The Awkward Connection Austin Butler's Girlfriend Kaia Gerber Has To His Ex Vanessa Hudgens

The age disparity in Hollywood relationships is a crazy phenomenon. From Leonardo DiCaprio's obsession with dating women 25 and under, including Camila Morrone, to Mick Jagger and Melanie Hamrick's massive age gap, the male stars in the industry seem to be drawn to their younger female counterparts. Such celebrities also include Austin Butler, who has been dating Kaia Gerber, 10 years his junior, since 2021. Their age gap became apparent when photos of Gerber with Butler's ex Vanessa Hudgens surfaced, which revealed just how young Gerber is compared to Butler.

Butler and Gerber first sparked dating rumors in December 2021, when the Daily Mail published photos of the two looking very cozy after a yoga class. Since then, the couple has been sharing their relationship publicly through photoshoots and red carpet events. Butler's romance with Gerber is his first long-term relationship since the "Elvis" star's eight-year commitment to fellow former Disney star Hudgens. The pair dated from 2011 to 2020. When they first met, Butler was 20 and Hudgens was 22. Want to know how old Gerber was in 2011? She was 10! What's even crazier is that Hudgens once met a much-younger Gerber way back when.

The jarring age gap between Hollywood star Austin Butler and model Kaia Gerber became glaringly obvious when photos of Gerber meeting Butler's closer-in-age ex-girlfriend Vanessa Hudgens at a 2007 red carpet event resurfaced in viral form on social media. In 2022, one X (formerly Twitter) user posted the throwback photo of Hudgens bending down to shake little Gerber's hand. The post was captioned as a jab at Butler, saying, "His ex meeting his new gf." Another user reposted the photo, writing, "im crying i thought this was a meme but it really is venessa hudgens meeting kaia gerber pls austin butler is so nasty for this." At the time of the photo, which was taken at a "High School Musical 2" event, per Us Weekly, Hudgens would have been 19 years old, while Gerber was only five.

The visuals seriously put Gerber's 10-year age gap with Butler into perspective. However, the internet's obsession with their age difference doesn't seem to bother the "Bottoms" actor. For the most part, Gerber likes to stay tight-lipped on her relationship details. In an interview with The Wall Street Journal, she said of her relationship with Butler: "Honestly, I feel like so few things in my life are private, and that is one of the things that I try to keep as sacred as possible." Even when rumors of their split constantly circle the web, the pair prove their relationship is going strong, just as they did through a romantic evening in NYC on October 6, 2024. The couple was seen holding hands while entering a Gracie Abrams concert at Radio City Music Hall.