Breaking up with my toxic mom group (Ashley Tisdale essay)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Per Reddit “ I follow Ashley, Hilary, and Mandy on IG. I noticed a shift around the time of the fires in California last year. Mandy’s family was affected by the fires. Her, her husband and their children all lived with Hilary for a couple of months due to the fire damage in their home. Other members of Mandy’s family completely lost their homes. I remember Ashley being super tone deaf around this time posting about how grateful she was that she wasn’t affected by the fires and continued talking about plans to build her vacation home. She wasn’t pictured with the mom group again after this. I have a feeling that that affected her relationship within the mom group.”

Eh, it's not straightforward. Mandy Moore posted a link to her brother's Go Fund Me after the fires (he also lost his house) which was ALSO tone deaf because why the hell is Mandy Moore asking her fans to donate money so that her [rich] brother can rebuild his Palisades house, when she is also rich? I feel bad for anyone who loses their house in a fire, of course that is going to be very hard to deal with and move on from, but also have some self awareness as a wealthy celebrity -- these people have resources most people do not have. So accusing Tisdale of being "tone deaf" is odd to me because being tone deaf is kind of a broad Hollywood quality.

The way this reads to me is that Hillary and Mandy were the Queen Bees of their friend group, and that the expectation when Mandy's house burned down is that all the other women in the group would fall all over themselves trying to help her (even though Mandy has enough resources to largely just help herself). It was a competition to prove how devoted you were to the Queen. And Ashley didn't play that game for whatever reason (maybe she was oblivious, maybe she knew what was going on and found it lame, maybe she was already sick of this group, maybe she specifically dislikes Mandy, who knows) and her punishment was that everyone closed ranks against her.

In a toxic group like this, it's always "rules for thee but not for me" from the people at the top of the hierarchy. It *is* toxic, and trying to get the public on the side of the Queen Bees is just an extension of that toxic behavior. You really want to convince me that Mandy Moore and Hillary Duff are victims here? Please. There are no victims. It's just a bunch of petty people trying to one up each other (and yeah, Tisdale was trying to one up when she wrote the essay -- that doesn't mean she's wrong about the underlying dynamics though).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Hilary Duff's husband just responded lol

https://www.reddit.com/r/Fauxmoi/comments/1q61jgw/matthew_koma_hilary_duffs_husband_getting_in_on/

Oh, this is how you know Tisdale is spot on in diagnosing this group as toxic. Look how *invested* Hilary's loser husband is in some petty ass drama. Huge red flag.

The biggest Queen B I've ever encountered, through a hobby I was involved in, had an attack dog, er, *husband* like this. He'd spread rumors about the women in the hobby that his wife viewed as threats or didn't like for whatever reason. Like he'd talk $hit about some woman he barely knew while having drinks with this group, just because his wife had told him privately that said woman was "jealous" of her. It was so deeply immature.

I abandoned that group for a whole host of reasons but one of them was that my DH very quickly recognized how toxic they were and was like "uh, I do not want to hang out with these people." He's a very stand up guy and a good judge of character, and could see the writing on the wall well before I could. So glad I'm not married to a messy b***h who loves drama instead.

Okay. My husband wouldn’t tolerate this either, but I do think it would be fun to be married to someone who loved drama and wanted to chat about it. It probably wouldn’t be good for me or make me a better person, but it would be fun.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Per Reddit “ I follow Ashley, Hilary, and Mandy on IG. I noticed a shift around the time of the fires in California last year. Mandy’s family was affected by the fires. Her, her husband and their children all lived with Hilary for a couple of months due to the fire damage in their home. Other members of Mandy’s family completely lost their homes. I remember Ashley being super tone deaf around this time posting about how grateful she was that she wasn’t affected by the fires and continued talking about plans to build her vacation home. She wasn’t pictured with the mom group again after this. I have a feeling that that affected her relationship within the mom group.”

