Ashley Tisdale is using her so-called toxic mom group drama as inspiration for a new Netflix comedy, called Toxic Moms, which is now in development.
The High School Musical actor, who is expected to star in the comedy, has teamed up with Search Party actor Sabrina Jalees and Beef’s Ali Wong to create a standalone film about a sleep-deprived new mom who is part of a clique of wealthy mothers that turns dark.
If that sounds familiar — it’s because Tisdale published a viral essay earlier this year, calling out “mean girl behavior” in her Hollywood mom group.
Deadline reports that Tisdale, Jalees and Wong will executive produce Toxic Moms, and that Wong may direct it if the comedy is continued as a series.
Tisdale shared the show announcement on Instagram, captioning the post: “I guess we all can be a little toxic.”
Earlier this year, Tisdale wrote an essay for The Cut titled “Breaking Up with My Toxic Mom Group” about her decision to join a “village of moms” after her first daughter, Jupiter, was born in 2021. But Tisdale said the dynamic took a turn for the worse, shifting “into an ugly place with mean-girl behavior,” which prompted her to leave the group.
Tisdale claimed she was “frozen out” from the larger group when she noticed photos on social media of everyone else at a hangout without her.
Although Tisdale did not specify who was in the group, fans speculated that it included several of Tisdale’s celebrity friends, including entertainers Hilary Duff, Mandy Moore and Meghan Trainor, who have since distanced themselves from the drama.
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Duff said that the controversy made her feel “really sad” during an interview with the podcast Call Her Daddy, saying that she disagreed with the claims made in the essay.
“So I think I just was like, ‘Woah,’” Duff said. “It sucks to read something that’s, like, not true. And it sucks on behalf of, like, six women in all of their lives.”
Following the publication of the essay, Duff’s husband, Matthew Koma, came to his wife’s defense, posting a fake magazine cover of himself, with the headline: “A mom group tell all through a father’s eyes: When You’re the Most Self-Obsessed Tone Deaf Person on Earth, Other Moms Tend to Shift Focus To Their Actual Toddlers.”
Moore, who was thought to be in Tisdale’s mom group, also called the claims “upsetting” in an interview with Andy Cohen on SiriusXM in May.
“It just cuts to the core,” said Moore. “The most important thing in my life is being a kind person and like that legacy of kindness, and anyone even insinuating that that might not be the case… is very upsetting.”
Meanwhile, Trainor made light of the viral essay in a TikTok post. “Me finding out about the apparent mom group drama,” she captioned the TikTok, which showed her sitting at her computer, shocked and furiously typing while sipping tea.
A representative for Tisdale told TMZ at the time that there was “zero truth” to the speculation that Tisdale was referring to Moore, Duff and Trainor, after pictures of them hanging together in recent years began to surface.