Who Was in Ashley Tisdale French's 'Toxic' Mom Group?

Ok, Ashley Tisdale French’s rep is addressing who isn’t in her “toxic” mom group.

The 40-year-old fueled rumors with an essay originally written for her blog and later adapted into an essay in The Cut, titled: “Breaking Up With My Toxic Mom Group.”

In it, the actress wrote about a mom friend group she leaned on after the birth of her first daughter, Jupiter, in 2021. In a November post on her By Ashley French blog, French wrote that at first, the group was the “village of moms” that she needed. Everyone was sharing “sleep training advice,” taking “tons of photos,” and celebrating “the tiny victories” of motherhood.

However, French says the group soon turned toxic as she began to get left out of group hangs. “Not because the moms themselves are toxic people, but because the dynamic shifts into an ugly place with mean-girl behavior,” she wrote.

Needless to say, the post caused a wave of speculation about who French was referring to, and whether it was one of the celebrity moms we’ve seen her hanging with in the past.

Who Was In Ashley Tisdale French’s Mom Group?

When French promoted the blog post on TikTok, fans were quick to point out her ties to a close-knit celebrity crew that includes Meghan Trainor, Hilary Duff, and Mandy Moore.

In her essay in The Cut, French alludes to these guesses, writing that opening up about leaving a mom group “made wannabe online sleuths try to do some investigating like they’re on CSI (please, don’t even try — whatever you think is true isn’t even close).”

French’s rep told TMZ on January 6 that the essay is not referring to Moore, 41, Duff, 38, or Trainor, 32.

So what made people guess Moore, Duff, and Trainor?

In 2021, Duff posted a photo on her Instagram Story showing her then-3-month-old daughter, Mae, lying with a group of babies that included Moore’s son, August, Trainor’s firstborn boy, Riley, and French’s daughter, Jupiter. The Lizzie McGuire alum tagged her fellow celebrity moms in the post.

The following year, French posted photos from a weekend getaway with Duff, Moore and Trainor as well as some other California moms. “Moms weekend away! I love being surrounded by these ladies. What an amazing group of women to journey through this mom-hood together! So grateful for this trip ❤️” French captioned the now-deleted post, per Scary Mommy.

French and the ladies regularly interacted with one another on social media and spoke openly about leaning on one another for support. “It was actually one of the hardest moments of my life,” Duff told People in December 2024 about how the women helped her during her family’s bout of the flu, “and I was on the chat thread just ranting and raving, and they’re all just really supportive.”

However, in recent months, French’s involvement seems to have tapered off. Moore and Duff joined a group of moms for an October getaway, but French did not appear to be involved.

French no longer follows Moore or Duff, but still follows Trainor.

In her initial blog post, French, who also shares 1-year-old daughter Emerson with husband Christopher French, wrote that, “In my mom group, I started to notice that certain people would get talked about when they weren’t present, and not in a positive way. I realized that there were group text chains that didn’t include everyone, which led to cliques forming within the larger group.”

In The Cut, French says that she confronted her mom group after noticing that the group’s “pattern of leaving someone out” was now leading to her getting repeatedly excluded.

“This is too high school for me and I don’t want to take part in it anymore,” she says she texted the group, eliciting a mixed response.

“It didn’t exactly go over well. Some of the others tried to smooth things over. One sent flowers, then ignored me when I thanked her for them. Another tried to convince me that everyone assumed I’d been invited to gatherings and just hadn’t shown up,” she wrote.

“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,” she added in The Cut.

French concluded the essay with a word of advice, writing, “You deserve to go through motherhood with people who actually, you know, like you. And if you have to wonder if they do, 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.”

Before you go, click here to see family feuds we can’t believe played out in public.