Meghan Trainor and Ashley Tisdale French have no bad blood between them after the “toxic” mom group drama that took over the internet earlier this year.
“I felt bad for Ashley,” Trainor, 32, exclusively told Us Weekly in this week’s cover story while promoting her seventh album, Toy With Me (out April 24), and her upcoming Get In Girl Tour. “I felt bad that she was ever that sad, and I think it was just a lot of miscommunication and confusion. I don’t know what happened, but I wish them all the best.”
French, 40, made headlines in January when she published an essay for The Cut titled, “Breaking Up With My Toxic Mom Group,” in which she detailed feeling excluded by her mom friends and her decision to leave the group via text message. Though the Disney Channel alum did not directly name anyone in the essay, fans quickly speculated that the piece was partially referencing Trainor, Hilary Duff and Mandy Moore, as French was known to spend time with a mom group that included these celebs.
“I texted all of them,” Trainor recalled to Us. “Ashley texted me like, ‘I’m sorry, your name got dragged in.’ And I was like, ‘It’s all right, girl, like, the world’s a silly, crazy place, and they just want something to talk about.’”
After French’s essay went viral, Trainor made a TikTok video hinting that she had no idea what the mom group drama was all about.
“Me finding out about the apparent mom group drama,” she wrote over a video of herself typing on her computer and sipping coffee. The video was set to her song “Still Don’t Care” — the first single she released from Toy With Me.
Trainor explained to Us that she hasn’t seen French or her other mom friends in a while, joking that she’s a “bad mom friend” who never attended any of the group’s “awesome” events. The pop star added that she last saw the group “a year ago” when she paid for dinner as an apology for her absence.
“There was a group chat, but, like, eventually they started a group chat without me because I wasn’t there. And I was like, ‘That’s totally fine,’” she continued. “And we were all good, and then [the essay] popped up, and I was like, ‘What?’ … And I just saw my face everywhere, and [I was like,] ‘Wait a second, I am not even there.’”
Trainor said she also received apology texts from other members of the mom group after her name got “dragged into” the drama.
“It was a nightmare for a lot of moms in that group,” she said. “I felt really, really bad. And like, I’m used to [the hate]. … So I said, ‘Don’t worry, guys, it’s all on me.’ But some moms don’t want to be famous [or] never wanted attention on them at all, and they were like, ‘I was un-Googleable, and now I’m everywhere, and I’m devastated.’”
Despite the drama, Trainor said she misses having a group of mom friends.
“I could use one right now,” she told Us, adding that there’s “no time” in her busy schedule amid her career and being a mom to her three kids with husband Daryl Sabara — sons Riley, 5, and Barry, 2, and daughter Mikey Moon, who was born via surrogate in January.
“It’s so hard to make mom friends [in] this season of life,” she said.
Trainor wrote her latest single, “Get in Girl,” about wanting a friend who can be a shoulder to lean on in times of need.
“That’s kind of what I dream of, is some girl pulling up being like, ‘Let’s go shopping. F*** all this.’ Like, ‘Let’s get out of here,’” she said.
