Austin Butler Says He Really ‘Owes’ Vanessa Hudgens For Believing In Him

The High School Musical actress told her ex that he needed to play Elvis.

The Oscar nominee is speaking about the moment his ex told him he should play Elvis, and this time he has clarified he is talking about Vanessa Hudgens.

Austin has mentioned the story in the past, but he referenced Vanessa as his ‘friend’ when he spoke about it during a recent Hollywood Reporter roundtable among many notable actors including Colin Farrell and Adam Sandler. In a new interview with the LA Times the reporter asked him more about this ‘friend’ who told him he needs to play the king of rock ‘n’ roll.

“I was with my partner at the time,” Austin clarified.

The reporter noted that the internet said he was with Vanessa around this time and the actor said, “That’s right. We’d been together for so long and she had this sort of clairvoyant moment and so I really, I owe her a lot for believing in me.”

Vanessa has told the same story in past interviews about the time she realised Austin needed to play Elvis, and they match up. But Vanessa has remained pretty tight-lipped when it comes to the success of the film after their break-up.

She recently broke her silence to leave a comment on a post about Austin’s Elvis ‘voice’ but otherwise she seems to be focussing on herself and her relationship with baseball player Cole Tucker.


Vanessa posted a picture of herself and Cole looking lovingly into each other’s eyes last night with the caption, “I’ll stop the world and melt with you”.

In the comments, Cole replied, “Always baby”.

Vanessa sometimes does red-carpet interviews for big award shows such as the Oscars, so we wonder if she will be present this year and will herself and Austin cross paths?

We will be SAT March 12th for all of the Oscar happenings, if it’s half as dramatic as last year, it’ll be an entertaining night.

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