Vanessa Hudgens Reacts to Joke About Ex Austin Butler's Elvis Voice

The 34-year-old "Princess Switch" star was caught commenting on an Instagram post about the actor's voice coach defending his accent -- which he's continued to use long after filming Baz Luhrmann's "Elvis." The post quoted the coach as saying Butler's accent is "genuine" and "might remain 'forever,'" prompting someone to joke he "went to the Lady Gaga school of Oscar campaign acting."

Her one-word reaction: "Crying."

The former couple parted ways in 2020 after a decade-long relationship.

Her comment comes after Butler recently shared how she encouraged him to pursue the Elvis role, but only referred to her as a "friend" despite their long romance and didn't mention her by name.

"The month before I heard that Baz [Luhrmann] was making the movie, I was going to look at Christmas lights with a friend," he recalled during The Hollywood Reporter's Actors Roundtable. "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 got to play Elvis.' I said, 'Oh, that's such a long shot.'"

"A couple of weeks later, I was playing the piano, I never really sang for any of my friends or anything. 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,'" Austin continued. "Then my agent called and said, 'So Baz Luhrmann is making an Elvis film.'"

While he didn't mention her, some eagle-eyed fans recalled an interview where Vanesa told an identical story years ago when they were still together.

"Last December, we were driving along and we were listening to Christmas music, and then an Elvis Presley Christmas song came on," Hudgens said during a 2019 appearance on "Live with Kelly and Ryan." "He had just dyed his hair dark. He's a natural blond, and I was looking at him and he was singing along and I was like, 'Babe, you need to play Elvis.'"

She continued to tell the exact story of how she encouraged Butler to go after the role, sharing, "Then in January, he was sitting at the piano, and he's playing and he's singing and I'm like, 'I don't know how, but you 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.'"

After his Golden Globe Award win for the role, he addressed the accent thing backstage in the press room. "I don't think I sound like him still, but I guess I must because I hear it a lot," he said.

"I often liken it to when somebody lives in another country for a long time," he continued. "I had three years where [Elvis] was my only focus in life, so I'm sure there's just pieces of my DNA that will always be linked in that way."