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Austin Butler credited Vanessa Hudgens with inspiring his role as 'Elvis'
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Austin Butler credited Vanessa Hudgens with inspiring his role as ‘Elvis’

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We’ve barely reached the end of January, and 2023 has already been a pretty successful year for Austin Butler.

He kicked things off with a Golden Globe win for his portrayal of Elvis Presley in Baz Luhrmann’s biopic about the singer, and this week the actor managed to top himself by earning a coveted Oscar nomination for the role.

And while everyone is thrilled for Austin, many fans online are keen to point out that it might not have happened without the encouragement of one particularly special person – Austin’s ex, Vanessa Hudgens.

Austin and Vanessa started dating in 2011 after meeting on the set of musical high school several years earlier. They stayed together for nearly a decade, cementing their status as a beloved power couple during that time.

In some context, Austin was cast as Elvis in July 2019 when he and Vanessa were still together.

A month later, Vanessa celebrated her boyfriend’s major casting as she was invited Live with Kelly and Ryanrevealing that she came up with the idea for him to play the iconic singer before she even knew Luhrmann’s biopic was in the works.

“It’s so crazy because last December we were driving and listening to Christmas music and then an Elvis Presley Christmas song came along,” she recalled.

“He had just dyed his hair black — it’s a natural blonde — and I was looking at him and he was singing and I was like, ‘Baby, you gotta play Elvis,'” she continued. “’I don’t know how, but I’m serious. You have to play with him.

She continued: “Then in January he was sitting at the piano – he’s a musician – and he plays and he sings and I’m like, I don’t know how, but you have to figure out how you can play Elvis. Like, I don’t know how we get the rights or what we do, but you have to play it.

As we now know, Austin and Vanessa ended up calling it quits five months later in January 2020 — around the time Elvis was due to begin filming in Australia – with reports citing “a matter of distance” and different timings as the reason for the split.

So, fast forward three years, and Austin reflects on how he ended up landing the coveted role, recalling that an unnamed “friend” of his actually came up with the idea for – you guessed it – as they drove in the car listening to Christmas Music.

“So I was looking at the Christmas lights, and there was an Elvis Christmas song on the radio,” Austin told The Hollywood Reporter earlier this month. “I was with a friend of mine and I was singing, and my friend kind of looked at me and said, ‘You have to play Elvis. “”

He continued, “A few weeks later, I was playing the piano. I never really sang for any of my friends or anything. This same friend was there and I was playing the piano. She said, ‘I’m serious. You need to figure out how to get the rights to a script.'”

Of course, it didn’t take long for fans to connect the dots and realize that Austin’s version of events lined up directly with the same story Vanessa told in 2019, leading many to wonder why he chose to leave her out of the picture.

As the clip gained momentum online, fans were quick to express their outrage that Austin didn’t recognize Vanessa, with some calling the lack of recognition “disrespectful” given the length of their relationship.

“If I dated the same man for NINE YEARS of my adult life and then he called me ‘friend’ on live TV after I predicted the role that made his career… “, someone tweeted in response.

If I dated the same man for NINE YEARS of my adult life and he called me “a friend” on live TV after predicting the role that made his career… https://t.co /jZ95ICW1JL


Twitter: @sammiehudzik

Others came to Austin’s defense, however, and argued that it was actually quite kind of him to refer to Vanessa as a friend, especially since they’re both now dating. with other people.

What’s wrong with him calling V a “friend?” They are no longer dating. I swear to God this man is breathing a certain way and it’s wrong. https://t.co/Nyg09kHwRi


Twitter: @unchainedbutler

And now, after weeks of criticism, Austin is finally giving Vanessa his due.

Celebrating his Oscar nomination during an interview with the LA Times on Tuesday, journalist Mark Olsen asked Austin if he might be able to “clear up” the confusion over who exactly inspired him to take on the role.

“You talked about a while before you even got the part, it was Christmas, and an Elvis song came up and you were with a friend and you were singing,” the reporter began.

Before he could finish, Austin was quick to step in and set the record straight. “I was with my partner at the time,” he said.

Asked if it was Vanessa he was referring to, Austin ultimately credited her for her involvement in the casting.

“It’s true,” he said. “We were together for so long and she had this kind of moment of insight and so I really owe her, I owe her a lot for believing in me.”

All the while, Vanessa has been pretty quiet about her ex’s busy career, so it seems unlikely she’ll react publicly to his nod.

That said, she took the time last week to poke fun at — or tone down, you decide — the lingering Elvis of Austin accent, which has been the focus of discussion for several months now.

An Instagram user shared a meme about the mystifying South Austin drag, joking that he went to “Lady Gaga School of Oscar campaigning,” prompting Vanessa to comment, “Crying.”

And with that, justice is restored, and I think the Austin/Vanessa/Elvis talk might finally have come to an end. See you at the Oscars!

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