Vanessa Hudgens: A Hardworking Woman Only For Others To Be Invested In Anything But Her Work

My previous post heavily discussed how Disney sexualized its female stars, particularly Bella Thorne. She was almost fired from the company for wearing a bikini at age 15 that her mother picked out for her at a beach. When pictures of her wearing the bikini were published, she was forced to apologize. Moreover, at age 10, a man who worked at Disney behind-the-scenes made a complaint that Thorne made sexual advances towards him. Like…WTF????!!!!

As I wrote about Thorne’s bikini drama, I was instantly reminded of another Disney alum, Vanessa Hudgens. She starred on Disney’s ‘High School Musical’ movie series, which also starred Zach Enron and Ashley Tisdale. She also released two studio albums through Disney’s Hollywood Records, ‘V’ in 2006 and ‘Identified’ in 2008. Since leaving Disney, Hudgens has concentrated on her acting career. Most recently, she appeared in the fourth instalment of the ‘Bad Boys’ movie franchise, as well as ‘French Girl’, starring Zach Braff. She also starred in Broadway shows such as two different versions of ‘Rent’ and ‘Grease Live!’

While she was employed by Disney, Hudgens was involved in a scandal when her nude photos that she presumably sent to her then-boyfriend, Zac Efron, were leaked to the public. Just like Thorne, she was forced to publicly apologize for taking the photos in the first place. It was an unfair situation and conditioning and shaming. Thorne, on her part, took her power back when someone threatened to leak her nude photos. In turn, she released them herself. And even though it was a powerful move, she was still criticized for it, particularly by none other than Whoopi Goldberg while discussing the matter on ‘The View’. Thorne, rightfully so, called Goldberg’s words out and criticized them as the daytime talk show moderator victim blaming. If a man did this, he’d be applauded for it, and that’s just the reality of it all.

During her Disney days, Hudgens was in a long-term relationship with Zac Efron. They dated between 2005 and 2010. The reason for their breakup was never made public, but Efron did open up in 2013 about his sobriety, which prompts me to believe that his substance abuse had something to do with the demise of their relationship. Nevertheless, Hudgens didn’t seem too bothered by the breakup, at least publicly speaking. Just a couple of months latter, she began a short, but sweet courtship with Josh Hutcherson. It wasn’t until September 2011, though, that she went public with Austin Butler. They met through Ashley Tisdale, and they ended up being together for 9 whole years. They broke things off in 2020.

Though it was presumed that the breakup was amicable, t seemed that it was anything but in the years since. First, there was the ‘Elvis’ drama. Before their breakup, Hudgens had opened up about how she encouraged her then-boyfriend to audition for the part of Elvis in his biopic. After their breakup, though, during his promotional tour for the movie, Butler told the exact same story in an interview, but called Hudgens ‘a friend.’ Like…WHAT?! Nothing has ever been shared about the breakup from either Hudgens or Butler, but it’s been reported that Butler cheated on Hudgens with a co-star. Since then, Butler has moved on with Kaia Gerber, who is 10 years younger than Butler and 13 years younger than Hudgens. Garber is also Cindy Crawford’s daughter. In a twist of fate, Hudgens and Gerber previously met before and seemed to have gotten along well. They first publicly met in 2007 when Gerber and her family attended the ‘High School Movie’ premiere. At the time, Hudgens was 19 at the time, and Gerber wasn’t even a tween. They met again in 2018, and happily posed together for photos.

Hudgens moved on with her life too after her breakup with Butler. In 2020, she met professional baseball player, Cole Tucker in a weekly Zoom meditation group. Of that time of her life, she opened up to Drew Barrymore on her daytime talk show, ‘I remember in quarantine I was like, Cool, I’m single now and I can’t meet anybody, so I guess I’ll go on a dating app. But I always said I would never go on a dating app, and then I found myself on a dating app and I was like, ‘I hate myself!’. ‘Everyone’s sending, like, GIFs of themselves (in the Zoom meditation group). Then there’s, like, a GIF in the group chat of a baseball player, and he’s slamming onto a base, and I thought it was a joke. So I just responded, ‘Hot.’ I’m such a go-getter. If I want something or someone, I’m going after him. I fully just slid into his DMs and was like, ‘Hey, it was nice to meet you.’ I think there’s no shame in making the first move. If you want it, why wait for someone else to give you what you want?’

The rest is history. The couple got engaged after two years of dating. They got married in December 2023, and by March 2024, Hudgens announced she was pregnant with her first child in the most fierce way – while walking the Oscars red carpet. The couple welcomed their first child in July, but it was something that wasn’t even confirmed by either Hudgens, Tucker, or anyone in their close circle of friends and family. Paparazzi pictures of Hudgens leaving the hospital in a wheelchair while holding her newborn and cautiously hiding her baby’s face were published to the media. It was supposed to be a private, magical time in her life, and it was ruined by totally random men taking photos of real people with real feelings to get their share of money. Following this unpleasant incident, neither Hudgens or Tucker ever shared any information about their new baby. None of us know the gender, name, or when exactly the baby was born. The once public Vanessa Hudgens has been silenced.

