Hilary Duff’s husband, Matthew Koma, has weighed in on the drama sparked by Ashley Tisdale French’s recent “toxic mom group” essay.
Taking to his Instagram Stories on Tuesday, January 6, Koma, 38, shared a tongue-in-cheek “promotion” of his own (fictional) The Cut article.
“A mom group tell-all through a father’s eyes,” Koma’s faux-post read. “When you’re the most self-obsessed tone-deaf person on earth, other moms tend to shift focus to their actual toddlers.”
The text was written atop a photo of Koma, who has been married to Duff, 38, since 2019, posing seriously on a couch for the camera while the New York Times’ fashion title’s logo was inserted to the top of the photo. “Read my new interview with @thecut,” Koma joked above the cheeky creation.
Us Weekly has reached out to French for comment.
The dig comes after French, 40, wrote a piece for The Cut, published on Thursday, January 1, about a “toxic mom group” she turned her back on, which led the internet to speculate whether she was referring to her celeb group of mom friends that includes Duff, Mandy Moore, Megan Trainor and more.
A representative for French later denied the speculation in a statement to TMZ on Monday, January 5. The outlet noted that French’s rep added that her “Breaking Up With My Toxic Mom Group” article was written to spotlight a relatable issue for women who have been shut out of a friend group.
French’s essay read, “There’s one recent topic that has made my phone blow up like no other since I first wrote about it a few weeks ago. It’s a subject that has made women DM me to say ‘I feel seen’ and to share their most emotional stories with me.”
The High School Musical star, who shares daughters Jupiter, 4, and Emerson, 15 months, with husband Christopher French, continued, “It’s one that has also made wannabe online sleuths try to do some investigating like they’re on CSI (please, don’t even try — whatever you think is true isn’t even close). The topic? Mom-group drama.”
For Duff’s part, she shares three children with Koma: daughters Banks, 7, Mae, 4, and Townes, 20 months. Duff also shares a son, Luca, 13, with ex-husband Mike Comrie.
Ashley previously wrote about feeling lucky to find likeminded friends while falling pregnant during the coronavirus pandemic. Over time, however, the actress detailed how she began to feel disjointed from her fellow moms.
“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 previously wrote. “I was starting to feel frozen out of the group, noticing every way that they seemed to exclude me. … I told myself it was all in my head, and it wasn’t a big deal. And yet, I could sense a growing distance between me and the other members of the group, who seemed to not even care that I wasn’t around much.”
She then texted the group, claiming that she told them that it felt “too high school for me, and I don’t want to take part in it anymore.”
