- In an Instagram TV post on Saturday morning, Hilary Duff shared footage of her confrontation with a photographer who she spotted taking pictures of her son and his friends playing football in a park.
- Duff asked the man if he knew any of the children playing in the game and that, if he did not, he stop taking pictures of them.
- The photographer did not identify himself as paparazzo and insisted he was just "practicing his photography" and not doing anything illegal.
Hilary Duff is so, so over paparazzi taking pictures of her kids in public.
The Lizzie McGuire actress and mother of two addressed the problem head-on Saturday morning, when she confronted a man who she spotted snapping pictures of her seven-year-old son, Luca, and his friends in a park.
Luca and the other children were playing football when Duff noticed the man, who refused to directly identify himself as a paparazzo, photographing them.
Duff decided to confront the man and ask him to stop, and she recorded the encounter to broadcast on Instagram TV.
"Paparazzi shooting KIDS," she captioned the video, which clocks in at one minute and 25 seconds. "Go 'practice' your photography on ADULTS! Creep! Laws need to change! This is stalking minors! Disgusting!"
"Who are you here with?" Duff asks the man in the video. "Do you know any people on the team? Can you stop taking pictures of the kids please?"
The man responded by insisting that what he was doing was legal. When Duff pointed out that the issue wasn't if it was legal or not and that it was making her and the other parents present uncomfortable, things escalated.
"Well you shouldn't feel uncomfortable," he replied. "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 answered. "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 then doubled-down, continuing to trivialize Duff's concerns.
"But I'm just telling you it's not illegal. I'm taking pictures, I'm practicing photography," he insisted. "Your paranoia is unwarranted."
Duff again reiterated that the issue wasn't the law, but the inherent creepiness of a strange adult man taking photographs of a group of children he doesn't know.
"No, it's just an uncomfortability factor that these are 7-year-old children and you don't have a child here," she explained. "They're our children and we would like to protect them."
Before parting ways, Duff let the photographer know that she was sharing the video of their conversation with her "15 million followers on Instagram and let people know how creepy it is that this is what you're choosing to do on your Saturday morning."
"No, you're making it creepy," he said, before trying to cover the lens of her camera.
This isn't the first time Duff has confronted a photographer or complained publicly about the impact paparazzi have on her children. When she was pregnant with her daughter, Banks, she confronted a photographer who had been following her several places and in December, she shared a video of Luca after a paparazzi made him cry.
For more stories like this, including celebrity news, beauty and fashion advice, savvy political commentary, and fascinating features, sign up for the Marie Claire newsletter.
RELATED STORIES
