By 2004, Hilary Duff was a teen sensation in every sense of the word.
She'd already appeared in films like Cadet Kelly, Agent Cody Banks and Cheaper by the Dozen, not to mention become every teen girl's idol thanks to her role as Lizzie McGuire in both the Disney Channel series and film.
Duff had also ventured into music by this point, and provided young people (and tabloids) their fair share of gossip with a highly publicised love-triangle involving fellow teen stars Aaron Carter and Lindsay Lohan.
After moving on from that, Duff began a relationship with Good Charlotte musician Joel Madden in July 2004.
She was 16 at the time. He was 25.
For a year, the relationship was mostly private besides rampant tabloid speculation. But in June 2005, Duff's mother Susan announced it in an interview with Seventeen.
Two months later, they made their public debut at the 2005 Video Music Awards — two months before Duff's 18th birthday.
During an appearance on The View soon after, Duff said they had met through a mutual friend and were friends for three months before taking things further. She said they initially kept things secret because of the age difference.
Despite this, and as pointed out in a 2021 Paper magazine analysis, Google searches from the time of their relationship show up very few acknowledgements of the age gap at all, let alone to the fact that it was actually illegal as Duff was underage when it began.