In the summer of 2018, Hilary Duff shared her joy with the world — she and then-boyfriend (now-husband) Matthew Koma were expecting a baby girl.
But what she didn’t share at that time was her mom guilt.
It’s something she felt because, while that bundle of joy was to be her first child with Koma, daughter Banks would be baby No. 2 for the actress.
And baby No. 1 wasn’t happy about any of it!
Luca is the nearly 8-year-old son that Duff had with ex-husband Mike Comrie, the son who was used to having her all to himself.
“The guilt that I felt for bringing (Banks) into the world was so big,” the star of “Younger” and the upcoming “Lizzie McGuire” reboot explained in an interview with PureWow. “It was just he and I for so long that he was like, ‘Why? Why, Mom? Why would you do this? I really just love the way it is.’ And it wasn’t bratty, it was just so sad.”
It left Duff worried about the impact it would all have on her little boy.
“I was like, ‘How do I reverse this?! It’s too late now,’” she thought. “It’s such big feelings. When you’re pregnant, everything just feels more magnified.”
However, all of the worry proved to be unnecessary. Once Banks arrived, in October of the same year, Luca had a change of heart.
“He came in after I had her. I was just holding her, and the look on his face was an absolute shock,” Duff recalled. “He just said, ‘That’s my sister!’ And he had to sneeze, so he ran out of the room and was like, ‘I’ll be right back.’ He let out this huge sneeze in the hallway and said, ‘I had to sneeze and I knew I couldn’t do it in here near her.’”
Once his big-brother love kicked in, there was no stopping it.
“It’s really sweet the way he looks out for her,” Duff, 32, said. “But also, sometimes I’m like, ‘Hey, I did OK with you. I promise I know what I’m doing.’”