{"id":504030,"date":"2026-02-25T22:49:09","date_gmt":"2026-02-25T22:49:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/504030\/"},"modified":"2026-02-25T22:49:09","modified_gmt":"2026-02-25T22:49:09","slug":"the-timing-felt-not-great","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/504030\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018The Timing Felt Not Great\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hilary Duff<\/a> has broken her silence on the \u201ctoxic\u201d mom group drama started by an Ashley Tisdale op-ed, and according to the Lizzie McGuire actress, she was just as surprised as the rest of the world was when it was published.<\/p>\n

While guesting on an episode of Call Her Daddy posted Wednesday (Feb. 25), Duff was candid about the fallout of the High School Musical alum\u2019s January essay about \u201cbreaking up\u201d with an exclusionary group of mom friends \u2014 which the internet quickly deduced likely included the How I Met Your Father star \u2014 after refraining from speaking on the topic for a couple of months. When host Alex Cooper first brought up how fans had put together that her guest was likely one of the mothers to whom Tisdale had referred in her piece, Duff replied sardonically, \u201cI don\u2019t really think people had to connect very many dots, do you?\u201d<\/p>\n

More from Billboard<\/p>\n

She went on to say that she \u201cfelt really sad\u201d and \u201ctaken aback\u201d when Tisdale\u2019s piece came out \u2014 especially because, according to Duff, the claims her fellow former Disney Channel star made weren\u2019t accurate. \u201cMotherhood has brought on, like \u2014 I have my core group of friends who have been my ride or die for 20 years, 10 to 20 years, and I have tons of different groups of mom friends because I have four kids, you know?\u201d she told Cooper. \u201cSo, I think I just was like, \u2018Whoa.\u2019 It sucks to read something that\u2019s not true, and it sucks on behalf of, like, six women and all of their lives.\u201d<\/p>\n

The interview comes after Tisdale penned her essay for The Cut, in which she wrote that her former friend group had made her feel \u201cleft out\u201d and like she was \u201cback in high school.\u201d Though Duff was quickly thrown into the center of the discourse, prying onlookers also speculated that Mandy Moore and Meghan Trainor were in the so-called \u201ctoxic\u201d mom group as well.<\/p>\n

Shortly after the piece came out, though, Duff\u2019s husband, Matthew Koma \u2014 the father of three of her children and stepfather to oldest son Luca \u2014 left little room for doubt about Tisdale\u2019s unnamed subjects when he posted a parody<\/a> of The Cut headline. \u201cWhen You\u2019re The Most Self Obsessed Tone Deaf Person On Earth, Other Moms Tend To Shift Focus To Their Actual Toddlers,\u201d he\u2019d teased.<\/p>\n

On Call Her Daddy, Duff said she didn\u2019t realize Koma was going to post the barbed spoof. \u201cHonestly, everything he does makes me laugh, so I was like, \u2018Oh my god,’\u201d she said. \u201cBut I also don\u2019t censor him, and I don\u2019t tell him what he can and can\u2019t post. He is so fierce for me, and I love him for that.\u201d<\/p>\n

As for whether she has anything to clarify in regards to Tisdale\u2019s claims, Duff said pointedly, \u201cNope.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it came at like the craziest time where I was, like \u2026 the timing felt not great, and I felt used,\u201d she added, implying that her current musical comeback was the catalyst for Tisdale to write her article. In the weeks since it came out, Duff has received acclaim for releasing her first album in more than 10 years, Luck \u2026 or Something, earlier in February, and in June, she\u2019ll embark on a sprawling arena tour<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Billboard has reached out to Tisdale\u2019s rep for comment.<\/p>\n

Luck \u2026 or Something dropped Feb. 20, marking a major full-circle moment for Duff. Her last LP, Breathe In. Breathe Out, dropped in 2015 and reached No. 5 on the Billboard 200<\/a>, marking her seventh entry on the chart to date.<\/p>\n

Check out Duff\u2019s full interview with Cooper on Call Her Daddy above.<\/p>\n

\"Billboard<\/a><\/p>\n

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Sign up for Billboard’s Newsletter<\/a>. For the latest news, follow us on Facebook<\/a>, Twitter<\/a>, and Instagram<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Hilary Duff has broken her silence on the \u201ctoxic\u201d mom group drama started by an Ashley Tisdale op-ed,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":504031,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[67688,19017,64,63,447,134,91819,253317],"class_list":{"0":"post-504030","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-celebrities","8":"tag-alex-cooper","9":"tag-ashley-tisdale","10":"tag-au","11":"tag-australia","12":"tag-celebrities","13":"tag-entertainment","14":"tag-hilary-duff","15":"tag-mom-friends"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/504030","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=504030"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/504030\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/504031"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=504030"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=504030"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=504030"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}