Vanessa Hudgens’ Cover Of Olivia Rodrigo’s “Vampire” Is An HSM Dream
From one Gabriella to another.
Gabriella Montez, you will always be famous! Vanessa Hudgens recently gave High School Musical fans an iconic link between two generations of East High... even if nobody realized it until months later. Here’s why her cover of Olivia Rodrigo’s “Vampire” flew under the radar at first, but is now a must-watch for every HSM fan.
Hudgens performed Rodrigo’s angsty breakup power ballad over two and a half months ago in early March, so why are we just now talking about it? Because at the time, nobody knew she was the one singing it. (OK, that’s not entirely true — most of Hudgens’ fans immediately recognized her voice even if her face wasn’t showing). On the Season 11 premiere of The Masked Singer, the Goldfish tore the house down with an emotional performance of “Vampire.” Fast-forward twelve weeks, and on the May 22 finale, the Goldfish was announced the season’s winner, and finally unmasked to reveal the songstress had been Hudgens all along.
With Goldfish’s identity confirmed at long last, looking back at her premiere performance has even more layers than expected, given that Rodrigo’s character in High School Musical: The Musical: The Series was considered the spiritual successor of Hudgens’ Gabriella Montez in the original movie trilogy.
In the 2019 HSM sequel series, Rodrigo’s Nini was cast to play Gabriella in East High’s very meta stage production of the first High School Musical movie. Hudgens and Rodrigo have only briefly interacted IRL before, when they had every Wildcat’s heart swelling when they met at the 2022 Met Gala and Hudgens called Rodrigo “little miss new Gabriella.”
After being revealed during The Masked Singer’s finale, Hudgens gushed about what winning the competition meant for her.
“I have loved being able to swim into new territories as the golden girl on this stage,” Hudgens said. “As a little girl I was never really great at expressing myself. It's not really something I grew up around. But lately, I have been on a journey of self-discovery and being here I've been able to express myself so freely. I come from a working-class family that has no connection to Hollywood whatsoever, so there's no reason I should have made it. But I'm proof that with enough love, hard work and dedication, you can truly do anything.”
