Frankie Muniz Is Sorry About How He Treated Hilary Duff

Nostalgia is a heck of a drug. It’s why Disney+ has been pouring cash down the drain with Star Wars series after Star Wars series. However, the streamer may have struck gold with the Malcolm in the Middle revival set to arrive sometime in 2026. The project is being kept at an extremely tight four episodes, but already, interest is through the roof.

Over the weekend, Frankie Muniz shared a photo of the former child star reuniting with his on-screen brothers Justin Berfield and Christopher Masterson (not that one). This thing exploded. I’ll let you in on a little secret: The internet is powered by naughty stuff and boomers wanting to see what old TV stars look like now. Don’t ask me how I know.

With interest in the Malcolm revival in full swing, Muniz is making the podcast rounds, where he’s being remarkably candid about his child-star days. One wrong he’d like to set right is how he treated a former friend and co-star, Hilary Duff. But before we go any further, if some of you remember The Superficial days, this will not be a post about how I live in the bushes outside of her house. I don’t write like that anymore. People change, except on Tuesdays when I collect the dryer lint from her exhaust vent. (See? Look what nostalgia made me do. Maybe five people understood that bit, and three of them are action figures on my desk.)

Anyway, while appearing on The Joe Vulpis Podcast, Muniz opened up about how things went south between him and Duff after working together on Agent Cody Banks. Before the film, the two were close friends thanks to blowing up at roughly the same time with Malcolm and Lizzie McQuire launching within a year of each other. They were tight until Duff’s mom reportedly pulled a shady move that screwed Kristin Kreuk out of the Cody Banks role that went to Duff. Is this what sent Kreuk into the arms of a cult? Probably not, but it is a rumor I’m going to start right now. Look what you did, Hilary Duff’s mom!

Via Variety:

“We became really, really good friends. We had a really great relationship for a long time,” Muniz remembered. “I was on the set of ‘Lizzie McGuire,’ and I was in Hilary’s dressing room and her mom was there… Her mom was like, ‘Do you know what you’re doing this summer? What are you doing this summer?’ And I go, ‘Oh, I’m filming this movie where I’m playing like a junior James Bond.’”

Muniz said he told Duff’s mom all about “Agent Cody Banks,” and she allegedly responded by asking if the movie had a female lead yet. According to Muniz, the production was already interested in casting “Smallville” star Kristin Kreuk opposite him, and he “really thought” Cody’s love interest, Natalie Connors, would be played by her when he read the script. Plans suddenly changed, however. Muniz said the next time he spoke to Duff’s mother (which was the very next morning), she was informing him that Duff had already been cast.

“Her mom’s like, ‘Guess what? We’re going to be spending the summer together … she’s doing “Cody Banks” with you … They signed the contract last night,’” Muniz said, adding that he was shocked and remembered thinking: “The movie you knew nothing about yesterday?”

While all of this sounds like Stage Mom Conniving 101, Muniz readily admits that his ego was also a factor. The young actor was supposed to have casting approval, so he did not love that Hilary Duff’s mom snaked her way in, which led to him not speaking to Duff after the film. (She notably did not return for the sequel.) To this day, Muniz doesn’t even think Hilary knows what happened, and he’d love the chance to reconnect and mend their friendship.

And that’s the story of why Malcolm in the Middle iced out Lizzie McQuire because her mom screwed over Lana from Smallville for some early 2000s slop. (That’s right. We didn’t need streaming back then. We threw slop into theaters with our own bare hands.) The End.