Ashley Tisdale, the actress who brought the iconic character Sharpay Evans to life in the High School Musical franchise, has spoken out about a recent meme that compared her character to Taylor Swift.
The meme, which went viral during the Super Bowl, showed Swift standing up in her suite, looking disappointed, alongside a clip of Sharpay singing “This is not what I want. This is not what I planned” from the first High School Musical movie.
Tisdale, 39, reposted the meme on her Instagram Story with the caption, “Icons being icons.” When asked about the comparison to Swift, Tisdale told Us Weekly, “She’s an icon… I mean, both are icons.”
The actress is thrilled that Sharpay has remained a cultural touchstone over the years. “It’s pretty incredible to play a character where… people are still seeing images of people now in the present day and thinking of her,” she said.
“It’s not Gabrielle they’re posting, it’s not Troy – it’s Sharpay. She’s an icon. It’s unreal. It’s so amazing.”
Elsewhere during the interview, Tisdale, who shares daughters Jupiter, 3, and Emerson, 5 months, with husband Chrixstopher French, has mixed feelings about her own children following in her footsteps in the entertainment industry.
“I personally wouldn’t have them go into the business,” she revealed. “Obviously, when they’re older and if they want to decide to do something, for sure, I would support them. But I come from a different place where I’ve been in the business since I was 3 and [have] been working since I was 3. For me, the most important thing for my kids is for them to have a real childhood… Working [as a kid], it’s not an easy thing to do. The biggest thing is for them to just have a normal life, and if they wanna do it when they’re older and can handle that, then I would support them.”
