Singer and actress Ashley Tisdale has spoken out about being “brought to tears” by being a member of a “toxic mom group”, which she ultimately decided to leave.
The US actress rose to fame as a child star on the Disney Channel and later appeared in the High School Musical films as Sharpay Evans.
The 40-year-old has previously discussed the benefits of having support from a “village of moms” following the birth of her first daughter in 2021.
But she said the changing dynamic of the group, which reportedly includes several other celebrities, ended up reminding her of high school cliques and left her feeling “frozen out” at a vulnerable time.
The star, who has two young daughters with husband Christopher French, made the comments in an article for the Cut, which was adapted from her own blog post on the subject.
She said the response to her blog about how “mom groups can turn toxic” had made her phone “blow up like no other” topic, with messages from women who had experienced similar things.
In her case, the singer said she had noticed that some mothers in the group had started socialising without her, and had felt a “growing distance” from them at events they did attend together.
“I was starting to feel frozen out of the group,” she said, “noticing every way that they seemed to exclude me.”
Tisdale said it reminded her of an earlier stage of the group’s friendship, when she had “picked up on hints of a weird dynamic” involving “another mom who often wasn’t included”.
“It seemed that this group had a pattern of leaving someone out,” Tisdale reflected. “And that someone had become me.”
She added that the interactions “took me back to an unpleasant but familiar feeling I thought I’d left behind years ago” that maybe she was not “cool enough”.
Tisdale ultimately decided to cut ties with the group and said she sent a message to the other members explaining: “This is too high school for me and I don’t want to take part in it anymore.”
She said her message “didn’t exactly go over well”, but noted that some of the mothers did then try to “smooth things over”.
She added: “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.”
The actress discouraged readers from trying to guess exactly who she was referring to in the post, adding: “Whatever you think is true isn’t even close.”
She added that the feedback she’s had from other women on the subject has shown “I’m far from the only mother who’s been brought to tears by members of a group that’s supposed to lift everyone up”.
As a singer, Tisdale released three studio albums, while her acting credits also include the Scary Movie and Bring It On franchises.
