Austin Butler Has Nothing But Burning Gratitude For Ex Vanessa Hudgens For Inspiring Him To Portray Elvis Presley
Austin Butler, the Elvis actor hailed his ex-girlfriend Vanessa Hudgens, whom he dated from 2011 until 2020, for encouraging him to portray Elvis Presley, which recently earned him a Best Actor in a Leading Role Oscar nomination.
“I was with my partner at the time,” he told The Los Angeles Times on Jan. 24, referring to the person who inspired him to pursue the role. When asked if he was, in fact, speaking about Vanessa, Austin confirmed.
“That’s right,” he said. “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.”
Austin first referred to Vanessa as an unnamed “friend” who believed he would be excellent for the role, telling The Hollywood Reporter on January 10 that the idea came to her a month before he discovered Baz Luhrmann was producing an Elvis biopic.
“I was going to look at Christmas lights with a friend and there was an Elvis Christmas song on the radio and I was singing along and my friend looked over at me and goes, ‘You’ve got to play Elvis.’ I said, ‘Oh, that’s such a long shot.'”
The “friend,” as Austin called her, doubled down on the idea, telling him a couple weeks later that he needed to “figure out how you can get the rights to a script” after she heard him perform on a piano. Afterward, Austin said, his agent called with news that an Elvis movie was in the works.
The story stirred buzz online, with fans finding a similar narrative the High School Musical alum shared in August 2019, one month after she gushed on social media that she was “OVERRRR THE F–KING MOOOOOOOOONNNNN” about Austin landing the role of the King of Rock N’ Roll.
“Last December, we were driving along and we were listening to Christmas music, and then an Elvis Presley Christmas song came on. He had just dyed his hair dark. He’s a natural blonde, blonde and I was looking at him and he was singing along and I was like, ‘Babe, you need to play Elvis.'”
Vanessa shared on Live with Kelly and Ryan in 2019.
Since their divorce, Vanessa has not commented on Austin’s Golden Globe-winning performance as Elvis. However, she did acknowledge a post that made fun of his Elvis-like accent, which has left fans baffled.
She only commented, “Crying.”
Vanessa is now seeing baseball star Cole Tucker while he is dating beauty Kaia Gerber.
Source – Tru News Report