Eh, it's not straightforward. Mandy Moore posted a link to her brother's Go Fund Me after the fires (he also lost his house) which was ALSO tone deaf because why the hell is Mandy Moore asking her fans to donate money so that her [rich] brother can rebuild his Palisades house, when she is also rich? I feel bad for anyone who loses their house in a fire, of course that is going to be very hard to deal with and move on from, but also have some self awareness as a wealthy celebrity -- these people have resources most people do not have. So accusing Tisdale of being "tone deaf" is odd to me because being tone deaf is kind of a broad Hollywood quality.

The way this reads to me is that Hillary and Mandy were the Queen Bees of their friend group, and that the expectation when Mandy's house burned down is that all the other women in the group would fall all over themselves trying to help her (even though Mandy has enough resources to largely just help herself). It was a competition to prove how devoted you were to the Queen. And Ashley didn't play that game for whatever reason (maybe she was oblivious, maybe she knew what was going on and found it lame, maybe she was already sick of this group, maybe she specifically dislikes Mandy, who knows) and her punishment was that everyone closed ranks against her.

In a toxic group like this, it's always "rules for thee but not for me" from the people at the top of the hierarchy. It *is* toxic, and trying to get the public on the side of the Queen Bees is just an extension of that toxic behavior. You really want to convince me that Mandy Moore and Hillary Duff are victims here? Please. There are no victims. It's just a bunch of petty people trying to one up each other (and yeah, Tisdale was trying to one up when she wrote the essay -- that doesn't mean she's wrong about the underlying dynamics though).

This sounds so right.

My husband’s boss lost her house in a flood a few years ago. She’s an orthopedic surgeon and could afford to replace things. I thought it was crazy to give her money when so many other poor people needed it, but DH spent $700 replacing his boss kid’s legos. Honestly, he was right to do it. I don’t think she explicitly said anything, but it clearly changed her perspective of him.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Hilary Duff's husband just responded lol

https://www.reddit.com/r/Fauxmoi/comments/1q61jgw/matthew_koma_hilary_duffs_husband_getting_in_on/

Oh, this is how you know Tisdale is spot on in diagnosing this group as toxic. Look how *invested* Hilary's loser husband is in some petty ass drama. Huge red flag.

The biggest Queen B I've ever encountered, through a hobby I was involved in, had an attack dog, er, *husband* like this. He'd spread rumors about the women in the hobby that his wife viewed as threats or didn't like for whatever reason. Like he'd talk $hit about some woman he barely knew while having drinks with this group, just because his wife had told him privately that said woman was "jealous" of her. It was so deeply immature.

I abandoned that group for a whole host of reasons but one of them was that my DH very quickly recognized how toxic they were and was like "uh, I do not want to hang out with these people." He's a very stand up guy and a good judge of character, and could see the writing on the wall well before I could. So glad I'm not married to a messy b***h who loves drama instead.

Okay. My husband wouldn’t tolerate this either, but I do think it would be fun to be married to someone who loved drama and wanted to chat about it. It probably wouldn’t be good for me or make me a better person, but it would be fun.

Oh, you can be with someone who loves drama. Not married, but my boyfriend and I love sharing gossip with each other. I'll share my messiest friend's sordid details and he'll share his dumb ass coworker's dating debacles. But the difference between him and Hillary's husband is that my boyfriend would never get involved publicly.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Hilary Duff's husband just responded lol

https://www.reddit.com/r/Fauxmoi/comments/1q61jgw/matthew_koma_hilary_duffs_husband_getting_in_on/

Oh, this is how you know Tisdale is spot on in diagnosing this group as toxic. Look how *invested* Hilary's loser husband is in some petty ass drama. Huge red flag.

The biggest Queen B I've ever encountered, through a hobby I was involved in, had an attack dog, er, *husband* like this. He'd spread rumors about the women in the hobby that his wife viewed as threats or didn't like for whatever reason. Like he'd talk $hit about some woman he barely knew while having drinks with this group, just because his wife had told him privately that said woman was "jealous" of her. It was so deeply immature.

I abandoned that group for a whole host of reasons but one of them was that my DH very quickly recognized how toxic they were and was like "uh, I do not want to hang out with these people." He's a very stand up guy and a good judge of character, and could see the writing on the wall well before I could. So glad I'm not married to a messy b***h who loves drama instead.

