No hard feelings. Hilary Duff and ex-boyfriend Joel Madden enjoyed a group date night with their respective spouses, Matthew Koma and Nicole Richie, and friends.
The Younger actress, 34, and the Good Charlotte frontman, 42, went to dinner at Scratch|Bar & Kitchen in Los Angeles on Sunday, February 6, and the evening was documented on Instagram by music executive Josh Abraham. The couples were also joined by Abraham’s wife, Gina, as well as Fall Out Boy bassist Pete Wentz and his girlfriend, Meagan Camper.
In one snapshot from the night, Duff and Richie, 40, smiled at the camera with their husbands’ arms wrapped around them. Later in the evening, Koma, 34, goofily showed off his culinary skills by welding a knife alongside Wentz, 42, who held a butane torch. “New band alert,” Abraham captioned the picture, which also showed Madden throwing his arms around his fellow musicians’ shoulders.
Duff dated the “Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous” rocker when she was a teenager from 2004 until 2006. Shortly after their split, Madden told People that the pair remained on good terms and continued to keep in touch.
“Every girl I’ve ever dated I have respect for, and I always try to leave them in good terms,” the “Girls and Boys” singer told the outlet in March 2007. “I don’t see the necessity to be friends with anyone you’ve dated but definitely out of respect of the time, you have to be kind of respectful and that’s what I try to do.”
He also appeared to address the controversy over the couple’s ten-year age gap, telling the outlet that he “ignored” what people had to say about his romance with Duff. “People can say or think whatever they want … so in my reality, it’s kind of irrelevant. I’m always the kind of person that does the right thing and keeps my side of the street clean,” Madden said.
Duff, for her part, briefly addressed the romance in her March 2016 Cosmopolitan cover story. “I had a 26-year-old boyfriend,” the “Sparks” singer said at the time “So everyone can make their own assumptions about what I was doing [at the time].”
Later that year, she described their relationship as “intense” during an appearance on “The Love Bomb” podcast. “It was so all-encompassing. It was so intense. It was my life,” Duff told host Nico Tortorella in November 2016. “It was like every minute of my day. It was pretty major.”
Madden and Richie, who began dating in 2006, have been married for 11 years and share daughter Harlow, 14, and son Sparrow, 12.
Duff, for her part, moved on with Mike Comrie, whom she married in 2010. The couple welcomed son Luca in 2012 but called it quits three years later. In 2017, Duff began dating the Winnetka Bowling League frontman and they tied the knot in a low-key ceremony in December 2019. The couple share two daughters, Banks, 3, and Mae, 10 months.
