POLITICS: Ashley Tisdale and her mom group scandal are a C-list nightmare

Ashley Tisdale is learning the hard way that, when you throw s–t at a fan, it usually comes back and hits you in the face.

The “High School Musical” star wrote a now infamous essay, published January 1 on The Cut, about breaking up with her “toxic” mommy group.

“I thought I found my village. Instead, I was back in high school,” the headline read.

I’m certain the 40-year-old mom-of-two thought this revelatory piece would make her seem relatable to readers of her lifestyle blog, “ByAshleyFrench.com,” where she recently posted about the “Best Ever Vegan, Gluten-Free Cinnamon Rolls.”

After all, juicy stories about mommy culture are hot pop-culture fodder. There are novels and TV series devoted to the catty dynamics of such groups.

But one doesn’t need to be detective Poirot to guess the identities of her tale’s villains. For the last few years, Tisdale’s crew — the ones who allegedly iced her out — splashed group photos of themselves (mostly in matching robes or sweats) all over social media as a testament to their mommy bond.

The group includes fellow once-buzzy stars Hilary Duff, Mandy Moore and Meghan Trainor, all now better known for shamelessly and prolifically hawking their personal lives than any TV role or song.

Their kids’ first steps and tantrums, their own bathroom habits (never forget Trainor revealing she and her husband having side-by-side toilets) and how-does-she-do-it-all exhaustion — and side hustles like Duff’s candle business — are all chronicled on Instagram.

The one thing that’s not, apparently? Tisdale’s other, perhaps imaginary, friend group.

As soon as chatter about the essay heated up, Tisdale’s rep denied it was about those famous mommies.

No no no, it was totally a different one that she didn’t advertise on Instagram! One — presumably with no famous women — so consequential in her life that she wrote an essay about them, but never posted about them. Different people.

And yet … within her once-sacred celeb sorority, there were still shockwaves.

Hilary Duff’s husband posted his own mock Cut cover, posed like Tisdale.

“A mom group tell all through a father’s eyes: When You’re the Most Self-Obsessed Tone Deaf Person on Earth, Other Moms Tend to Shift Focus To Their Actual Toddlers,” he wrote.

Tisdales’s own piece was needy, narcissistic and desperate to smear the in crowd who didn’t fawn over her.

It was also quite boring.

No delicious details about being shunned for giving her kid a Capri Sun, serving non-organic fare or refusing to participate in some woo-woo Left Coast ritual like shoving a Goop-approved jade egg up her lady orifice.

No explosive fight over vaccine schedules.

Nah, it was just basic complaints about being excluded from get-togethers that made Tisdale feel “not cool enough.” Being edged out brought up some emotional reflux from her actual high-school days.

There was no self-reflection nor much humor.

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“And after the third or fourth time of seeing social media photos of everyone else at a hangout that I didn’t get invited to, it felt like I wasn’t really part of the group after all,” she wrote in a blog post that inspired the Cut piece. “At that point, I had to ask myself: Why am I still showing up for this?”

It was at that point that I had to ask: Why did she write any of this?

Such blabbing is just a red-flag warning to any potential new friends: She’ll dish about you next.

Tisdale would have been wise to have kept it between her and her therapist.

Not everything is a trauma that needs to be publicly exposed and milked for sympathy — or monetized in some vulgar fashion. Sometimes failed friendships are simply an experience that you take with you to inform your next decision.

These are regular bumps in this thing we call life.

But there are no heroes in this story —only the fragility of celebrities and the phony lives they project online.

It reveals the hollowed-out husk of subprime Hollywood, where flailing C-list stars have been reduced to C-list influencers, commodifying their children, spouses, pets and every trip to a pilates studio.

Social media has given these women with mostly washed-up careers new reason to shine. And yet they’re surprised when the audience turns on them after they overshare.

This isn’t about friendship. It’s about a viper pit and the fight for attention.