Inside Ashley Tisdale’s Exit from Former Mom Group (Exclusive Source)

Sources around Ashley Tisdale and her former mom group are shedding light on their now-viral falling-out.

“It was a misalignment of values that Ashley decided to make public,” a source close to the group tells PEOPLE exclusively. “Friends naturally drift apart. It didn’t warrant a dramatic breakup text.” 

Tisdale French, 40, recently penned a personal essay published in The Cut on Thursday, Jan. 1, in which she discussed leaving her “toxic” group of mom friends. The actress, who is mom to daughters Jupiter, 4, and Emerson, 15 months, originally published the essay in November 2025, on her blog titled: “You’re allowed to leave the mom group.”

While she did not name the women from her former friend group in her essay, fans quickly zeroed in on past photos showing her spending time with a group that included Hilary Duff, food influencer Gaby Dalkin, Meghan Trainor, Mandy Moore and others.

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Reps for Tisdale, Duff, Koma, Moore, Trainor and Dalkin have not responded to requests for comment from PEOPLE.

“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,” Tisdale French wrote. “I know this from personal experience. In my mom group, I started to notice that certain people would get talked about when they weren’t present, and not in a positive way.”

Tisdale French continued: “I realized that there were group text chains that didn’t include everyone, which led to cliques forming within the larger group. And after the third or fourth time of seeing social media photos of everyone else at a hangout that I didn’t get invited to, it felt like I wasn’t really part of the group after all.”

A second source says Tisdale French had been feeling a “disconnect” with the group in the months before she left.

“Ashley put this out there because [she wants people to know] toxic behavior is not acceptable,” says the source, adding that “this is blowing up in the craziest way.”

On Tuesday, Jan. 6, Hilary Duff’s husband Matthew Koma slammed Tisdale’s essay on his Instagram Stories, in which he photoshopped his face onto Tisdale French’s body and included his own fictional 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.” A sub-headline read, “A Mom Group Tell All Through A Father’s Eyes.”

While Tisdale French still followed Trainor on Instagram as of Wednesday, Jan. 7, she no longer followed Dalkin, Duff or Moore — who still follows the former High School Musical star — on the platform.

“If a mom group consistently leaves you feeling hurt, drained or left out, it’s not the mom group for you,” Tisdale wrote in her essay. “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.”