Ashley Tisdale reveals she had husband buy ‘400 books’ before AD house tour: ‘How could anyone admit this?’

‘Sometimes it’s okay to lie’

Ashley Tisdale has sparked amused and horrified reactions after revealing that her bookshelves did not contain books before her home tour for Architectural Digest, so she’d asked her husband to go to a bookstore and buy “400 books”.

The High School Musical star, 36, gave a tour of her Los Angeles home this week, with a large focus on the living room, in which a bookshelf filled with colourful books took up one wall.

However, according to Tisdale, who frequently stood in front of the bookshelf during the house tour, the bookshelves “did not have books in them a couple days ago”.

“These bookshelves, I have to be honest… actually did not have books in them a couple days ago,” she admitted while laughing. “I had my husband go to a bookstore and I was like: ‘You need to get 400 books.’”

According to Tisdale, her husband pointed out that the couple should be “collecting books over time and putting them in the shelves,” to which she said she had responded: “No, no, no, no. Not when AD comes.”

On Twitter, a woman named Sarah shared a screenshot of the moment in the video, which she captioned: “I… am speechless.”

As of Wednesday, the tweet has been liked more than 202,000 times, with people both entertained and critical of Tisdale’s admission.

“I remember people coming into my house and asking me if I had read all these books and I was like why else would I have them. Lol, now I know,” one person tweeted.

Another said: “This is so embarrassing, how could anyone admit this?”

“Do people really buy books with no intention of reading them...for decor? I’m so confused right now,” someone else said, while one person claimed that “rich people don’t deserve nice homes”.

According to another person, after doing the math, they estimated that Tisdale and her husband spent $10,000 on books to stage the bookshelf.

Tisdale’s comment also prompted some to question what was on the bookshelf before it was staged with books.

“So, what was originally in those bookshelves? Nothing at all?” one person asked.

Others said the moment was reminiscent of another AD house tour, during which Dakota Johnson pointed out a bowl of limes in her kitchen and said she “loves limes,” before later revealing that she’s “actually allergic to limes”.

While many of the reactions were critical, others defended Tisdale on the basis that she admitted to the last-minute staging, and laughed about it.

“It’s like Dakota Johnson with the limes. It’s silly, but people are taking this book thing way too seriously. It’s simply not that big of a deal … she admitted to it and laughed at herself,” one person wrote.

Others said that they would happily take on the job of book-buyer, with someone else tweeting: “Provide the credit card and I will be anybody’s ornamental-book-buying husband.”

“Relationship goals,” someone else joked.