Hilary Duff: Who are you here with? Who are you here with?
Unknown Photographer: I'm here with me.
HD: With you?
UP: Yeah?
HD: Do you know any people on the team?
UP: No.
HD: Oh, can you stop taking pictures of the kids please.
*photographer unleashes his THE-LAW-IS-ON-MY-SIDE POWER card*
UP: It's legal. (This will always be a creepy response, much in the same way an adult saying "It's legal" in response to someone questioning their sexual relationship with a teenager) (Also, it's possible to be creepy without also being a predator, but responding to a parent asking "Can you, a stranger, please stop taking pictures of my child." with "It is perfectly legal that I, a stranger, take pictures of your child, so I will continue to do so despite you having a problem with it." might not make you a predator, but it does make you are arsehole.)
HD: It's, it's making me feel really uncomfortable.
UP: Well you shouldn't feel uncomfortable. You want me to show you ID? (a racist would LOVE to see his ID because they get off on having power over those they deem "lesser". She's not interested. She just wants him to stop.) (Also, I don't think an actual predator would offer up ID, they're more likely to leave as soon as you approach them.)
HD: I'm not asking for your ID, I'm asking you to stop taking pictures of our 7 year old children if you don't know anyone that's here.
UP: But, it's legal. It's not against the law. (She never disputes this.)
HD: I'm asking you, human to human, as a mother, if you don't know anyone here can you please stop talking pictures of our children playing football.
UP: But I'm just telling you, it's not illegal. (Again, she never disputes this, but it's the only argument he has.)
HD: That's okay, that you're saying...
UP: Well, I'm, I'm taking pictures of, practicing photography, and I'm...
HD: Can you practice it on another, on another...
UP: I'm not here to scare you or anything like that..
HD: But you are... (scaring her, because you are a stranger taking photos of her kids. Her fear may not be warranted but it is real, and as a celebrity* this isn't her first run in with strangers taking unwanted photos of her.)
UP: Your paranoia is unwarranted, that's what I'm telling you. (On one hand he's right, people get unreasonably paranoid when it comes to male strangers and kids. On the other, he's a stranger who's refusing to stop taking photos of her child despite her asking politely (but angrily) to "stop taking picture of the kids please".)
HD: No, it's just an uncomfortability factor that these are 7 year old children and you don't have a child here.
UP: What's that got to do with anything? (What's that got to do with anything? That's the entire issue!)
HD: Well, there are children and we would like to protect them so if you could take pictures and practice your photography somewhere else...
UP: Well, you, me taking pictures ??? is not, what about other people?
*Celebrity unleashes her DO-YOU-KNOW-WHO-I-AM POWER card*
HD: Well I will just post this to my 15 million followers on Instagram and let people know how creepy it is that this is what you choose to do on your Saturday morning. (Prior to this nothing she said was unreasonable. He was doing a thing and she asked him to stop doing a thing. His refusing to stop led her to make a bad call, but it doesn't negate everything else she said.)
*Attacking her celebrity status isn't the gotcha that people seem to think it is. It just makes you a dick.
Also, WTF at people thinking this wouldn't be an issue if he was white? People routinely freak out about men they don't know even being in the vicinity of children, regardless of colour.
Ultimately, I don't think he was a predator, and I don't think she did anything wrong asking him to stop. I feel like if you are photographing strangers and their children, and they are uncomfortable with that and ask you to please stop, the only reasonable response is to stop. Why is that a hill you want to die on?