Ashley Tisdale’s daughter got fiction and reality mixed up after watching โHigh School Musicalโ for the first time.
Tisdale dished on her 3-year-old daughter Jupiterโs reaction to seeing the Disney Channel original movie during a Jan. 15 episode of the โBreaking Beautyโ podcast.
The actor turned entrepreneur, who also welcomed daughter Emerson in September 2024, shared that her husband, Christopher French, had shown Jupiter โHigh School Musicalโ about a year ago.
โShe thought Zac Efron was her dad,โ Tisdale revealed. โI was like, โNo! Thatโs not daddy!โ Sheโs like, โDaddy!โ I was like, โNo, no, no. Just because they have dark hair, it is not daddy.โโ
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โHigh School Musicalโ premiered on Disney Channel in 2006 and starred Tisdale as Sharpay Evans alongside Zac Efron, Vanessa Hudgens, Corbin Bleu and more then-rising stars.
The Kenny Ortega-directed hit was followed up by 2007โs โHigh School Musical 2,โ which also premiered on the Disney Channel, and 2008โs theatrical release of โHigh School Musical 3: Senior Year.โ
The Being Frenshe founder said that in addition to โHigh School Musical,โ her daughter has seen โPhineas and Ferbโ and knows that her mom plays the character Candace because she can recognize her voice.
Despite seeing some of her work, Tisdale said she doesnโt think Jupiter quite understands her mom’s career. But she added her daughter is getting โto the age where sheโs questioning why people take picturesโ with her mom.
โWe were at Taylor Swift in Miami and she was like, โMommy, why are they taking pictures with you?โ And I truly did not know how to answer that, so I just said, โI donโt know,โโ the actor said.
โAnd my husband goes โThatโs what you said?โ So I think she actually thinks that you just take pictures with people, thatโs what you do in life,โ she added.
Tisdale said French suggested telling Jupiter that her mom is an actress.
โIโm like, โHow do I explain that to her?โโ Tisdale said. โItโs just weird. I donโt know if sheโs ready for that, and I donโt know if Iโm ready to have that discussion with her.โ
Tisdale previously opened up to TODAY in May 2022 about her experience with childhood fame, explaining, โThere are definitely times where I felt anxious and pressure being a perfectionist and trying to manage it all.
โI was 18 when all that stuff happened for me,โ she said. โSo I think that itโs very different when that happens when youโre young. Youโre going through so much and youโre learning about yourself and learning about others. Thatโs a hard thing to manage and I think that can probably be traumatizing.โ