Ashley Tisdale French is revealing how her “intense” postpartum depression battle impacted her marriage to Christopher French.
“I was so proud of myself for, like, dealing with the anxiety stuff and being like, ‘OK, now I’m ready to have a child because I feel like I’m equipped emotionally to be able to do that,’” Tisdale French, 41, recalled to her husband on the Wednesday, September 30, episode of his “Recovering” podcast, referring to her mental health struggles after welcoming daughter Jupiter in 2021. “But then, I got hit with postpartum depression, which is really hormonal and all of the tools that I had learned and knew to use, like, you can’t use. The hormonal stuff is the hardest part.”
According to the actress, her PPD battle felt “very intense.”
“I was like, ‘I know what to do and why am I still feeling this way?’” she noted. “And then, nobody was diagnosing me with it, too. That was the hardest part. I remember my OB was saying, ‘Oh, you have PMDD.’ And I’m like, ‘What is that?’ It’s some kind of worse PMS before your period, and it hits you from the two weeks before your period, so you only feel normal for two weeks. I was like, ‘Well, what do you do for it?’ And she’s like, ‘We have nothing to do for that.’”
While navigating her mental health challenges, Tisdale French also struggled in her marriage to the composer.
“Obviously, you dealt with a lot of that, and we had difficulty enduring that first year. I tried to divorce you so many times,” she said through laughter. “You’re so grounded and calm and knew to just let it blow over.”
The Disney Channel alum’s doctor formally diagnosed her with PPD upon Jupiter’s 2nd birthday. Through it all, French, 44, stood steadfast by his wife’s side.
“Viewing it from the outside is crazy,” he said. “It was so hard to watch you going through something that you couldn’t control — not that you couldn’t control [it because] we can’t really ever even control our emotions — but when it’s hormonal specifically and you mentioned that, I do think there’s a huge difference between emotional challenges and hormonal challenges. There’s almost no way to work with that. Like, it’s almost beyond your grasp.”
He continued, “You would be so loving and happy to hold Jupiter. You know, she’s just born and we’re like, ‘Wow, we got a baby and this is so crazy.’ And then within a few minutes, it was like your entire mood had shifted, like everything had changed.”
The couple welcomed their second daughter, Emerson, in 2024. The High School Musical star noted she didn’t have “the same experience” with PPD.
Call or text the National Maternal Mental Health Hotline at 833-852-6262 for free, confidential support, available 24/7 in the U.S.
