Excuse Me, Where Is Hilary Duff’s Disney Legend Award?

On March 26, the Jonas Brothers were announced among this year’s Disney Legends honorees, making them the second Disney Channel alumni to get the title. Two seconds later, I (and almost everyone on social media) asked a very important question: Where is Hilary Duff’s award?

In 2024, Miley Cyrus became the first Disney Channel alum to receive the Disney Legend award, an honor she still brags about (particularly the parking). This distinction made sense, considering how Cyrus took Hannah Montana to heights the network had never seen before, with a theatrical film, record-breaking tours, and undeniable global impact. But most importantly, she took her career to the next level after leaving Disney, with a slew of Top 10 hits and Grammys.

However, Duff created the blueprint that Cyrus followed to achieve that success. In 2001, Lizzie McGuire was arguably the first series to make the studio realize it could build empires from Disney Channel titles. Disney stamped Lizzie’s branding onto every product imaginable, took her to movie theaters, and signed Duff to its label Hollywood Records, creating the Disney-Channel-to-music pipeline that would include Cyrus, the JoBros, and countless others.

Lizzie McGuire gave Duff her platform, but much like Cyrus, she built a legacy for herself after Disney. Duff’s continued presence on the silver screen, and the Billboard charts allowed her to sell out arenas long after shedding the Lizzie persona, while the TV shows she’s starred on in the past decade, like Younger and How I Met Your Father, were pop-culture success stories.

Admittedly, the Jonas Brothers had a slightly different path, with Disney taking them on after a failed label deal, and Cyrus boosting their career by having them appear on Hannah Montana and be the opening act on her first arena tour. But once it realized the band’s potential, Disney employed every trick in the Lizzie McGuire handbook, from giving the brothers their own TV show to producing multiple hit albums.

This isn’t to say that the JoBros aren’t deserving in their own right. It’s just more fitting for Duff to be honored first since she paved the way for most Disney Channel stars. And the 2026 ceremony would’ve been the perfect time to give Duff her flowers, given how well her return to music has played out this past year.

Her first album in over 10 years, Luck... or Something, became her sixth consecutive Top 5 album (and sold over twice as many copies as the JoBros’ latest effort did in its debut week). Nearly 20 years after her last tour, Duff is selling out arenas across the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia on the Lucky Me Tour.

Perhaps Duff’s tour is the reason why she wasn’t named the next Disney Legend, if she couldn’t attend the award ceremony Aug. 16. Or maybe there’s still bad blood over the studio canceling the planned Lizzie McGuire reboot, a grudge that millennials still hold to this day (and rightfully so).

Regardless, when the 2028 awards come around, Duff better get her due — and then we can start talking about Raven-Symoné and Selena Gomez.