Vanessa Hudgens Makes A Rare Comment About “Chemistry” With Zac Efron
The High School Musical stars dated for five years before splitting in 2010.
Vanessa Hudgens is getting back in the game — well, kinda. On Oct. 1, she appeared on the podcast Get Your Head in the Game with Bart Johnson to reflect on her High School Musical journey in honor of the first film’s 20-year anniversary. During the interview, she told Johnson (who played Coach Bolton) about scoring the role of Gabriella Montez and being cast alongside Zac Efron.
After meeting on the movie, Hudgens and Efron dated for five years before calling it quits in December 2010. And according to Hudgens, her “chemistry” with Efron was palpable – even during casting. "There was one other girl there for Gabriella, one other guy there for Troy. We swapped, mixed and matched, and yeah, that was it,” she said. “Of course I was a child and paired with this boy and I was like, 'Oh my god, he's so cute.' The chemistry was so real.”
Back in July 2007, Efron also opened up about his instant connection with Hudgens. At the time, he told People, “I don’t know what it was with Vanessa, but we kind of clicked from the very beginning.”
In her recent conversation with Johnson, Hudgens explained that working with Efron was far rom the only exciting part of the project. “Coming from a musical theater background, that was and still is where my heart remains,” she added about working on the High School Musical films. “So, I was very excited.”
Hudgens rarely discusses her relationship with Efron, but in a September 2022 interview with NYLON, she teased a future memoir where she would reveal all the details. “The public only sees so much,” she told the outlet. “I’ve also been through two very long life-changing relationships, and no one really knows what happened except for me. When I write my memoir, it’ll be amazing.”
Hudgens’ five-year romance with Efron may have been one of those transformative relationships, but it was not her only public romance. Before marrying her now-husband Cole Tucker in December 2023, Hudgens was in a nine-year relationship with Austin Butler.
