Vanessa Hudgens expected to be married by 25

Vanessa Hudgens always thought she'd be married by her mid-twenties.

The Spring Breakers actress previously dated her High School Musical co-star Zac Efron, was in a relationship with actor Austin Butler from 2011 until 2020, and is currently seeing baseball player Cole Tucker.

In a new interview for the November 2021 issue of Shape magazine, Vanessa explained that she always thought she would be married by now, but is pleased to be in an "amazing" relationship with Cole.

"Where I am now is better than I could have dreamed of. My relationship with myself is something I value deeply, even if things don't always go the way I expected. For instance, my mom got married at 25, so I always thought I was going to be married at 25. That didn't happen," the 32-year-old continued. "But I'm in such an amazing, healthy relationship, so it doesn't matter. What I've discovered is that we all have these ideas - and if they don't happen, then there's a reason why. Learning that has been extremely helpful to my growth. I'm very grateful every day for where I am in this moment of my life."

Vanessa went on to note that she has really "come into my own" in recent years, and is "fully accepting" of herself as a person.

"When you're fully accepting of who you are, and you stop trying to suppress pieces of yourself, you can conquer the world. I love how silly I am. I love how excitable I am. And I love that I'm finally at a place where I can access those things," she insisted. "Even the quirky stuff that might have been shut down by other people in the past, like being ridiculous with my friends, those are things I'm now allowing to thrive. For some people, I'm way too much. But I love who I am, and there's such power in that."