparation for one day when I become a mom."

She turned out to be right. In 2014, Duff and her fiancé, Matt Rosenberg, revealed that they were expecting their first child, as noted by PopSugar. She gave birth to a daughter, Ryan, the following year, welcoming another daughter, Lulu, in 2018.

As much as she loves being a mom, not to mention being an aunt to Hilary Duff's kids, the actress is pretty sure that she and Rosenberg are going to stop at two. "We toy [with] the idea and then I think to myself, like, 'Oh, my gosh ... What am I talking about?'" she told Us Weekly in 2020, adding, "We'll see, I feel pretty content with two [kids]."

By now we've established that Haylie Duff is pretty remarkable. She's talented in so many areas, a couple that even some of her fans may not know about. For example, did you know that she also has her own clothing line? Yup, in 2017, Duff co-founded the clothing line Little Moon Society with Jessica Frank. Per Voyage LA, the two met decades ago in driving school and remained friends, eventually launching their eco-friendly line to great success.

While the brand was originally just for kids, it now carries clothing for little ones and adults. "I really was wanting to find things that fit really well and were meant for unlimited play but also things that were made really well and last well, and were still really quality pieces," Duff told People of her inspiration for the brand.

Per Little Moon Society's website, all of the brand's products are cut, sewn, and dyed by hand in Los Angeles, using locally-sourced eco-fabrics, "making each garment unique and one-of-a-kind."

Haylie Duff and her long-term partner, Matt Rosenberg, have been together since 2012, as noted by Us Weekly. The couple got engaged in 2014 and have been happily together since, but they're not in a hurry to tie the knot.

As Duff explained to Life & Style, she and her man are very much committed to each other and consider themselves to be "spiritually married" — with Duff calling Rosenberg her "husband" — but they just haven't found the time to have an actual wedding ceremony. That's not particularly important to them, though, because they know they're in it for the long haul. "We love each other, but also, I think the fact that we have the same feelings about commitment, the same outlook on what a family structure is like," she said of their relationship. "I think it's really important to be on the same page for a lot of that stuff."