"Stranger" is a song recorded by American singer Hilary Duff for her fourth studio album, Dignity (2007). It was written by Duff and Kara DioGuardi with the song's producers Vada Nobles, Derrick Harvin, and Julius "Logic" Diaz. Background and release In mid April 2007, in a post on Duff's blog, she told her fans that they could vote for what they thought should be the next single from Dignity. According to a later post, fan feedback via votes was "overwhelmingly" in favor of "Stranger" as the next single. Duff promoted the song with a performance on So You Think You Can Dance. In mid-2007, concurrent to the preparation of the radio release of "Stranger", Duff was featured in a bikini on the July covers of the magazines Us Weekly and Shape, and on the August cover of Maxim accompanied by the declaration that she had gone "from the queen of teen to breakout sex symbol". The Associated Press wrote that the first two were representative of "a clear move [on Duff's part] to put her Lizzie McGuire past behind her", and that more provocative imaging of her would help her singles to garner mainstream radio play: "Ultimately, nature, time and genetics may help Duff in a way Disney, despite all its might, cannot." Guy Zapoleon, a radio consultant and former programmer for top 40 radio, said such imaging would "definitely have a positive effect on the attitude of programmers, who are mostly male, as Disney tries to mature her image". The single was released to U.S. contemporary hit radio stations on July 10, 2007. Composition 'Stranger" is a pop song with influences of Arabic music and bhangra. The song was rumored to be about Duff and her relationship with her ex-boyfriend, Joel Madden. However, according to Duff, the song is actually about how she thought her mother feels around her father, who had an extramarital affair with another woman. Duff said she wrote "Stranger" to appear to be about one of her own relationships, because she didn't want people to know about the strained relationship between her parents. "But I've realized that so many can relate to what I've gone through", she said. Another song on the album, "Gypsy Woman", was inspired by the same situation. Duff told Access Hollywood that writing the song "was like therapy, you know. Just a total release of all the things you hold inside".