Ashley Tisdale has responded to criticism after she revealed that she filled her shelves with books purchased right before an Architectural Digest house tour.
“These bookshelves, I have to be honest… actually did not have books in them a couple days ago,” she admitted while laughing in the video. “I had my husband go to a bookstore and I was like: ‘You need to get 400 books.’”
One tweet showing Tisdale’s admission in the video with the caption “I... am speechless” has almost 400,000 likes at the time of writing.
Tisdale responded to the tweet, writing: “Let’s clear this up. There are some of my books from over the years in there but yea 36 shelves that hold 22 books I did not have and any interior designer would have done the same. They do it all the time, I was just honest about it.”
The actor joked in a separate tweet: “Sorry I haven't been reading everybody's tweets, I've recently just got a lot of new books to get through.”
She also used the opportunity to promote her wellness platform, Frenshe. “On a serious note tho, here are some books that I do want to recommend. I love self-help books because I love talking about mental health – it's why I founded Frenshe,” she wrote.
The Frenshe article she links to begins with the line: “It’s hard to choose from 400 books, but our founder Ashley Tisdale wanted to share her all time favourite books on her shelves.”
In the video, Tisdale said her husband initially pushed back on buying the books, saying they should be “collecting books over time and putting them in the shelves,” to which she recalls responding: “No, no, no, no. Not when AD comes.”
People on social media were horrified at the revelation and questioned why she would volunteer this information on camera.
One person estimated that Tisdale could have spent $10,000 (£7,609) on the books if each one cost an average of $25 (£19).
