Crystal Kung Minkoff reveals if she’s team Ashley or team Hilary amid toxic mom group scandal

The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills alum Crystal Kung Minkoff happens to know about ’70 percent of the mom group’ that Ashley Tisdale used to be in before penning a scathing essay in The Cut about feeling insecure and alienated by unnamed mothers.

The 40-year-old High School Musical alum unfollowed Mandy Moore and Hilary Duff on Instagram before deactivating her entire account amid the scandal, which had Duff’s husband blasting Tisdale as ‘self obsessed’ and ‘tone deaf.’

‘Me, realizing I wasn’t mentioned in Ashley Tisdale’s “losing friends” article,’ Minkoff wrote on Threads last Tuesday. ‘Didn’t I literally start that trend back in 2021?’

The 42-year-old Real Coco co-founder – whose own mom group-of-14 ‘dropped’ her after she was cast in the Bravo reality show – weighed in on whether she was Team Tisdale or Team Duff during Monday’s episode of her podcast Humble Brag.

‘[Tisdale’s] publicist came out this morning saying, “Oh, that’s not the group,” but I know it’s the group,’ Minkoff confirmed.

‘I just wonder, what was she thinking was gonna happen?’ 

The Chinese-American beauty continued: ‘I did message one [of the moms]. I was like, “I’ve got to know what’s going on.” They said, “It’s so ironic that we’re the toxic ones and she’s on her own.”‘

Minkoff noted that the toxic mom ‘can’t be Hilary’ because ‘everyone loves Hilary Duff.’

‘So now Ashley’s getting like 90% hate,’ the LA-born socialite said.

‘I will say someone like Hilary, I’ve known her for 10 years. Yeah. Super sweet. Like I cannot see her being a mean girl like that – a mean mom. But it’s dynamic, right? It’s dynamic. And so I feel for Ashley obviously [because I lived it].’

Minkoff hopes the Frenshe founder’s exposé ultimately ‘serves’ her because when she was dropped from her own mom group in 2021 she felt all of her stress and effort to be included wasn’t worth it.

‘There’s going to be a time where you don’t care,’ the 5ft9in brunette advised of when kids get older.

‘When you start heading into applications for kindergarten, all your best friends suddenly become your enemies. It’s really crazy…

‘That age is so intense and it’s like you’re trying to create this image of yourself via your kid and then the sensitivity is so heightened if your kid’s not included.’

Minkoff has two children – son Max, 13; and daughter Zoe, nearly 11 – from her 18-year marriage to Paws of Fury director Rob Minkoff, who’s 21 years her senior.

Meanwhile, Tisdale enlists a nanny to help care for her two daughters – Jupiter, 4; and Emerson, 16 months – whom she welcomed during her 11-year marriage to music producer Christopher French.

The Daytime Emmy nominee and the 43-year-old Harley Quinn composer – who has Asperger’s syndrome – originally met through ‘mutual friends’ in 2012.

The Daily Mail has reached out for comment from Duff and Tisdale.