Is 'My Big Fat Fabulous Life' Star Whitney Thore Still Best Friends With Ashley Baynes?

Lately, My Big Fat Fabulous Life starlet Whitney Thore has been at the center of headlines. Apparently, Whitney is being considered a villain by many. She’s even been slammed by viewers of the show for being a so-called lousy friend. This is the first time the reality television personality has been criticized so brutally. She’s usually considered by fans as such a loving soul.

Also, since going through heartbreak in her previous relationship in Season 8, people seemed to have developed a soft spot and sense of concern for Whitney. So why are people turning on Whitney? Fans of the show know that Whitney has been a motivator for those who’ve suffered body shaming and started her own fitness subscriptions service called No BS Active, originally with her friend Ryan Andreas. No BS Active has helped many forget about all the horrible talks of fat-shaming.

Most importantly, the brand has aided in people gaining a sense of self-confidence that they once did not have. Whitney hired her best friend Ashley Baynes to handle all of the administrative work for the fitness brand, but on Episode 7 of Season 9 of My Big Fat Fabulous Life, Ashley was fired from her role. Keep reading to find out why she was let go and if their friendship has suffered since.

The partnership between Whitney and Ryan didn’t work out, but No BS Active only took a one-month hiatus. Whitney then teamed up with her trainer, Jessica Powell, and the business has been doing better than ever. Recently Whitney has been working on launching an app (which launched on Oct. 1) for the program. However, she’d been keeping it a secret from her best friend, who’s also her No BS Active employee. The problem was that once the app launched, Ashley would be out of a job.

Episode 7 of MBFFL is when Ashley finally found out about the app. In the episode, Ashley says, “The app? What’s the app? Why am I scared?” Whitney then explains to her bestie that she’s on the verge of signing an agreement with another company to create the app. She tells her that once that happens, they would handle all the back-end and administrative tasks for her business. An upset Ashley asks Whitney, “So you don’t need me anymore?"

She goes on to say, "I think I should wait to talk to you about this because I need to calm down just a little bit.”

Unfortunately, their conversation doesn’t go well, and Ashley criticizes her friend for not being truthful with her and begging her to come work for the brand then firing her “in the middle of a pandemic."

Even though Ashley was giving her friend a hard time for firing her, she eventually got over it, and their friendship was never affected. After viewers saw Whitney give Ashley the boot, they were quick to call her out, thinking that Ashley now had no income and wouldn't be able to take care of her daughter. This was not the case at all, and Whitney took to social media to defend herself.

In an Instagram post with a side-by-side photo of her and Ashley, she wrote, "What the show neglected to show is that @ashdanbay has had a full-time job since before she began working on No BS Active admin on the side, and she still has the same job almost a year later — she did not lose her livelihood; she lost a couple hundred extra bucks a month. I realize that the show made it look like No BS Active was her only job, but I would really implore some of y'all to use your critical thinking skills."

Ashley also responded to Whitney's post about how the situation unfolded on-air vs. in real life and shared, "Y'all, all of us have been friends for 20 years. Please don't judge folks on a few minutes of edited content when there have been literal decades of moments that weren't / aren't televised."

Ashley also came for the haters and continued to write, "PS: @whitneywaythore, my fav comment is from the person mad at you for firing me but then says your friends stick around for the money. Which one is iiiit?" It's apparent that nothing could come between Whitney and Ashley's friendship.

Catch new episodes of My Big Fat Fabulous Life Tuesdays at 9 p.m. EST on TLC.