After the dust has settled on Ashley Tisdale French’s “toxic mom group” essay, Mandy Moore has at last waded into the waters of the drama that gripped social media four months ago.
The 42-year-old “This is Us” star, appearing on SiriusXM’s “Andy Cohen Live” on May 18, shared how she felt after reaching Tisdale French’s account of finding a “sense of belonging” with other working moms, only to leave the group after noticing a pattern of being excluded in what she described as “high school”-like antics.
Though Tisdale French never clarified the members of this inner circle, social media users speculated her claims were tied to Moore, Hilary Duff and Meghan Trainor, among others.
“It’s wild to have anybody talk about your life, and I know Hilary [Duff] 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,” Moore told Cohen, confirming she believes that Tisdale French’s post was, in part, about her.
“But this was something altogether different and decidedly way more upsetting,” she continued.
USA TODAY has reached out to Tisdale French’s representative for comment.
In a February sit-down on “Call Her Daddy,” Duff said she was “pretty taken aback” and felt “really sad” about Tisdale French’s claims. She also joked that “I don’t really think people had to connect very many dots” to figure out she was among the moms in Tisdale French’s cohort.
Moore admitted she was shocked by the article because “the most important thing in my life is being a kind person and 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.”
The “A Walk to Remember” actress said that while she is “really scared by confrontation,” she is “a huge proponent” of speaking with someone face-to-face if her feelings are hurt.
“It’s not always the most comfortable of situations, but I think that’s where I sort of differed in feeling like I wouldn’t have handled the situation this way,” Moore said.
She also criticized the breadth of media coverage Tisdale French’s essay received and said she believed “it 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.”
Tisdale French’s story, “You’re Allowed to Leave Your Mom Group,” first published on her blog By Ashley French before it was reworked for an essay, “Breaking Up With My Toxic Mom Group,” published in The Cut. While Tisdale French’s account stopped short of naming the women who belonged to the group, and claimed she thought most of them were not bad people, her story painted a picture of high school-style bullying aimed at leaving her out.
Days after The Cut article was published, Tisdale French’s representative spoke with TMZ to shoot down speculation that the actress’s fallout involved Moore, Duff and Trainor.
Tisdale French wrote that the mom support group was assembled by a friend, who had a slew of other pals who recently became mothers. The “High School Musical” alum said she and the women bonded over their shared experience of navigating parenting during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic.
She gushed that she felt “energized” and a “sense of belonging” through being around fellow working mothers who had achieved “finding the balance between fulfilling work and family life.” She added, “I was just so happy to have found these incredible, smart, funny women. Now it seemed that this group had a pattern of leaving someone out. And that someone had become me.”
The actress insisted that the story wasn’t about revealing her own axe to grind, but about uplifting the voices of other women who had struggled with something similar.
Contributing: Anna Kaufman and Edward Segarra, USA TODAY.