What you need to know
Ashley Tisdale is going strong on social media.
On Friday, January 9, she shared a cryptic Instagram post with the caption, “Find the strength within yourself,” as the conversation surrounding her “toxic” mom groups continues.
Tisdale, 40, shared a video of herself doing yoga with a desert view behind her. “Find the strength within yourself. Coming February 1st. @beingfrenshe,” she wrote in the caption, tagging her wellness brand Frenshe.
The post comes as Tisdale is writing an essay for The Cut titled “Farewell to Toxic Mom Groups.” The mother of two first opened up about the experience in December 2025 in a candid blog post titled “I’m Allowed to Leave Mommy Group,” which quickly went viral.
“When I became a mom, I wanted connection as much as I wanted sleep. So I did what many people do: I joined a mom group,” Tisdale wrote. “But this is something no one prepared me for. Mom groups can be toxic, not because moms themselves are toxic people, but because the power dynamics shift to ugly places with mean girl behavior. I know this from personal experience.”
The following month, in January 2026, Tisdale expanded on this post by contributing a personal essay to The Cut. She made the women in her former friend group anonymous, instead framing the experience as a reminder that it was okay to walk away from relationships that no longer felt healthy.
“If a mom group always makes you feel hurt, drained, or left out, it’s not the mom group for you,” she wrote. “Choosing distance doesn’t mean being mean or critical; it allows you to be true to yourself. It’s also worth remembering that, like all relationships, friendships have seasons.”
After Tisdale published her story in The Cut, Hilary Duff’s husband Matthew Koma took aim at Tisdale’s essay. Duff is said to have been a member of a mom group that was the subject of a High School Musical Alumni essay.
Koma, 38, posted a photo of herself Photoshopped onto Tisdale’s body on her Instagram Stories on Tuesday, January 6. The photo shows him sitting on a sofa next to a houseplant, wearing rose-tinted sunglasses and all black.
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Koma added the Cut logo and a fictional caption to the photo, adding, “When you’re the most self-centered tone-deaf person on the planet, other moms tend to shift their focus to their actual toddlers,” and a subheading that read, “Moms group tells everything through dads’ eyes.”
Days later, another member of the suspect group, Meghan Trainor, posted a video to her TikTok, commenting for the first time about the drama on Thursday, January 8th.
“Obviously learned about mom group drama,” Traynor, 32, wrote on a video that included a clip of her sitting at a computer. The mother-of-two was seen typing away, staring animatedly at the screen, looking shocked. The video was set to “Still Don’t Care,” her new single from her upcoming album Toys With Me, which will be released on April 24th.
When the drama started making headlines, a source told PEOPLE that the mom group drama stemmed from a “mismatch in values.”
“What Ashley decided to go public with was a disagreement in values,” a source close to the group exclusively tells PEOPLE. “Friends naturally drift apart. There was no need for a dramatic farewell message.”
