Ashley Tisdale Says Postpartum Depression Made Her Try to Divorce Christopher French “So Many Times”

Ashley Tisdale says postpartum depression put so much pressure on her marriage that she tried to divorce Christopher French “so many times” after the birth of their first daughter.

The revelation came in the first episode of French’s new podcast, Recovering, released September 30. Tisdale said the first year after welcoming Jupiter was marked by intense anxiety and postpartum depression she did not fully understand at the time. She and French are still married, and they now have two daughters.

The striking part of the conversation is not only that divorce entered the picture. It is how long Tisdale says it took before she finally had a name for what she had been experiencing.

What did Ashley Tisdale say about postpartum depression and divorce?

Tisdale told French that she believed she had done a lot of work on her anxiety before becoming a mother. Then, after Jupiter was born in 2021, she said postpartum depression overwhelmed the coping tools she thought she already knew how to use.

She described her anxiety becoming especially intense, including a moment when sitting in traffic nearly triggered a panic attack. She also said that during the couple’s difficult first year as parents, she repeatedly told French she wanted a divorce.

According to Tisdale, she did not receive the postpartum-depression diagnosis that made sense of that period until Jupiter was around two years old. In the new interview, she sounds less interested in dramatizing the old divorce threats than in explaining how confusing it was to be struggling without understanding why.

Her experience after the birth of their second daughter, Emerson, was different. Tisdale said she did not go through the same level of postpartum depression, which made the contrast with her first postpartum period especially clear to her.

What did Christopher French do during that first year?

French describes the period as hard for both of them. In their conversation, the couple says he took on nighttime duties and tried to give Tisdale room rather than escalating every difficult moment into a permanent decision about the marriage.

That does not mean a partner can diagnose or treat postpartum depression. The National Institute of Mental Health describes perinatal depression as a real mood disorder that can include severe sadness, anxiety and fatigue and says professional evaluation and treatment can matter. Tisdale’s diagnosis is her own reported medical history; her husband’s patience was support, not a substitute for care.

That distinction is easy to lose in celebrity relationship coverage. A headline can make the story sound like: she wanted a divorce, he stayed calm, marriage saved. Their actual conversation is messier. Tisdale was struggling. French was affected too. Neither of them had a neat explanation at the beginning.

Why Christopher French’s own recovery history changes the conversation

Recovering is not simply a celebrity-marriage podcast. French has publicly described himself as a recovering addict and says he has lived in sobriety for about 20 years. The show is built around conversations about addiction, trauma, grief, mental health and what recovery can mean in different parts of life.

That makes Ashley’s episode an interesting choice for the premiere. Her story is not an addiction story, and it should not be rewritten as one. But it does put someone with a long recovery history in a familiar position: loving another person through something he cannot control for them.

Recovery experience can give people language, routines and humility. It still does not make them able to solve another person’s depression, grief, illness or fear.

OliviaC: support is not the same thing as having the answer

Sometimes support looks less impressive than fixing.

I think that is what stayed with me after this conversation.

We tend to praise the person who finds the solution. But in a lot of real relationships, there is a period when there is no elegant solution yet. Someone you love is struggling, the tools that used to work are not working, and you are standing close enough to feel the impact without being able to take the experience away from them.

That can be uncomfortable for people who are used to recovery language. Recovery teaches action. Call someone. Go to the meeting. Change the routine. Ask for help. But loving someone also requires learning where your action ends.

French could take a night shift. He could stay grounded. He could encourage support. He could not become Ashley’s nervous system for her.

That is a useful distinction far beyond this marriage: being present for someone is not the same as becoming responsible for their outcome.

For a recovery-specific version of that boundary, How Families Can Support Recovery Without Controlling It looks at the difference between support, surveillance and trying to manage another person’s healing.

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Sources

PEOPLE — Ashley Tisdale on postpartum depression and the strain on her marriage
PEOPLE — Christopher French on Recovering and his long-term sobriety
Recovering — Ashley Tisdale French episode listing
National Institute of Mental Health — Perinatal Depression

Featured image: Ashley Tisdale at the High School Musical 3 premiere in Melbourne, archival photo by Emma lily; crop by Patrol110, via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0. The image is not from the podcast interview.