Years ago, moms everywhere entrusted their kids’ childhoods with the likes of Hilary Duff and Ashley Tisdale when they were both Disney Channel stars. But now, both women are moms themselves — and the dynamics between other parents can be a lot trickier than anything we saw in Lizzie McGuire or High School Musical.
Such was made apparent when Tisdale published an essay with The Cut — under her married name Ashley French — explaining why she’d removed herself from a “toxic” group of moms with whom she’d previously been friends. When fans started speculating that Duff had been one of the other mothers in the group, however, her husband, singer/songwriter Matthew Koma, entered the ring.
In a Tuesday post on his Instagram Story, the musician shared a spoof of the Suite Life of Zack & Cody alum’s essay, featuring a mock-up of Koma re-creating the photo of Tisdale sitting cross-legged used in the original piece. “When You’re The Most Self Obsessed Tone Deaf Person On Earth, Other Moms Tend To Shift Focus To Their Actual Toddlers,” the faux headline reads.
A sarcastic “sub-headline” reads: “A Mom Group Tell All Through A Father’s Eyes,” with Koma captioning the parody, “Read my new interview with @TheCut.”
Billboard has reached out to Tisdale’s rep for comment.
Koma married Duff in 2019, and the couple share three children. His post comes five days after The Cut published Tisdale’s essay, in which she recounts befriending a group of fellow working moms before feeling like they were intentionally excluding her from events and hangouts.
“Even though it had been decades since tenth grade, the experience of being left out felt so similar,” wrote Tisdale, who shares two kids with husband Christopher French. “I knew that I had to speak up for myself, just like I would want my daughters to do. So that’s exactly what I texted to the group after being left out from yet another group hang: ‘This is too high school for me and I don’t want to take part in it anymore.’”
Online sleuths quickly went back through photos of Tisdale and Duff together, linking them to a group of moms that also included Mandy Moore and Meghan Trainor. However, TMZ reported Monday that Tisdale’s rep had denied that any of the aforementioned women were the subjects of her essay.