Okay. My husband wouldn’t tolerate this either, but I do think it would be fun to be married to someone who loved drama and wanted to chat about it. It probably wouldn’t be good for me or make me a better person, but it would be fun.

Oh, you can be with someone who loves drama. Not married, but my boyfriend and I love sharing gossip with each other. I'll share my messiest friend's sordid details and he'll share his dumb ass coworker's dating debacles. But the difference between him and Hillary's husband is that my boyfriend would never get involved publicly.

+1 DH and I watch some Real Housewives franchises together and he has plenty of opinions on the drama! But he also cringes even harder than I do when a husband tries to get involved in a fight between the women or one-up a shady comment at the reunion or something. Enjoying drama generally is one thing, men being cattier than women in a girl fight is another.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Hilary Duff's husband just responded lol

https://www.reddit.com/r/Fauxmoi/comments/1q61jgw/matthew_koma_hilary_duffs_husband_getting_in_on/

Oh, this is how you know Tisdale is spot on in diagnosing this group as toxic. Look how *invested* Hilary's loser husband is in some petty ass drama. Huge red flag.

The biggest Queen B I've ever encountered, through a hobby I was involved in, had an attack dog, er, *husband* like this. He'd spread rumors about the women in the hobby that his wife viewed as threats or didn't like for whatever reason. Like he'd talk $hit about some woman he barely knew while having drinks with this group, just because his wife had told him privately that said woman was "jealous" of her. It was so deeply immature.

I abandoned that group for a whole host of reasons but one of them was that my DH very quickly recognized how toxic they were and was like "uh, I do not want to hang out with these people." He's a very stand up guy and a good judge of character, and could see the writing on the wall well before I could. So glad I'm not married to a messy b***h who loves drama instead.

Okay. My husband wouldn’t tolerate this either, but I do think it would be fun to be married to someone who loved drama and wanted to chat about it. It probably wouldn’t be good for me or make me a better person, but it would be fun.

I think it could be fun to have a DH who wanted to gossip with me, at home, on our own.

I do not think it would be fun to have a DH who publicly called out other women in the pettiest way possible. It's a man being publicly nasty and critical/condescending to a woman because his wife's feelings were hurt, and in doing so he had valley confirms that his wife was the agressor here.

Also FYI, Duff's husband also publicly abused with Johnny Depp in the whole Depp/Heard situation. He's an ahole.

[Anonymous]

Sorry, that should say "publicly sided" with Depp. Weird Freudian auto-correct.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Hilary Duff's husband just responded lol

https://www.reddit.com/r/Fauxmoi/comments/1q61jgw/matthew_koma_hilary_duffs_husband_getting_in_on/

Oh, this is how you know Tisdale is spot on in diagnosing this group as toxic. Look how *invested* Hilary's loser husband is in some petty ass drama. Huge red flag.

The biggest Queen B I've ever encountered, through a hobby I was involved in, had an attack dog, er, *husband* like this. He'd spread rumors about the women in the hobby that his wife viewed as threats or didn't like for whatever reason. Like he'd talk $hit about some woman he barely knew while having drinks with this group, just because his wife had told him privately that said woman was "jealous" of her. It was so deeply immature.

I abandoned that group for a whole host of reasons but one of them was that my DH very quickly recognized how toxic they were and was like "uh, I do not want to hang out with these people." He's a very stand up guy and a good judge of character, and could see the writing on the wall well before I could. So glad I'm not married to a messy b***h who loves drama instead.

Okay. My husband wouldn’t tolerate this either, but I do think it would be fun to be married to someone who loved drama and wanted to chat about it. It probably wouldn’t be good for me or make me a better person, but it would be fun.

I think it could be fun to have a DH who wanted to gossip with me, at home, on our own.

I do not think it would be fun to have a DH who publicly called out other women in the pettiest way possible. It's a man being publicly nasty and critical/condescending to a woman because his wife's feelings were hurt, and in doing so he had valley confirms that his wife was the agressor here.

