People might hope that when they make a new friend, they'll be friends for life. But the truth is, most friends will only be there for a reason or a season, like going to school or working together.
For former High School Musical star Ashley Tisdale, that season was new motherhood, a time when she was eager to meet women who understood the questions she had about babies and raising them, but also preferably women who understood what it was like trying to juggle being a successful businesswoman with being a mom, too.
Through a friend, Tisdale joined a group of celebrity moms who had their own businesses, brands, and babies. For a while, she felt right at home for the first time in a long time. But Tisdale soon felt herself being phased out.
Realizing that the moms were planning a get-together that did not include her—at her own daughter's birthday party—Tisdale decided that she'd had enough. To hold the group accountable, she sent a text to their group chat, explaining why she was departing. Though she received some lackluster apologies and explanations, she knew it was time to move on.
Tisdale then wrote about her experience for The Cut, but she never named the people involved in the situation, other than herself and her kids. Readers found comfort in Tisdale's retelling, recognizing in her words their own experiences of not feeling like they belonged in their friend groups.
Tisdale clarified:
"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."
But Hilary Duff, Meghan Trainor, and Mandy Moore soon outed themselves by publicly lashing out at Tisdale for writing about feeling like she wasn't included and deciding to move on.
Hilary Duff and her husband, Matthew Koma, were the first ones to respond, with Duff claiming not to understand Tisdale's take, since she was "obsessed" with the women in the group, while Koma indirectly called Tisdale "self-obsessed" and "tone-deaf."
Meghan Trainor also responded publicly, creating a satirical post captioned, "Still don't care," in which she mimed looking panicked while searching for information about the "mom group drama." Though some found this funny, others thought it confirmed Tisdale's concerns about the group feeling like "high school drama."
At the start of 2026, when the fallout happened, Mandy Moore mostly kept quiet, except for an Instagram story in which she called Duff and Koma "the most talented and generous humans." Fans believed that had something to do with Tisdale, at least as an attempt to ice her out even further and to show how unbothered Moore was with the whole thing.
But based on an interview with Andy Cohen for SiriusXM's Andy Cohen Live, Mandy Moore was clearly very bothered by Tisdale's article.
Moore reflected:
"It’s wild to have anybody talk about your life, and I know Hilary has sort of mentioned this too."
"It’s like 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, you know what I mean? It just cuts to the core.”
“The most important thing in my life is being a kind person, and like that legacy of kindness, and anyone even insinuating that that might not be the case, and with the company that I choose to keep, is very upsetting."
"I’d say that was the biggest takeaway, sort of the shock of like, ‘Wow.'"
"I'm someone who is very scared by confrontation, but also, when it's important, I am a huge proponent of having a conversation. Like if my feelings are hurt or if there's something I need to get off my chest, then absolutely, face-to-face."
"It's not always the most comfortable of situations, but I think that's where I differed in feeling like, 'I wouldn't have handled the situation this way.'"
Moore also did not share the feelings that Tisdale expressed in her article.
"I feel like it just sort of perpetuates this silly trope that women can’t be supportive of one another and that we’re inherently petty and that we’re inherently out to one-up each other, and I have not felt that one iota since becoming a parent."
"I’ve actually been so surprised by the meaningful relationships I found with other moms and other parents just in general."
"That has always been my takeaway, and you need that. You need community. You need to find that support wherever you can get it. We need to be able to talk about all of that.”
You can catch the moment here:
Conversation ensued on the "Pop Culture Chat" subReddit, where Redditors found the whole situation to be kind of messy.
"I thought Tisdale's essay was messy and passive-aggressive, BUT Mandy's comments raise more questions than they answer."
"It really sounds like the other women froze Tisdale out for whatever reason, and rather than be direct about it, they expected Tisdale to just accept it and move on. So instead, she wrote that essay and made a big fuss, and that was personally embarrassing to these women."
"Okay, I get it. But you can't then say, 'Well, I think women should be able to communicate and resolve issues and not be petty and one-up each other.' Because it kind of sounds like that's exactly what they did, and their main annoyance is being called out on it."
"Which, yes, makes Tisdale look petty. But it's also petty to freeze someone out of your friend group without explaining why. So all of these women are making women look like they can't be supportive of each other. None of them 'wins' this for me. They all seem tedious." - TellMeYourDespair
"What happened to Tisdale happens often in mom groups, and people feel so alone in it. I’m glad she decided to be messy and write about it. If the people in that group didn’t want eyes on them, they should’ve followed Anne Lamott’s advice: 'If people wanted you to write warmly about them, they should have behaved better.'" - starrylightway
"I hate confrontation, it's so stressful, but generally I feel like being direct with your feelings is helpful."
"That said, Ashley was direct.. to a big audience, LOL. And I'm grateful for the tea."
"I probably would have just cut my losses with the group, but there's a spiteful gremlin side of me that LOVES the idea of airing them out the way she did, too!" - JamesCameronDid1912
"It's a lot different when kids are involved."
"If my friendship wanes with someone, it is what it is and life goes on; but when my friendship waning with that adult impacts our kids and suddenly, my kid is being iced out of playdates and birthday parties, and they're being ignored on the playground or school bus by someone they thought was a friend. That's when it gets emotional and it becomes messy."
"This all sounds like a trainwreck, but I can at least understand where Ashley was coming from if the feelings were partially out of protection for her kids." - brevebelle
"I feel like the other group was just reacting to Ashley taking the activities of their private friend group public and placing blame on them, rather than taking much accountability for her own actions."
"She dropped enough little crumbs of details so that people could guess who she was talking about. Ashley’s goal was not to communicate but to shame a group that had, it seemed, rightly so distanced themselves from her." - Significant_Ad7605
"Ashley Tisdale was messy, but everyone involved was messy; no one was mature about it. Though, I will say, with how Hilary Duff's husband reacted, that I can understand why Ashley initially decided to just vent about it on her vlog rather than deal directly with all that, even if she was doing it to be petty. They all seem exhausting." - HereOnCompanyTime
"They all kind of sound like jerks and I wouldn’t want to be around any of them. I say this as a veteran member of mom groups and sororities." - mulderlovesme
"At this point, they’re all villains in this group, and I don’t care to know about this whole situation unless they’re releasing direct receipts." - KittyKenollie
"Mum groups are insane, though. I own a multimillion-pound business, and it’s nowhere near as cutthroat as the school mum WhatsApp group." - franki-pinks
"All of these people have way too much money to be worrying about nonsense like this." - stephasaurussss
This is one of those situations where everyone probably could have handled it better than they did. The group could have communicated differently with Tisdale or tried to smooth things over with her, and Tisdale could have left her feelings in the group chat and moved on.
But losing friendships hurts, especially in adulthood when making new friends is harder—and doubly so when children are involved.
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