Vanessa Hudgens Finally Gives Us the Explanation We’ve All Been Waiting For

Coachella 2024 officially ended on Sunday and for a second year in a row, Vanessa Hudgens was not there. The 35-year-old actress has long been hailed as the queen of Coachella (I have no idea who started hailing her as that) and her back-to-back absences made a lot of people very sad.

i don’t want to live in a world where vanessa hudgens isn’t at coachella. https://t.co/9KuTHoUYEH

— Nate. (@natesaifer) April 17, 2024

To twist the knife even further, Hudgens revealed on Instagram on Tuesday that she attended the Phish concert at the Las Vegas Sphere over the weekend.

“Well I didn’t make it to Coachella but I did make it to @phish @spherevegas and it blew👏🏽my👏🏽mind👏🏽 definitely one of the coolest concerts I’ve ever been to in my life,” Hudgens captioned her slideshow. If Coachella royalty is choosing an immersive concert experience inside an electric ball over a weekend of music in the desert, does this mean Coachella is officially over?! Is the festival destined to collapse and disappear beneath the weight of a billion influencers stampeding towards the latest brand activation to make a four-second TikTok?

Luckily, Bustle bravely sought out answers. In a new interview with Hudgens, the writer came right out and asked: “I know you’re usually a regular at Coachella, but you decided to skip it this year. How come?”

“The walking sounded aggressive,” Hudgens said. “It’s a lot of walking.” True! It’s a desert! And Hudgens is very pregnant. She hasn’t said when she’s due but she revealed her pregnancy on the red carpet at the Vanity Fair Oscar Party in March. It’s her first child with husband Cole Tucker, whom she married in Mexico in December. The couple met on a Zoom meditation in 2020 and were first spotted together in 2021. Fun!

Elsewhere in the interview, Hudgens revealed she’s “a big adventure girl,” would “maybe” direct one day since her “taste is just so bizarre…and I feel like that’s what makes interesting directors” (I’m intrigued!), and that her go-to karaoke song is “You Gotta Be” by Des’ree. Bustle did not ask why she skipped Coachella 2023.

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