Is Austin Butler crediting ex-girlfriend, Vanessa Hudgens, for his award-winning 'Elvis' role?

Golden Globe winning actor Austin Butler has been racking up more award nominations for his role in the movie "Elvis," and in a roundtable with "The Hollywood Reporter," he credited the part to a, ehem, "friend."

"The month before I heard that [director] Baz was making the movie, I was going to look at Christmas lights with a friend. And 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 gotta play Elvis!'"

He added, "And then a couple of weeks later, I was playing the piano and 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 …'"

It has become apparent to Internet sleuths that the "friend" Butler is referring to may be his ex-girlfriend, Vanessa Hudgens.

Back in August 2019, when they were still a couple, Vanessa told the same story on the "Live with Kelly and Ryan" show. 

“It’s so crazy because last December, we were driving along and we were listening to Christmas music, and then an Elvis Presley Christmas song came on. He had just dyed his hair dark — he’s a natural blonde blonde — and I was looking at him, and he was singing along, and I was like, ‘Babe, you need to play Elvis. I don’t know how, but I’m serious. You need to play him.

"Then in January, he was sitting at the piano—he’s a musician—and he’s playing and he’s singing and I’m like, ‘I don’t know how, but we need to figure out how you can play Elvis. Like, I don’t know how we get rights or what we do, but you need to play him," she said back then.

Some netizens seem to have taken issue with the actor calling Hudgens his "friend" after a decade together, but both parties have moved on.

Hudgens is currently dating baseball player Cole Tucker, while Butler has been dating model Kaia Gerber, the daughter of supermodel Cindy Crawford.

Will it be an awkward award season for Hudgens and Butler? Who knows. — LA, GMA Integrated News