Ashley Tisdale slams ‘nonstop’ body shaming online
High School Musical alum Ashley Tisdale has aired her dissatisfaction with her weight loss jab in a candid blog post.
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Another day, another name added to the equation for Ashley Tisdale’s French Toxic Mother group.
Weeks after the “High School Musical” star wrote an essay for The Cut about her departure from what she characterized as a mom group with “toxic” bullying tendencies, “Real Housewives” alum Crystal Minkoff claims she knows some of the members.
Minkoff’s confession, made during an episode of her podcast Humble Brag, comes after a wave of online debate over whether Tisdale’s article was a hit piece written by an apathetic, disgruntled, one-time member of her friend group or a legitimate cry from young mothers demanding healthier ways of interacting.
Here’s what you need to know (maybe not, but want to know).
Ashley Tisdale’s essay claims ‘toxic’ mom groups, mean girl behavior
Although Tisdale’s original essay stopped short of naming the women in the group and claimed that she thought most of them were not bad people, her story depicts high school-style bullying aimed at ostracizing her.
Tisdale said the mom support group was formed by friends, many of whom had recently become mothers. The actress revealed that she felt “energized” and “sense of belonging” by being around fellow working mothers who are “finding a balance between fulfilling work and family life.”
But she said she began to notice that members frequently didn’t include her, planned group gatherings or intentionally didn’t extend invitations.
“This group seemed to have a pattern of leaving someone out, and that someone ended up being me,” she wrote.
But the actress insisted the story wasn’t about getting her own ax to grind, but about uplifting the voices of other women who are going through similar things.
“From the feedback I’ve received since I started talking about this, I know I’m not the only mom who was brought to tears by a group member who was supposed to be uplifting,” she wrote.
Hilary Duff’s husband throws shade at Ashley Tisdale amid mother drama
Many thought Tisdale was referring to a group that included Hilary Duff, Mandy Moore and Meghan Trainor.
After the essay was published, Tisdale’s publicist insisted that speculation about who was in the mom group was false, but Duff’s husband also spoke out earlier this month, seemingly confirming the online theory.
Ms Duff’s partner Matthew Koma hit back at Ms French by parodying her cover of The Cut on Instagram, but replaced the headline with “When you’re the most self-centered tone-deaf person on the planet, other mothers tend to shift their focus to their actual toddlers.”
Meghan Trainor breaks her silence on moms’ group drama
Trainor also responded on TikTok, but did not clarify his position. He captioned a video of himself reading a book engrossed on the internet, saying, “I just learned that it’s supposed to be a mom group drama,” and set the post to his song “Still Don’t Care.”
Crystal Minkoff joins Ashley Tisdale’s mother drama
On the Jan. 12 episode of the podcast, the “Real Housewives of Beverly Hills” star said she already had experience with the “toxic” mother French referred to.
“I probably know 70 percent of the mother group because we all went to kindergarten together. We’re all in the same group,” Minkoff said. “One of them went to the same high school as us.”
“Everyone’s talking about it,” Minkoff said. Minkoff said, “I don’t really want to talk to them about it because it’s a personal thing for them,” but said, “I thought it was really interesting.”
“I posted a joke in a thread the other day, like, ‘Oh, this is what 2021 is like. I’ve been through this already.'” Minkoff went on to say that he was left out of the group when he joined the cast of RHOBH.
“What I found interesting is that Ashley’s story is that she left the group, but my story is that I didn’t leave the group,” she said. “They all turned on me and brought me down.” Minkoff said she feels conflicted about the situation because she knows some of the women in the group but not Tisdale, adding that she can empathize with both sides.
