I may be able to answer this because I think it could be me.

I was wanting to come online and apologise to her during the AMA but it was at 5:30am here in Australia.

So a bit of back story for you: I'm a super fan. I've been totally and hopelessly committed since 2004. When she came to Aus in 2004 I went to one show (my first ever) and then the next time, I travelled around the country and went to 4, then I went to a couple more when she came back again a few years later. I met her a bunch of times, too. There's more to the story but that will do.

Anyway, after not being here since 2008, at the end of last year she came to Australia for a little promo tour. We found out about a week before she arrived so, naturally, at short notice my entire life went on hold. We (a small group of old school fans who knew each other from back in the day) found out her schedule and waited outside radio stations, her hotel etc. just hoping to catch a glimpse.

So one morning towards the end of the visit, it finally happens. I had got up at 4am to travel to the outskirts of the city for a breakfast radio appearance. Me and a friend and a few other people were waiting out the front for hours, doing our usual scope out: where are the entrances to the underground garage? Which way will the car come from? And then a van pulls up just on the curb in this quiet industrial area and out pops Hilary Duff. We get photos, she signed an old photo of mine. Good experience overall.

Then we think we might as well wait for her to come back out and leave, since we have been here for hours and hours now. We have an hour or so while she's inside and while discussing, we decide it would be a good idea to play it a little more relaxed when she comes back out. We are huge fans but we aren't really the screaming type and we didn't want to give her that usual feeling of being bombarded by fans.

So we are sitting around out the front leaning on the car of one of the people waiting and out she comes from the front door, leading her team. She's walking in front and directly behind her is this guy with a video camera on his shoulder.

At this point, two thoughts are going through my head: play it cool, as discussed. And what the hell is that guy filming for? I don't want to be filmed.

I guess everyone else in the little group had the same thoughts because she walked towards us and we literally said NOTHING. So SHE is the one that comes up to us and SHE is the one that talks first while I and the rest of us are just awkward as fuck. We sort of mumble responses and after a little while she's just like "welllll, we're gonna gooooo...". She could feel how awkward it was. It was so awkward that it was unavoidable. I know she must have gotten in that van and been like "what the fuck?"

So it's not an odd encounter in terms of someone being over the top. It was the exact opposite. She knew we were super fans. On the way in, she saw one of us in an old tour shirt, she saw my old photo from 2006. And yet here we were, making her come to us, making her lead the conversation and acting like we basically did not give a shit about her.

So yeah if this wasn't at 5:30am, I would've posted this story and asked hilary if she remembers that and explain that we didn't want to bombard her and then the camera really threw us off. Sorry for the awkwardness, Hil.

Oh, I should also mention that when we looked at our photos etc later on, it turns out the dude with the big camera was there filming us on their way in too. So we were filmed anyway, we were just too happy and distracted by the sunshine that is Hilary Duff to notice.