Jenna Bush Hager Criticizes Ashley Tisdale’s Scathing Essay About Leaving Her 'Toxic' Mom Group: 'Private Conversations Are More Important'

Jenna Bush Hager didn’t hold back in her critique of Ashley Tisdale’s recent essay.

During the Tuesday, January 6, episode of TODAY With Jenna & Friends, the talk show host, 44, called out the actress for publicly putting her mom group on blast.

Tisdale, 40, published an essay in The Cut called “Breaking Up With My Toxic Mom Group,” which Bush Hager thought should have been reserved for a private conversation.

“Everything is public. Feeling left out is public because of social media, but the fact that she wrote an article and made it public…I don’t know. Good for her for telling her truth…but I also think private conversations are more and more important,” the media personality expressed. “Speaking your truth to the people who have hurt you should be enough. I hope we can also teach that if you feel wronged, if you feel hurt, show love.”

Guest co-host Matt Rogers credited Tisdale for taking herself out of a situation that made her uncomfortable but called her behavior “hypocritical.”

“I will say, the thing that gets at me a little bit…she’s talking about how it was on social media that she felt a lot of these feelings, and then when something like this gets written, especially if a lot of people are intuiting that she is part of this famous mom friend group, it’s kind of a little bit hypocritical to me to then put this out on social media when those women are well-known and could be targeted by it,” he explained. “I was reading the article and it kind of felt a little bit like it was to get back at these women. But the fact is that also a lot of people seem to feel really seen by it.”

Bush Hager concluded by reinforcing her opinion to “take some stuff off the internet and get it into our homes.”

“There’s a phone. Pick it up. Too much is public,” she emphasized.

Tisdale — who is mom to daughters Jupiter, 4, and Emerson, 15 months — detailed in her essay how she grew close to other women after 2020.

"Most of us had been pregnant through the early pandemic, so we missed out on the activities where you meet other expectant mothers," she wrote. "But finally, we were able to be together, and our kids were able to be together, and it all felt right."

Eventually, her relationship with the group took a wrong turn.

"Another time, at one of the mom's dinner parties, I realized where I sat with her — which was at the end of the table, far from the rest of the women," she explained. "I was starting to feel frozen out of the group, noticing every way that they seemed to exclude me. At first, I tried not to take things personally. It's not like people aren't allowed to get together without me — and maybe there were perfectly good reasons that I hadn't been invited.”

The ladies’ behavior reminded the High School Musical alum of her childhood, so she texted the group to remove herself, saying, "This is too high school for me and I don't want to take part in it anymore."

"To be clear, I never considered the moms to be bad people. (Maybe one.)," she clarified. "But I do think our group dynamic stopped being healthy and positive — for me anyway."