But this wasn’t the first time that the actress felt scrutinized by the media. Months before she ever confirmed her pregnancy, on every post she made on Instagram, comments were flooded by fans with assumptions she was pregnant because of her changing body and the clothing she wore. This started even before she became pregnant (I did the math). A woman’s body starts changing as soon as she starts trying for a baby as the body prepares for the hormonal changes a woman will be going through during pregnancy. These comments were invasive. A woman doesn’t have the right anymore to decide what the right time is to announce a pregnancy. Random strangers on the internet are doing it for her. There was one particular Instagram post I remember where Hudgens promoted a product. She wore baggy clothes and her face seemed fuller. It was an alcoholic drink that she was promoting, and not once did she take a sip of it throughout the video. As fans analyzed the video, they weren’t concentrating on the product she was promoting, but rather the way she looked, and they didn’t hesitate to comment ‘Pregnant!’ in the comment section.

Nevertheless, Hudgens stayed mum and didn’t either confirm or deny her pregnancy up until her big moment at the Oscars. She didn’t let others ruin her moment, and did what she wanted in her own time regardless of others bullying her. Next came Ashley Tisdale, who also announced her pregnancy, her second, around the time Hudgens announced her pregnancy. The former co-stars were best friends for years after meeting back in 2005 while filming ‘High School Musical’. Hudgens was even a bridesmaid at Tisdale’s wedding to Christopher French back in 2014. Over recent years, however, there were no sights of the two of them together. The last time there were signs of them being together was in 2021 when Tisdale posted a photo of Hudgens holding her then-newborn daughter, Jupiter.

When Hudgens was getting married, Tisdale was nowhere in sight. Fans of the ‘High School Musical’ franchise just assumed Tisdale would take on the role of a Bridesmaid at the wedding. Instead, Hudgens had Sarah Hyland and Alexandra Shipp take on the honorary roles. Though Tisdale didn’t make it to the wedding, some other of her former ‘High School Musical’ co-stars came to celebrate the big milestone event. Fans made assumptions that Tisdale couldn’t make it to the wedding because it was a destination wedding and Tisdale had a daughter to take care of. But then, Tisdale appeared on ‘Watch What Happens Live’, where Andy Cohen asked her hands on about her not making an appearance at Vanessa Hudgens’ wedding and whether they were still friends. She said, ‘I haven’t seen her in a long time. I think we’re just — obviously, she’s working, I’m working. I have a daughter, so she’s a full-time job.’

In girl code, that means that one stabbed the other in the back. Something drastically tragic must’ve happened between them sometime in 2021 for them to end a friendship of almost 2 decades. It just doesn’t make sense to me, and I’m not the only one who thinks so. Tisdale is still close friends with Austin Butler, and is considered to be Jupiter’s uncle. On the outside, it seems as though Tisdale took Butler’s side following the demise of the relationship between and Hudgens, and it took a toll on Tisdale’s friendship with Hudgens. Hudgens herself hasn’t said a word about the matter, but the media has certainly been invested in the fact that the two were pregnant at the same time. They involved their former co-star and Hudgens’ ex-boyfriend, Zac Efron in the mix. Even when it was reported that Hudgens gave birth to her child, the headline still made sure to report that Zac Efron was partying with other women across the country as if he was the father of Hudgens’ child.

Even though Tisdale hadn’t done as much as Hudgens did in the entertainment industry, she’s still a force to be reckoned with. She’s become a successful lifestyle and wellness blogger with her brand, Frenshe, which she founded during the pandemic, in 2020. She created the website to understand her own relationship with wellness. On the ‘About Us’ page of Frenshe, she writes:

‘With so much information out there, I found myself overwhelmed by how much I didn’t know—what’s in the products we’re using everyday, how our gut health affects the rest of our body, and how to live a toxic-free life without going bankrupt. I didn’t have all the answers to the questions I was asking, so I turned to the experts who did. With that, Frenshe was born: a community based platform where wellness didn’t have to be complicated, expensive, or inaccessible. Where health didn’t have to be a far off goal, but a journey that we can all embark on with compassion and honesty. These are the pillars that Frenshe was built on.

I’ve been pretty candid about my experiences with mental health, especially anxiety and depression, and Frenshe is committed to keeping that conversation ongoing in all of our content.

