Pregnancy Not to Blame for Hilary Duff’s Loss of ‘Bonnie and Clyde’ Role

The other day, word got out that Hilary Duff, long attached to star in the remake of the 1967 classic “Bonnie and Clyde” as Bonnie, had been dropped from the project because she’d gotten pregnant. While it’s confirmed she’s no longer part of the project, it’s not because of her baby news.

As we also noted yesterday, producers confirmed for various media outlets that Duff would no longer take on the iconic female outlaw, saying her pregnancy would keep her from shooting the role until well into 2012.

From this, many inferred that she’d been fired because of the pregnancy, especially since the announcement came shortly after Duff broke the news about becoming a mommy soon.

Producers are now saying in a new statement cited by AceShowbiz that, while it’s true that Duff is out of the picture, her pregnancy had nothing to do with it.

Had they been in a position to wait until her schedule cleared up, they would have, they say.

“While production has been pushed several times due to financial, scheduling and other factors such as tornadoes devastating some of our locations, we are currently gearing up to start production later this year,” Tonya Holly, president of Cypress Moon Productions, and producer Tom Rogers explain in a joint statement.

“Unfortunately we now faced with scheduling conflicts with our leads Hilary Duff and Kevin Zegers,” the add.

There is no postponing the project now and, sadly, this means going forward with it sans the two initial leads, who are now in the process of being replaced.

“Due to our obligations with investors and international buyers it is imperative that we stick to our current schedule. Therefore we are forced to explore other options for the two lead roles,” the statement further notes.

As of now, Hilary Duff has not addressed in any way the controversy her departure from the project has generated.