Austin Butler Explains Why He Didn’t Credit Ex Vanessa Hudgens With Inspiring His “Elvis” Role

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Austin Butler is coming clean about his controversial Elvis role comment—when he conveniently forgot to mention in an interview that it was longtime girlfriend Vanessa Hudgens who first suggested he take the part.

“Oh, yeah, I learned a lesson with that one—I felt that I was respecting her privacy in a way and not wanting to bring up a ton of things that would cause her to have to talk,” Butler told Esquire in an interview released today. “I have so much love and care for her. It was in no way trying to erase anything.”

As fans know, Hudgens and Butler dated for nearly a decade, from 2011 to 2020, and it was the High School Musical star who inspired him to pursue the role of Elvis Presley in the Baz Luhrmann-directed movie, as she told him he would be perfect for it.

“Last December, we were driving along and we were listening to Christmas music, and then an Elvis Presley Christmas song came on,” Hudgens recounted on an August 2019 episode of Live! With Kelly and Ryan. “He had just dyed his hair dark. He's a natural blonde, and I was looking at him and he was singing along and I was like, ‘Babe, you need to play Elvis.’”

But, when talking about that moment during the Hollywood Reporter's Actors Roundtable last January, Butler told a different story.

“I was going to look at Christmas lights with a friend,” the actor said at the time. “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.’”

Fans quickly criticized his use of the word friend on social media, accusing him of snubbing his longtime love. But, Butler has since made it clear that he was speaking of Hudgens, and didn't mean any harm.

Hudgens is now married to NBL star Cole Tucker, while Butler has been dating model Kaia Gerber since 2022.

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