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Ashley Tisdale French and Haylie Duff shared a playdate moment between their daughters on their Instagram Stories on Tuesday, Jan. 27.
Duff, 40, shared a photo of her daughter Lulu, 7, playing under a table with Tisdale’s daughter Jupiter, 4. “Under table shenanigans,” Duff captioned the snap, which Tisdale then reposted to her Instagram Stories.
Duff and Tisdale’s friendship appears to go back several years, with Tisdale even selling her former Los Angeles home in Studio City to Duff almost 10 years ago. Duff purchased the house from Tisdale for $2.7 million in 2016, per Realtor.
The post comes amid the ongoing fallout of Tisdale’s The Cut essay, titled “Breaking Up With My Toxic Mom Group.” The mom of two initially opened up about the experience in a candid blog post titled “You’re Allowed to Leave Your Mom Group” in December 2025.
“When I became a mom, I craved connection almost as much as I craved sleep. So I did what a lot of us do. I joined a mom group,” Tisdale wrote in the viral December post. “But here’s the thing nobody prepared me for: Mom groups can turn toxic. Not because the moms themselves are toxic people, but because the dynamic shifts into an ugly place with mean-girl behavior. I know this from personal experience.”
Ashley Tisdale/Instagram
In January, Tisdale expanded on the post with her essay for The Cut. She kept the women from her former friend group anonymous, instead framing the experience as a reminder that it is okay to walk away from relationships that no longer feel healthy.
“If a mom group consistently leaves you feeling hurt, drained or left out, it’s not the mom group for you,” she wrote. “Choosing to step away doesn’t make you mean or judgmental. It makes you honest with yourself. It’s also worth remembering that friendships, like all relationships, have seasons.”
Since Tisdale published her story in The Cut, fans have speculated about members of the alleged “toxic” mom group, including Duff’s younger sister, Hilary Duff. Hilary’s husband Matthew Koma took aim at Tisdale’s essay in an Instagram Stories post on Jan. 6, in which he referred to Tisdale as “The Most Self Obsessed Tone Deaf Person On Earth.”
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On Jan. 19, at her first concert since 2015, Hilary, 38, returned to the stage at London’s O2 Shepherd’s Bush Empire, and debuted a new song titled “We Don’t Talk,” which appears to address an alleged rift with her sister, Haylie.
While Hilary did not address who the song is about, she hasn’t been seen with Haylie publicly since 2019, per the New York Post’s Page Six.
Hilary’s forthcoming album luck…or something will be released on Friday, Feb. 20, via Atlantic Records.
