Hilary Duff Confronts "Creepy" Photographer Who Photographed Son's Friends Playing in Park

Hilary Duff (open in new tab) is very, very antagonistic about paparazzi taking pictures of her children in public.

The actress and mother of two from Lizzie McGuire (opens in new tab) tackled the issue head-on Saturday morning when she confronted a man she found taking pictures of her 7-year-old son Luca and his friends in a park. (Opens in new tab)

Luca and the other children (opens in new tab) were playing soccer when Duff noticed a man who refused to identify himself directly as a paparazzi taking pictures of them.

Duff decided to confront the man and ask him to stop, and recorded the encounter for broadcast on Instagram TV.

"Paparazzi filming KIDS," she captioned the 1:25 minute video. "Practice" filming adults! It's disgusting! The law needs to be changed! This is stalking minors! It's disgusting!"

"Who are you here with?" Duff asks the man in the video.

"Can you please stop taking pictures of my children?"

The man responds by insisting that what he is doing is legal. Things escalated when Duff pointed out (open in new tab) that the issue was not whether it was legal or not, but that he was making her and the other parents present uncomfortable.

"Well, don't feel offended," he replied. 'Shall I show you my ID?'

"I'm not asking you to show me your ID. If you don't know anyone here, I'm asking you to stop taking pictures of our seven-year-old," Duff replied.

"As a mother, if you don't know anyone here, would you please stop taking pictures of our children playing football this morning?"

The man then doubled down and continued to trivialize Duff's concerns.

"But I'm telling you it's not illegal. I'm taking pictures and I'm practicing taking pictures," he insisted. 'Your paranoia is unwarranted.'

Again, Duff reiterated that the issue was not the law, but the inherent creepiness of a strange adult man taking pictures of a group of strange children.

"No, it's just the discomfort that you don't have children, even though they are seven years old," she explained. 'They are our children and we want to protect them.'

Before parting ways, Duff told the photographer, "I want to share the video of their conversation with my 15 million followers on Instagram and let everyone know how creepy it is that this is what you are choosing to do on a Saturday morning" (opens in new tab).

"No, you're making it creepy," he said, trying to cover her camera lens.

This is not the first time Duff has confronted photographers or publicly complained about the impact paparazzi have on children; in December, he released a video of Luca after the paparazzi made him cry (opens in new tab).

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