Hilary Duff’s husband, Matthew Koma, has weighed in on the conversation surrounding Ashley Tisdale’s decision to walk away from what she described as a “toxic” celebrity mom group — and he did so with pointed satire.
Koma, 38, shared a photoshopped image to his Instagram Story on Tuesday, Jan. 6, placing his own face onto Tisdale’s body. In the image, he sits on a couch beside a houseplant, dressed in an all-black outfit and rose-tinted sunglasses.
He overlaid the image with The Cut’s logo and a 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 subhead added, “A Mom Group Tell-All Through a Father’s Eyes.”
“Read my new interview with @TheCut,” Koma wrote, making it clear the post was meant as a tongue-in-cheek jab.
The Story appeared to directly target Tisdale’s recent personal essay published in The Cut on Monday, Jan. 5.
In that essay, Tisdale, 40, kept the identities of the women in her former friend group anonymous, framing her experience as a broader lesson about recognizing unhealthy dynamics and giving oneself permission to leave relationships that no longer feel supportive.
“If a mom group consistently leaves you feeling hurt, drained or left out, it’s not the mom group for you,” Tisdale 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.”
She explained that her decision followed a series of small but painful moments. When she first noticed she was no longer being invited to group gatherings, she tried to rationalize it.
“We were all busy, life was hectic. I told myself it was all in my head and it wasn’t a big deal,” she wrote. But after repeatedly seeing photos of the group together without her, she began to feel the exclusion was intentional.
“As I increasingly felt left out, I remembered something. Or rather, someone,” Tisdale reflected. Early in the group’s formation, there had been another mom who was often excluded — a pattern she initially overlooked while enjoying the sense of belonging. “Now it seemed that this group had a pattern of leaving someone out. And that someone had become me. Why me? The truth is, I don’t know and I probably never will.”
Tisdale’s essay followed the viral success of her December 2025 blog post, “You’re Allowed to Leave Your Mom Group.” In it, she described how motherhood intensified her desire for connection — and how quickly that connection can sour.
“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,” she wrote. “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.”
Koma’s post adds a sharp, sarcastic counterpoint to a conversation that has sparked strong reactions online, highlighting just how polarizing discussions about friendship, motherhood, and public vulnerability can be.