Also FYI, Duff's husband also publicly abused with Johnny Depp in the whole Depp/Heard situation. He's an ahole.

Yep.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Hilary Duff's husband just responded lol

https://www.reddit.com/r/Fauxmoi/comments/1q61jgw/matthew_koma_hilary_duffs_husband_getting_in_on/

That's even weirder, IMO. She never mentioned Hilary Duff by name, so why is he chiming in.

It's almost like all of these C-list former teen starlets, some of whom have projects/albums coming out are competing to see who can get the most facetime in tabloids.

The husband sounds like a petty loser. Looks like Ashley had their number.

Hilary and Megan both have albums coming out this year, Mandy has a new show and Gaby's opening a restaurant.

It's super weird of Hilary's husband to respond to an article widely presumed to be about his wife but never explicitly mentioning her. Like, you literally just confirmed it was her. But no one even knows who he is and as the breadwinner Hilary quite literally has to sing for their suppers, so I can see why he'd try to keep the spotlight on her in advance of the album.

I think this whole thing is ridiculous and I forgot Hilary Duff existed but her name has been mentioned dozens of times in this thread and the pictures I saw on People.com all had her in them, so I think it was pretty much a foregone conclusion that she was part of the group that was being talked about. It's not like whatever her husband's name is posting about it is what connected Hilary to the group.

Who knows why he did it. He could be a fame whore. He could be just as petty and mean as Ashley portrays the women in the group. Or he could have a legitimate point if Ashley's take is wrong. Who knows.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Hilary Duff, Mandy Moore, Meghan Trainor, and Ashley Tisdale in a toxic mommy group really sounds like the C-list premise for a Mean Girls reboot.

True. But please don't mention their names in the same sentence as that movie again. That movie was great. These women are c-list at best.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Hilary Duff's husband just responded lol

https://www.reddit.com/r/Fauxmoi/comments/1q61jgw/matthew_koma_hilary_duffs_husband_getting_in_on/

That's even weirder, IMO. She never mentioned Hilary Duff by name, so why is he chiming in.

It's almost like all of these C-list former teen starlets, some of whom have projects/albums coming out are competing to see who can get the most facetime in tabloids.

The husband sounds like a petty loser. Looks like Ashley had their number.

Hilary and Megan both have albums coming out this year, Mandy has a new show and Gaby's opening a restaurant.

It's super weird of Hilary's husband to respond to an article widely presumed to be about his wife but never explicitly mentioning her. Like, you literally just confirmed it was her. But no one even knows who he is and as the breadwinner Hilary quite literally has to sing for their suppers, so I can see why he'd try to keep the spotlight on her in advance of the album.

I think this whole thing is ridiculous and I forgot Hilary Duff existed but her name has been mentioned dozens of times in this thread and the pictures I saw on People.com all had her in them, so I think it was pretty much a foregone conclusion that she was part of the group that was being talked about. It's not like whatever her husband's name is posting about it is what connected Hilary to the group.

Who knows why he did it. He could be a fame whore. He could be just as petty and mean as Ashley portrays the women in the group. Or he could have a legitimate point if Ashley's take is wrong. Who knows.

Well we do know he looks like a total loser beefing with one of his wife's friends/former friends in such an embarrassing way. What kind of self respecting man acts like that?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I admit I didn't real this article, but I also am totally disinterested in female drama. I can't really imagine being part of a "friend group" and worrying about where I'm sat, or who invited who. I either am friends with people because I feel good about our relationship, or I'm not. What is the difference between people who really really care about female relationships to the point that they analyze them for fault and make issues about it, and people who just...don't?

Insecurity? That's my main guess. I'm with you, I haven't seen drama like this before and it all sounds really silly. Some people have posted that maybe one person hasn't experienced this before, but I imagine if I polled 20 of my girlfriends they would all say they've never been part of a group like this. Given that we've been friends for decades I imagine I would have heard of it before if they had. And many of us were in sororities and still didn't witness nonsense like this.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Hilary Duff's husband just responded lol

https://www.reddit.com/r/Fauxmoi/comments/1q61jgw/matthew_koma_hilary_duffs_husband_getting_in_on/

That's even weirder, IMO. She never mentioned Hilary Duff by name, so why is he chiming in.

