Vanessa Hudgens Sounds Thankful She’s No Longer With a Certain Elvis-Impressions-Addicted Ex

While Austin Butler’s Dune: Part 2 press tour consists largely of soulful gazes into co-star Timothee Chalamet’s eyes, Butler’s ex Vanessa Hudgens, in Bene Gesserit fashion, is finally injecting a touch of mess into this party. On Wednesday, she swung by the She Pivots podcast and sounded off about how break-ups have impacted her life, giving extra emphasis to her most recent break-up with Butler in 2020.

“I feel like so much of my character was built from my breakups. My last breakup had really catapulted me into a very, very special place,” Hudgens told host Emily Tisch Sussman. Good for her! Sadly, I can’t relate seeing as the only place a break-up has catapulted me to is right back to the hellhole that is Hinge.

Of course, the “very, very special place” Hudgens was referring to is her current relationship with her husband MLB player Cole Tucker, whom Hudgens married in December after getting engaged in February 2023. Splitting with Butler after about nine years of dating “pushed me to the right person, which I’m so grateful for,” Hudgens said. 

Where Hudgens is literally married, Butler has now been dating Kaia Gerber for a little over two years and has been recovering from his Elvis voice for about the same amount of time, with the assistance of a dialect coach to help him transition back to himself. In the years since Butler and Hudgens split, there’s been little to suggest theirs was an especially friendly break-up. A video of Hudgens very deliberately ignoring Butler at an award show last year went viral, and around the same time, Hudgens commented, “crying,” on an Instagram meme appearing to mock Butler for being unable to slip out of his Elvis voice. There’s also the matter of Hudgens being the one to convince Butler to go for the Elvis role in the first place, only for Butler to initially erase her from that little origin story, though he eventually gave her credit where it was due last January.

Alas, all the little nuggets of shade aside, it seems everyone is very happy and has sufficiently moved on. “He is just the most supportive, real, understanding human being that I’ve ever met,” Hudgens said of her new husband. And we love that for her!

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