Wellness is for everyone. No one should ever feel excluded on the basis of their race, sexuality, gender, or body. Frenshe believes in transparency, which is why we have a diverse range of experts to answer our most pressing wellness questions. At Frenshe, we believe that wellness is a journey, not a destination. We don’t subscribe to the idea that your lifestyle should be “all or nothing”—your best life is a balanced one and we want to celebrate that.

Frenshe has been a beacon for me over the last two years—and I hope we can continue to support each other in becoming the healthiest versions of ourselves.’

Tisdale made an entire album dedicated to mental health in 2019, with singles like ‘Lemons’, ‘Love Me & Let Me Go’, and Voices In Mt Head’. It was a very different vibe than her days as Sharpay Evans, as well as her previous singles like ‘Crank It Up’, ‘It’s Alright, It’s OK’, and ‘Be Good To Me’. Instead of playing the dumb blonde persona, Tisdale has become an advocate for health, particularly mental health. And yet, when we talk about Tisdale, we still, for the most part, connect her with her work in ‘High School Musical’, and her former friendship with Hudgens.

I’ve personally been a fan of Vanessa Hudgens for a while now, and I follow her career for the actual work that she does rather than any rumours going around about her personal life that doesn’t even concern me. Her work in movies such as ‘Gimmie Shelter’, ‘Second Act’, and ‘Tik Tik Boom’ were phenomenal. Her single with Shawn Hook, as well as the music video, ‘Reminding me’ was simple, touching, elegant, and sexy all at the same time. We can’t forget 2009’s ‘Bandslam’, which was the last movie David Bowie ever appeared in before his passing in 2016. She’s a woman who can do it all. We CAN, however, forget 2012’s ‘Spring Breakers and pretend like it doesn’t exist.

But let’s not forget that Hudgens performed on ‘Grease Live!’ the day her father passed away in 2016. I remember when I first read that she performed LIVE just hours following her father’s passing. I thought to myself, ‘I want to be like her when I grow up.’ The dedication it takes for someone to be able to do their job, and do their job well, following such tragedy is uncanny. It’s brave. It’s courageous. It’s fearless. It’s not talked about enough. Instead, Hudgens’ personal life is what’s talked about the most. We concentrate on Hudgens’ personal life rather than her hard work, her talent, and dedication to her craft. What people don’t see in her is that she’s more than just her ‘High School Musical’ era. What people don’t realize is that whether she’s dating, engaged, married, pregnant, or has given birth already just shouldn’t f*cking matter. That part of her life is none of anyone’s business but hers. Instead of caring so much about her love life or her changing body, we should be concentrating on her work. Comments on her music video with Shawn Hook are flooded with ‘She’s literally a princess’ and ‘She’s so underrated’. She’s underrated because no matter what she does, her fans keep talking about her personal life rather than appreciating her for her work.

But it’s not just Hudgens that has her personal life invaded when all she wants to do is be known for her talent and skills. As I previously said, Ashley Tisdale is mostly known for her former friendship with Hudgens rather than her advocacy for mental health and all the work that she does to bring more awareness to it and help others going through what she’d gone through. When we think of her, we still connect her with Vanessa Hudgens, and we still think of her as Sharpay Evans. Generally speaking, when society thinks of women, society doesn’t care about her talent, her skills, her work ethic, her professionalism, etc. Society thinks of the way she looks, the way she presents herself, her personal life, and anything else that has absolutely nothing to do with her work.

But it’s not just Vanessa Hudgens, Ashley Tisdale, or any other woman in the entertainment industry. It’s all women around the world; regular women. Whether a woman is a stay-at-home-mom, working a 9-5 job, owning her own business, juggling motherhood and work, or living a child-free life to concentrate on her career, she will always be looked down upon. She will always be deemed as less than. Men never experience that, and that’s the f*cking problem. What can we do to change that? We can celebrate women for who they are and what they choose to do with their lives. We can celebrate their achievements. We can appreciate their work. We can stop always analyzing their bodies or continue making assumptions. We, as women, are the biggest problem. We’re each other’s competition when we should be celebrating one another. We should be appreciating each other. We should be looking out for each other.

With that said, I’ll be leaving you with a few Vanessa Hudgens quotes that inspire, or should inspire, women to be the best that they can be; to always better themselves and learn how to value themselves when others don’t see what they see in themselves.

‘Being cool is being your own self, not doing something that someone else is telling you to do.’

‘I just love expanding my horizons and growing as an artist. The only way you get to do that is by doing something that scares you or takes you out of your comfort zone.’

‘My advice to kids is give it your all! Give it 110 percent and don’t give up!’

But most notably…

‘I want to let my fans get to know a little about me. I’m very thankful for everything they’ve done for me so, of course, I’m going to let them into my world a bit. But I really am a very private person, and I love keeping my life to myself – that’s how I’ve always been.’