It's almost like all of these C-list former teen starlets, some of whom have projects/albums coming out are competing to see who can get the most facetime in tabloids.

The husband sounds like a petty loser. Looks like Ashley had their number.

Hilary and Megan both have albums coming out this year, Mandy has a new show and Gaby's opening a restaurant.

It's super weird of Hilary's husband to respond to an article widely presumed to be about his wife but never explicitly mentioning her. Like, you literally just confirmed it was her. But no one even knows who he is and as the breadwinner Hilary quite literally has to sing for their suppers, so I can see why he'd try to keep the spotlight on her in advance of the album.

I think this whole thing is ridiculous and I forgot Hilary Duff existed but her name has been mentioned dozens of times in this thread and the pictures I saw on People.com all had her in them, so I think it was pretty much a foregone conclusion that she was part of the group that was being talked about. It's not like whatever her husband's name is posting about it is what connected Hilary to the group.

Who knows why he did it. He could be a fame whore. He could be just as petty and mean as Ashley portrays the women in the group. Or he could have a legitimate point if Ashley's take is wrong. Who knows.

I mean, yeah, it was pretty much assumed that Hilary was one of the moms in the group. It's a lot of late 30s/early 40s former Disney stars. But she was never explicitly mentioned by Ashley.

I just don't get why he felt the need to respond to it. The fact that he did makes him and Hilary look like the aholes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Per Reddit “ I follow Ashley, Hilary, and Mandy on IG. I noticed a shift around the time of the fires in California last year. Mandy’s family was affected by the fires. Her, her husband and their children all lived with Hilary for a couple of months due to the fire damage in their home. Other members of Mandy’s family completely lost their homes. I remember Ashley being super tone deaf around this time posting about how grateful she was that she wasn’t affected by the fires and continued talking about plans to build her vacation home. She wasn’t pictured with the mom group again after this. I have a feeling that that affected her relationship within the mom group.”

Eh, it's not straightforward. Mandy Moore posted a link to her brother's Go Fund Me after the fires (he also lost his house) which was ALSO tone deaf because why the hell is Mandy Moore asking her fans to donate money so that her [rich] brother can rebuild his Palisades house, when she is also rich? I feel bad for anyone who loses their house in a fire, of course that is going to be very hard to deal with and move on from, but also have some self awareness as a wealthy celebrity -- these people have resources most people do not have. So accusing Tisdale of being "tone deaf" is odd to me because being tone deaf is kind of a broad Hollywood quality.

The way this reads to me is that Hillary and Mandy were the Queen Bees of their friend group, and that the expectation when Mandy's house burned down is that all the other women in the group would fall all over themselves trying to help her (even though Mandy has enough resources to largely just help herself). It was a competition to prove how devoted you were to the Queen. And Ashley didn't play that game for whatever reason (maybe she was oblivious, maybe she knew what was going on and found it lame, maybe she was already sick of this group, maybe she specifically dislikes Mandy, who knows) and her punishment was that everyone closed ranks against her.

In a toxic group like this, it's always "rules for thee but not for me" from the people at the top of the hierarchy. It *is* toxic, and trying to get the public on the side of the Queen Bees is just an extension of that toxic behavior. You really want to convince me that Mandy Moore and Hillary Duff are victims here? Please. There are no victims. It's just a bunch of petty people trying to one up each other (and yeah, Tisdale was trying to one up when she wrote the essay -- that doesn't mean she's wrong about the underlying dynamics though).

This sounds so right.

My husband’s boss lost her house in a flood a few years ago. She’s an orthopedic surgeon and could afford to replace things. I thought it was crazy to give her money when so many other poor people needed it, but DH spent $700 replacing his boss kid’s legos. Honestly, he was right to do it. I don’t think she explicitly said anything, but it clearly changed her perspective of him.

WTAF??

[Anonymous]

Well Hillary's sister Hailey Duff liked both Tisdale's post about her essay and the Cut's post of the essay.

Interesting.