Austin Butler’s date for the Golden Globes was his sister, Ashley. His girlfriend, of course, is Kaia Gerber, who met up with Austin and Ashley at the after-party. Here they are leaving hand-in-hand, after celebrating his first major win. It was 330am, and Kaia was seen falling asleep in the car on Austin’s shoulder. These two are stupidly attractive on their own. Together it’s aggressively unfair. 

 

At one point, though, before they pulled away, Darren Criss popped in the car to say hello. That’s a connection from back in the day when Austin was dating Vanessa Hudgens. And speaking of Vanessa, she’s part of his Elvis story because she was the one who really got him thinking about playing Elvis – which is a story she told Kelly Ripa and Ryan Seacrest when he landed the part. 

He told this story during The Hollywood Reporter’s Actors Roundtable that was released this week but instead of referring to Vanessa by name, he called her a “friend”. The internet has taken exception to this:

@y2kelsie

Not Austin referring to Vanessa as his “friend” when she manifested his biggest role of his career #vanessahudgens #austinbutler #elvis

♬ original sound - kelsie carlos
 

Is it proper credit when you don’t properly name the person who was there when the universe started opening up a path to the role of a lifetime? Austin and Vanessa were together for a decade, basically through their 20s. They broke up, ironically, just as he started preparing to play Elvis, and we all know by now how dedicated he was to the performance, to the point where he distanced himself from his entire life. Maybe the hurt is too fresh, maybe that’s why he can’t say her name. Maybe he doesn’t want it to become a headline, and see his name alongside hers again when their romance has long since ended. Maybe she’s not taking as much offence as the internet is at not being adequately acknowledged. I mean I’m petty AF so I would totally mind, but maybe Vanessa is much more generous. Then again, we’re talking about celebrities here, and they have super-fragile egos. Curious to see whether or not this story goes anywhere. 

But that’s not the only Vanessa angle that’s come out of THR’s roundtable. Because after Austin told this story, referring to Vanessa as his “friend”, Colin Farrell responded like this:

LOL FOREVER. 

 

Can we all put our manifestation efforts together now and Gossip Genie Colin Farrell and Vanessa Hudgens?! 

Anyway, back to Austin and Kaia – as Sarah just wrote, it’s back-to-back celebrations for him this week because he was nominated for a SAG Award yesterday. And Kaia was too, sort of. SAG’s equivalent for Best Picture is the Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture. Babylon has been nominated, and Kaia is in Babylon. She shows up for less than a minute and doesn’t have any lines and her character is simply called “starlet” but she’s in the movie so, technically, she’d have a right to be at the SAGs… if they need a reason to go together.