Ashley Tisdale ignited a fire with her essay from The Cut entitled “Breaking Up With My Toxic Mom Group” released on New Year’s Day 2026. In the short tome, the High School Musical Star attempted to anonymously chronicle the drama between her and her then-unknown group of mothers she used to call friends.
“I felt lucky when my friend brought together a group of new moms that she knew. My friend’s friends were in the same situation as I was. Most of us had been pregnant through the early pandemic, so we missed out on the activities where you meet other expectant mothers,” she wrote. “We hadn’t had baby showers or prenatal yoga, and hardly anyone had held our newborns. But finally, we were able to be together, and our kids were able to be together, and it all felt right.”
But then, things took a turn for the worse, according to Tisdale, who used her married name, Ashley French, as the byline. “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,” she continued.
Recounting more unease, she ultimately decided to pull the trigger on the friendships and exit what she thought was a close-knit found-family through text message. “Here’s the hard-earned lesson I hope you’ll take to heart: It’s not the right group for you. Even if it looks like they’re having the best time on Instagram,” she finished the essay.
Of course, it didn’t end there. Internet-sleuthing quickly followed, with many theorizing – through those pesky Instagram posts – who Tisdale may have been writing about, including Hilary Duff, Mandy Moore and Meghan Trainor (although Tisdale’s rep denied it was them). So how did we get here? And what happened next? Keep reading to find out.
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Ashley Tisdale Pens the Essay
The Jan. 1 article — with the subhead “I thought I found my village. Instead I was back in high school” — revealed some old wounds for Tisdale: “Even though it had been decades since 10th grade, the experience of being left out felt so similar.”
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Fans Dig for Potential Group Members
Fans quickly zeroed in on past social media posts that included Tisdale, Duff, Moore, Trainor and others, wondering if the women were the ones at the center of the disagreement. Then older interviews surfaced with Duff talking about the cadre of mothers and Moore praising their friendships.
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Tisdale’s Denial
A rep for Tisdale told TMZ that the focus of the essay was a different mom group and not the famous one.
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Haylie Duff Jumps Into the Fray
At some point, Hilary’s sister liked Tisdale’s joint Instagram post with The Cut that featured the essay in question with the caption reading, “LEAVE YOUR TOXIC FRIENDS BEHIND YOU IN 2026.” What does it mean? Who knows. But the sisters are allegedly estranged.
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Hilary Duff’s Husband Fires Back
Singer-songwriter Matthew Koma — who’s been married to Duff since 2019, and with whom he shares three daughters and one stepson — clapped back on his own. “When You’re The Most Self Obsessed Tone Deaf Person On Earth, Other Moms Tend To Shift Focus To Their Actual Toddlers,” he posted on his Instagram Stories with a fake version of The Cut cover with himself at its center, with a subheadline of “A Mom Group Tell All Through A Father’s Eyes.”
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Duff Is Unphased
Meanwhile, Duff posted an Instagram reel that teased new music from her upcoming album Luck … or Something due Feb. 20.
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Mandy Moore Shouts Out Koma
After his defense and during “A Concert for Altadena” on Jan. 7 to support victims of the 2025 wildfires in California, Koma posted a video of Moore performing “Candy” to his Instagram Story. Moore then reposted his footage, writing, “This feels incredibly fitting as @matthewkoma happens to be the most talented and generous humans I’m lucky to know (he literally gave me and my family a place to stay one year ago today when we evacuated). Love you, MB!!”
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Meghan Trainor Enters the Chat
Trainor posted a TikTok where she’s seated at her computer typing away, with the caption “me finding out about the apparent mom group drama” while her song “Still Don’t Care” plays in the background.
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Haylie and Ashley Publicly Bond
Hilary’s sister posted a cute snap of a playdate with Tisdale to her Instagram, which Tisdale then shared to her own account. “Under table shenanigans,” the elder Duff sister wrote.
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Hilary Addresses Haylie Rift
After much speculation, Hilary confirmed that her Luck … or Something song “We Don’t Talk” is about her older sister after Haylie publicly aligned herself with Tisdale.
“The most lonely part of my existence is not having my sister in my life at the moment,” the younger Duff said on CBS Mornings. “I don’t know if she’ll hear it, I don’t know how she’ll react to it. It is a really personal part of my life that doesn’t get to stay personal, so I might as well say how it is for me as an experience.”
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Duff Breaks Her Silence
After about two months of staying silent on the matter, Hilary finally addressed the drama while appearing on Call Her Daddy — and she confirmed that she believes Tisdale’s essay was about her.
“I don’t really think people had to connect very many dots, do you?” Hilary told host Alex Cooper, who’d brought up how internet sleuths had put together who was seemingly part of the mom group.
Noting that she “felt really sad” and “taken aback” when Tisdale’s piece came out, she added, “It sucks to read something that’s not true, and it sucks on behalf of, like, six women and all of their lives … the timing felt not great, and I felt used.”
Hilary also said that she didn’t know Koma was going to make his post mocking Tisdale’s essay, but that she didn’t mind it.
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Moore Speaks Out
“I know Hilary has sort of mentioned this too,” Moore said in May on SiriusXM’s Andy Cohen Live. “We both have grown up in this business and had people dissect who we are and the choices we make and all of that, but this was something altogether different and decidedly way more upsetting.”
“I’m someone who is really scared by confrontation, but also when it’s important, I am a huge proponent [of] having a conversation if my feelings are hurt,” she added. “Face-to-face. It’s not always the most comfortable of situations, but I think that’s where I sort of differed in feeling like I wouldn’t have handled the situation this way.”
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