Hilary Duff and Mandy Moore reportedly feel "blindsided" by Ashley Tisdale's controversial essay

A source told Us Weekly: "They all feel blindsided and hurt by Ashley speaking out the way she did.

"From their perspective, they believed the group was supportive and coming from a good place, and they never thought there was any bad intent behind how things played out."

The group felt like "issues that could've been handled privately were instead made public, which made them feel unfairly portrayed".

The insider added: "The moms insist there was no 'mean girl' behaviour and say they were genuinely trying to be there for one another during a really vulnerable time in all of their lives."

Ashley - who has daughters Jupiter, four, and Emerson, 15 months - recently discussed leaving her "toxic" group of mom friends in a blog post.

She said: "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 behaviour. I know this from personal experience."

Ashley explained there were group text chains that "didn't include everyone" and there were "hangouts" she didn't get invited to.

In her essay for The Cut, she went on to open up about how she started to feel "excluded", writing: "I was certain that I'd found my village.

"But over time, I began to wonder whether that was really true. I remember being left out of a couple of group hangs, and I knew about them because Instagram made sure it fed me every single photo and Instagram Story.

"Another time, at one of the mom's dinner parties, I realised where I sat with her - which was at the end of the table, far from the rest of the women. I was starting to feel frozen out of the group, noticing every way that they seemed to exclude me."