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Is Vanessa Hudgens clairvoyant? How she predicted Austin Butler would one day play Elvis

The actress has said she can talk to ghosts


Jovita Trujillo
Jovita Trujillo - Los Angeles
Senior WriterLos Angeles
JANUARY 26, 2023 1:03 AM EST

Vanessa Hudgens might have a secret talent- clairvoyance. Her ex-boyfriend Austin Butler has opened up about how she knew he had to play Elvis Presley, and in a recent interview with the LA Times he said he “owed her a lot.”

The Los Angeles Premiere Of "Once Upon A Time In Hollywood"© GettyImages

Butler is nominated for an Academy Award, and he took home the award for Best Actor in a Drama Motion Picture at the Golden Globes. So Hudgens was definitely onto something! “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,” he told the outlet.

The Elvis star first shared the story about Hudgens in April 2022 during a Vogue wrote profile. “I was actually driving up through Griffith Park, and Elvis’s ‘Blue Christmas’ came on. I was singing along with it when my friend had kind of an epiphany: ‘You need to play Elvis,” he explained.

Although he did not mention Hudgens by name, Vogue wrote that it was his ex-girlfriend of 9 years. Hudgens also shared the exact same story three years ago on Live with Kelly and Ryan.

“We were listening to Christmas music, and an Elvis Presley song came on, and he had just dyed his hair dark- cause he’s a natural blonde- and I was looking at him singing along, and I was like, ‘babe you need to play Elvis.’”

Vanessa Hudgens Knew Playing Elvis Was Her Boyfriend's Calling

Hudgens was even suggesting they find the rights to the film themselves. When they got a call a month later that Baz Luhrmann was interested in him playing the role Hudgens told him, “this is it.”

We will have to wait and see if Hudgens makes anymore predictions, but she has admitted in the past that she can see and hear things. Hudgens told Kelly Clarkson in April 2022, “I’ve accepted the fact that I see things and I hear things.”

“I remember getting ready for school when I was eight years old, and there was ... You know those ducks [toys] that you pull [the string]? There was one of those on the dining room table, and I started walking, and it just started going alongside me,” Hudgens said.

The actress said she “kind of shut it down” for a while because of how scary it could be, until she realized it was a gift. “The unknown is scary. But recently, I was like, ‘No, this is a gift and something that I have the ability to do, so I’m going to lean into it,’’ she said. The High School Musical star even uses a “spirit box” to allow spirits to communicate with her.