Hilary Duff‘s husband and singer-songwriter, Matthew Koma, is weighing in on Ashley Tisdale‘s recent essay in The Cut, in which she explained that she had to leave her “toxic mom group.”
On Tuesday, in a post that was viewed by The Hollywood Reporter, and now deleted, Koma shared a photo of himself photoshopped onto Tisdale’s body with a fictional headline that reads: “When You’re The Most Self Obsessed Tone Deaf Person On Earth, Other Moms Tend To Shift Focus To Their Actual Toddlers.” He also includes the subhead: “A Mom Group Tell All Through A Father’s Eyes.” And captioned the post: “Read my new interview with @TheCut.”
THR reached out to Tisdale and Duff’s reps for comment but didn’t hear back.
Koma’s post comes after Tisdale revealed that she once felt like she found her “village” of people but was then excluded from her friend group and had to end those friendships in an essay in The Cut, titled “Breaking Up With My Toxic Mom Group,” published on Monday. While Tisdale doesn’t mention the moms by name, she was previously in a mom group that included Duff.
“I remember being left out of a couple of group hangs, and I knew about them because Instagram made sure it fed me every single photo and Instagram Story,” she wrote. “Another time, at one of the mom’s dinner parties, I realized where I sat with her — which was at the end of the table, far from the rest of the women. I was starting to feel frozen out of the group, noticing every way that they seemed to exclude me. At first, I tried not to take things personally. It’s not like people aren’t allowed to get together without me — and maybe there were perfectly good reasons that I hadn’t been invited. We were all busy, life was hectic.”
She continued, “As I increasingly felt left out, I remembered something. Or rather, someone. During the early days of the group, there was another mom who often wasn’t included. I’d picked up on hints of a weird dynamic, but at the time, I didn’t dwell on it too much. 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 High School Musical actress added that she doesn’t know why she was excluded and “probably never will.” She also described how the experience made her feel like she was “in high school again” and “totally lost.” All of which led her to reach out to the group and express how she felt.
“That’s exactly what I texted to the group after being left out from yet another group hang: ‘This is too high school for me and I don’t want to take part in it anymore.’ It didn’t exactly go over well,” she recalled. “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.”
The actress concluded her essay by sharing a message for people who have gone through similar experiences. “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,” she wrote. “Even if it looks like they’re having the best time on Instagram.”