Hilary Duff breaks silence on Ashley Tisdale's 'toxic mom group' claims

Hilary Duff has responded to Ashley Tisdale's 'toxic mom group' essay, which many fans thought was about her.

Tisdale, 40, spoke on her decision to leave a 'toxic mom group' with The Cut last month, sparking speculation that Duff, 38, was involved. Duff's husband Matthew Koma, 38, went on to slam Tisdale as 'self obsessed' and 'tone deaf', seemingly confirming the rumors.

Duff, who's been promoting her new album, was asked if the viral story made her 'pause about reentering the pop world,' in a new interview with the Los Angeles Times on Friday.

'I mean, this is not new for me. I've had this since I was maybe 15 and starting to get followed around by paparazzi. Everything starts getting documented and everyone knows my life and all the players in it,' she said.

'So the stories that get news pickup — it's not what happens to a normal person who maybe became an actor as an adult. And now it's escalated by the talking heads on TikTok that need clickbait.'

'It's hard because you're like, "Wait, whoa, that person kind of got it right," and "Whoa that person doesn't know what they're talking about,"' she added.

'I saw something that was like, "None of the moms at school actually like her and neither do the teachers," and I was like, "First of all… the women at school are lovely and I'm obsessed with all of them,' Duff went on.

The singer was also asked if she ignores social media rumors.

'It just depends on the day. Knowing that I get to open up the backdoors and play soccer as a family and take a hot tub and go get our chicken eggs — that's the purpose of life. On the days when crazy s**t happens, I go home and quiet the noise.'

Last month her husband poked fun at Tisdale's essay with a mock headline that read 'When You're the Most Self Obsessed Tone Deaf Person on Earth, Other Moms Tend to Shift Focus to Their Actual Toddlers.'

Koma also photoshopped his own head onto Tisdale's body, recreating The Cut image of her seated on a white couch wearing an all-black outfit. The image also featured a smaller headline that read, 'A Mom Group Tell All Through A Father's Eye.'

Tisdale's essay, called 'Breaking Up With My Toxic Mom Group,' detailed her feelings of being frozen out by friends during her postpartum period.

The High School Musical alum had previously raved about her 'village of moms,' which included Duff, Mandy Moore and Meghan Trainor, after welcoming her first daughter Jupiter in 2021.

Fans quickly speculated that the unnamed group included Duff and Moore, particularly after Tisdale unfollowed both women on Instagram. 

Tisdale, who also has 16-month-old son Emerson with her composer husband Christopher French, joined the mom group created by longtime friend Duff, with the women sharing vacations, baby classes and playdates over the past four years.

However, Tisdale recently wrote about 'breaking up with my toxic mom group,' explaining she began to feel excluded during vulnerable postpartum months.

Expanding on a November 2025 post for her blog ByAshleyFrench, she later penned an article for The Cut, though she did not name any of the women involved.

She wrote that she started noticing she wasn't invited to certain gatherings, which she later saw posted on Instagram.

'It took me back to an unpleasant but familiar feeling I thought I'd left behind years ago,' she wrote.

'Here I was sitting alone one night after getting my daughter to bed thinking Maybe I'm not cool enough? All of a sudden I was in high school again, feeling totally lost as to what I was doing 'wrong' to be left out.'

She said she ultimately texted the group after being excluded once again, writing: 'This is too high school for me and I don't want to take part in it anymore.'

'To be clear I have never considered the moms to be bad people (maybe one),' Tisdale added. 'But I do think our group dynamic stopped being healthy and positive - for me anyway.'

While the actress has not publicly identified who she was referring to, fans noticed that the article arrived shortly after she unfollowed both Moore and Duff on Instagram.

Tisdale had once been a core member of the A-list circle.

In a now-deleted 2022 post from a girls' trip with Duff and Trainor, she reflected on an enjoyable weekend away and how she loved 'being surrounded by these ladies.'

'What an amazing group of women to journey through this mom-hood together!' she gushed, at the time.

As recently as January 2025, she publicly thanked the mom group for supporting her during the Los Angeles wildfires, writing: 'The human connection is not lost. Shout out to the mom group that's there in the highs and lows.'

Meanwhile, Moore and Duff appear to remain close.

The longtime friends have spoken openly about the support they've found in one another and even lived together during last year's wildfires when Moore lost her family home.

They were also recently seen sharing photos from a festive trip with their children to see a Christmas lights display.

Duff shares her son Luca Cruz Comrie, 13, with ex-husband Mike Comrie, and three daughters Banks Violet, 7, Mae James, 4, and Townes Meadow, 1, with her current husband.