After his accent made headlines at the Golden Globes, Austin Butler’s vocal coach noted that his Elvis accent change might be there “forever.” Among those that couldn’t ignore his on-stage “identity crisis”, as Teen Vogue jokingly put it, here’s how his ex Vanessa Hudgens reacted to Austin Butler’s accent.
Vanessa and Austin broke up in 2021 after dating for nearly a decade. An insider revealed to E! News that the stars’ schedules were the reason for their breakup. Vanessa was busy in Europe filming The Princess Switch 2, while Austin was busy filming the Baz Luhrman film Elvis about the King of Rock and Roll. “They’re just shooting on two different continents and it’s a matter of distance,” the insider said. “There is no bad blood at all, and they have a lot of respect for each other.”
So the question is: how did she react to Austin Butler’s accent staying forever?
How did Vanessa Hudgens react to Austin Butler’s accent?
How did Vanessa Hudgens react to Austin Butler’s accent? Well, she got on board with the jokes. Instagram user @ryinskott posted a screenshot of Page Six’s update of the actor’s acting choices: “Austin Butler’s accent is ‘genuine’ and might remain ‘forever’” per his vocal coach. The user captioned the post, “He went to the Lady Gaga school of Oscar campaign acting.” Vanessa commented, “Crying”, suggesting she was crying with laughter. Many fans came out to support her, with one user also commenting, “Credit where credit is due, Vanessa made him.”
After his Golden Globe win for Best Actor, the Carrie Diaries star was asked about his accent, “I don’t think I sound like [Presley] still, but I guess I must because I hear it a lot,” Butler told reporters. “I had three years where that was my only focus. So, I’m sure there’s pieces of him in my DNA and I’ll always be linked.”
Austin recently discussed how he was pushed to audition for the role of The King of rock ‘n roll. “The month before I heard that Baz [Luhrmann] was making the movie, I was going to look at Christmas lights with a friend,” Butler recently said during The Hollywood Reporter‘s Actors Roundtable. “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.’”
He continued, “A couple of weeks later, I was playing the piano. I never really sang for any of my friends or anything. That same friend was there and I was playing the piano. She said, ‘I’m serious. You gotta figure out how you can get the rights to a script.’ Then my agent called and said, ‘So Baz Luhrmann is making an Elvis film.’” Fans speculated that the “friend” was in fact his ex-girlfriend Vanessa Hudgens.
Fans also noticed that Vanessa shared the same anecdote in 2019 when she appeared in an episode of Live With Kelly and Ryan and when they were still together. “Last December, we were driving along and we were listening to Christmas music, and then an Elvis Presley Christmas song came on,” she recalled. “He had just dyed his hair dark. He’s a natural blond, and I was looking at him and he was singing along and I was like, ‘Babe, you need to play Elvis.’ ”
In an interview with Australia’s ABC Gold Coast, Austin’s vocal coach Irene Bartlett talked about her take on the Golden Globe-winning Elvis star’s accent. “What you saw in that Golden Globes speech, that’s him. It’s genuine, it’s not put on,” she said. “I feel sorry people are saying that it’s still acting [but] he’s actually taken [the voice of Presley] on board.” She added that his accent might be there “forever.” “Because of COVID shutdowns, he was working on it all the time and it’s difficult to switch off something you’ve spent so much focus [and] time on,” she said.
Austin expressed his feelings in his June 2022 GQ cover story on May 25, 2022. He offered a brief insight on how the breakup with The Princess Switch star affected him, telling the magazine, “Life is full of changes, and you’ve got to find a way to constantly be evolving and growing.”
The two moved on pretty quickly. Shortly after news broke of their breakup, Austin was spotted leaving a yoga class with model Kaia Gerber in December 2021, which fueled dating rumors. The two made their red carpet debut at the 2022 Met Gala where they posed for pictures, while Vanessa was hosting the Vogue livestream for the event. Meanwhile, Vanessa is dating Pittsburgh Pilot baseball player Cole Tucker. When she described their relationship, she told Glamour UK that “He’s his own person. Our interests are very different, but our fundamentals are the same. He’s goofy and I’m very goofy. None of us take ourselves too seriously.” A source also told Life & Style on December 27, 2021, that Vanessa is “totally cool” about her ex-boyfriend’s relationship with Kaia. “She has moved on,” the insider said. “She and Austin didn’t work out. It happens.”