Maybe it’s because a lot of women can relate to feeling “frozen out” in female friend groups, but an essay published Monday by former “High School Musical” star Ashley Tisdale, about “Breaking Up With My Toxic Mom Group” has gone viral.
But surely, another reason for all the attention on The Cut essay is because online sleuths quickly listed some A-list names who could be among the unnamed mean-girl moms who brought Tisdale “to tears.”
Fellow former Disney Channel star Hilary Duff, along with “This Is Us” star Mandy Moore and singer Meghan Trainor, were some of the celebrity moms suspected of being implicated online in Tisdale’s essay. These women and Tisdale all were publicly part of a mom group, with Tisdale, Duff and Trainor sharing Instagram photos of themselves in 2022, enjoying a no-kids spa weekend in 2022.
Apparently realizing that launching feuds with other female celebrities could be bad for her burgeoning beauty-products brand, Tisdale immediately jumped into damage control mode Tuesday and had her rep insist to TMZ that her essay was not about Duff, Moore or Trainor. The rep furthermore insisted that Tisdale wasn’t iced out of her mom group because she’s Republican or a Trump supporter. Tisdale’s rep said she is a registered Democrat.
But so much for damage control. Online sleuths noted that Duff and Moore recently unfollowed Tisdale on Instagram, sparking more speculation about reasons for a falling-out, as TMZ reported. Chelsea Handler also popped into the conversation Wednesday to defend Moore, saying in a radio interview that the actor and singer is “a wonderful, sweet person” — and that she doesn’t know Tisdale.
But also on Wednesday, Duff’s name was amplified in the drama, thanks to her husband, Matthew Koma. The singer-songwriter, who is father to Duff’s three daughters, took to Instagram Story to blast Tisdale as “The Most Self Obsessed Tone Deaf Person On Earth,” as People reported.
Koma actually did this by posting a photo of himself photoshopped onto Tisdale’s body. In the photo, he is seen sitting on a couch next to a houseplant, while wearing an all-black outfit paired with rose-tinted lensed sunglasses. He also added The Cut’s logo and a fictional headline that read, “When You’re The Most Self Obsessed Tone Deaf Person On Earth, Other Moms Tend To Shift Focus To Their Actual Toddlers.” He included a sub-headline that read, “A Mom Group Tell All Through A Father’s Eyes.”
Meanwhile, complicating things from Duff’s side of things, her sister, Haylie Duff, “liked” a joint Instagram post from both Tisdale and The Cut, “liking” her essay, Us Weekly reported.
But back to the children, which Koma said should be the focus: Tisdale shares two daughters, Jupiter, 4, and Emerson, 1, with her husband, Christopher French, according to People. And being a better mom is one reason she said she decided to joint a mom group, she wrote in The Cut.
Tisdale also wrote that suspected that mom-group drama could be a fertile topic for her 16 million Instagram followers. Her instincts were right, with Reese Witherspoon and more than 32,000 others liking her Instagram post, which shared a link to her essay. Several psychologists/bloggers weighed in, with one saying, “The most destabilizing part of mean girl mom culture is how subtle the cycle is.” Another said that the “Mean Girl Mom Cycle” is so hard to name and leaves so many women second guessing themselves and their experiences. They are left feeling isolated, ashamed and worried about how their relationships with these mothers will impact their own children.”
TIsdale said she’d never expect she’d have to deal with this “mean-girl mom culture” when she began hanging out with a group of mothers, who all had young children around the same age.
“After the birth of my first daughter, I was craving connection with other mothers,” Tisdale wrote. She said she was looking to share tips with other women “on which diaper bag to buy” but also on more serious topics of early motherhood: the mood swings, the lack of sleep and “saying good-bye to who I used to be.”
At first, Tisdale wrote, she was certain she had found her “village.” She was in a group of “impressive” women who, like her, were building brands, running their own companies and launching creative projects, while also being mothers of young children. “I felt a sense of belonging,” she said. “And it made me hopeful about finding the balance between fulfilling work and family life, since all these cool women were able to do it.”
But then things began to turn. “I remember being left out of a couple of group hangs, and I knew about them because Instagram made sure it fed me every single photo and Instagram Story,” Tisdale said. “Another time, at one of the mom’s dinner parties, I realized where I sat with her — which was at the end of the table, far from the rest of the women. I was starting to feel frozen out of the group, noticing every way that they seemed to exclude me.”
While Tisdale said she tried not to take things personally, she began to sense a growing distance and was hurt to learn that these women had excluded her from “a girl hang” that they planned at her daughter’s birthday party. Tisdale said the exclusion took her back to adolescence and feeling like she wasn’t cool enough. But instead of staying quiet, she spoke up and sent a group text to members of the group, saying, “This is too high school for me and I don’t want to take part in it anymore.”
Tisdale acknowledged that her text didn’t go over well with her so-called friends. While some tried to smooth things over, others told her she misunderstood their intentions. She wrote: “To be clear, I have never considered the moms to be bad people. (Maybe one.) But I do think our group dynamic stopped being healthy and positive — for me, anyway.”
In spite of some of the negative response, Tisdale said she’s glad she spoke up, writing: “Motherhood has enough challenges without having to wonder if the people around you are on your side. You deserve to go through motherhood with people who actually, you know, like you.”
