Hilary Duff confronts 'disgusting' paparazzi taking photos of her son's soccer game: 'This is stalking minors'
Hilary Duff is standing up to the paparazzi to protect her family’s privacy.
The Younger star took to Instagram on Saturday to capture a run-in with a photographer who was snapping photos of kids at her child’s soccer game.
“Hey, who are you here with?” Duff can be heard saying to the photographer. When he responds, “I’m here with me,” she asks, “Do you know any of the people on the team? Can you stop taking pictures of the kids please?”
When the photographer responded that it’s legal to do so, Duff replied that it was making her “really uncomfortable.” He goes on to offer to show her identification, to which the actress responded, “I’m not asking you to show me ID. I’m asking you to stop taking pictures of our 7-year-old children if you don’t know anyone that’s here. 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.”
Duff continued to confront the photographer, who told her it is legal and he was just “practicing photography.”
“I’m not here to scare you or anything like that,” he said. “Your paranoia factor is unwarranted.”
“No, it’s just an uncomfortability factor that these are 7-year-old children and you don’t have a child here,” Duff told the photographer. “I will just post this to my 15 million followers on Instagram, and let people know how creepy it is that this is what you choose to do on your Saturday morning.”
The photographer went on to shove his hand in front of Duff’s camera, which then stopped recording.
Several other famous parents chimed in in the comments to support Duff’s frustrations.
“THIS IS INFURIATING,” wrote Busy Philipps. “This isn't about his job or his ‘rights.’ This is about his OWN perceived POWER over others. I imagine it's the only time this pathetic person feels any power in his life. I know it's illegal for an adult not with a child to be inside a playground — how is taking pictures of children without parental consent legal?!??”
Related Video: Hilary Duff and the Realities of Motherhood
Nikki Reed commented, “This is beyond unacceptable and I stand behind you with an army of mothers who applaud you for refusing to back down in an instance where yet again, a paparazzi is stating his right to photograph minors.”
This isn’t the first time that Duff has taken the paparazzi to task for photographing her children. Back in December, the star took to her Instagram stories to document three people she claimed were photographers trailing her and her son Luca, 7, and daughter Banks, 1.
“Here I am, just trying to get around with both my kids, and I have paparazzi following me everywhere I go,” Duff said in a series of Instagram videos. “Two grown men — three actually. One’s running away across the street. Just following me and my kids to every location I go to. In a world where women are getting all these rights, this doesn’t seem right to me, at all. At all. All day long.”
Duff also turned the camera on her son, showing how the paparazzi’s presence affects him. “How much do you like when the paparazzi follows you?” she asked the boy. “Makes you sad, huh? You hate it.”
When Duff was pregnant with daughter Banks, she shared a video on Instagram of a man she claimed was following her and taking her photograph at her son’s soccer game. “This guy has been at my son’s soccer game this morning then followed me to my sister’s house and was basically parked in her driveway to get photos,” the former Disney star wrote on Instagram, adding, “I politely asked him to let me be and he continues to follow and stalk me down like prey for hours now. This is not OK. I am 9 months pregnant.”
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