When a newly-engaged Vanessa Hudgens walked past her ex-boyfriend of nine years Austin Butler at the Vanity Fair Oscars afterparty on May 12, the world held its collective breath. Alas, the former couple didn’t engage. Indeed, it appeared they both ignored one another.
The 31-year-old Oscar nominee attended the Academy Awards with his agent and, after losing out to Brendan Fraser and his phenomenal turn in The Whale for the Best Actor award, joined his girlfriend Kaia Gerber at the afterparty.
While we’re not sure if Hudgens (who recently got engaged to MLB player Cole Tucker) and Butler interacted inside the venue, what’s clear is they were not going to stop for a chat in the moment captured. Butler waits with Sharon Stone on the sidewalk of the party as his ex-girlfriend walks past. Is it just me, or surely Vanessa knew she was passing Austin?
The pair dated from 2011 to 2020 and broke up while Butler was shooting Elvis. After initially citing a “friend” as having suggested he play the King, Butler later revealed it was indeed Hudgens who had encouraged him.
“That’s right [that my partner at the time, Vanessa Hudgens, encouraged me to play Elvis],” he said after the Los Angeles Times‘ reporter pressed him on it in January. “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.”
Butler and Gerber have been dating for a little over a year.
I will never get over this photo of High School Musical star Vanessa Hudgens meeting a teeny-tiny Kaia Gerber at Disneyland in Anaheim in 2007.
