Following the appearance on the Web of a nude photo of Vanessa Hudgens, a source close to the situation tells PEOPLE that the High School Musical actress once sent risqué photos of herself to Nickelodeon star Drake Bell. Hudgens had emailed photos to the Drake and Josh actor a couple of years ago, before she was famous, the source says.
Bell’s rep, Jill Fritzo, tells PEOPLE of the images that began hitting blogs on Thursday: “Drake says he never received those photos.”
Hudgens, 18, appeared in a 2006 episode of Bell’s Nickelodeon show as his character’s girlfriend. In real life, Hudgens is dating her High School Musical costar Zac Efron, and the two are in Australia at the moment, where he is promoting Hairspray.
In a statement Friday, Hudgens apologized for the pictures and says she is “embarrassed over the situation and regret[s] having ever taken these photos.”
The pictures, including one nude photo, first surfaced on the Web Thursday, prompting her rep to issue a statement saying that the shot “was taken privately. It is a personal matter and it is unfortunate that this has become public.”
The Disney Channel has said it is continuing negotiations with the High School Musical cast, including Hudgens, for a third installment of the movie series, according to the Chicago Tribune.
“Vanessa has apologized for what was obviously a lapse in judgment,” Disney said in a statement. “We hope she’s learned a valuable lesson.”
Source: Vanessa Hudgens Sent Nude Photo to Drake Bell - Vanessa Hudgens : People.com
Forgive me, but I’m about to get really, really catty on this fine monday. I usually try to stay away from this kind of wacko gossip. But, I just couldn’t hold back… (You’ve been warned, lol)
One can come to MANY conclusions regarding this piece of news:
a) Yet another example of WHY kids, tweens, teens need to realize that they are NEVER private when placing private information on the web. ESPECIALLY WHEN YOU’RE FAMOUS (just ask Lindsay “texting-princess” Lohan and her eloquent gems of email fodder).
b) This is fishy. Aren’t you supposed to DENY, DENY, DENY when it comes to stuff like this? The photo (which Perez Hilton had posted a week ago with bikini-esque blurs for innocent-ish eyes) could be debatable. I’m uber suprised wholesome-family-Disney wasn’t like DENY, DENY, DENY! It could have easily fallen between the cracks. After all– who is she really? Everything she’s done points to “girlfriend”. Girlfriend in that D&J episode (mentioned above), girlfriend in HSM, girlfriend to Zac Efron. She hasn’t been the best at stepping from HSM’s shadow, let alone Mr. Efron’s shadow. They could have EASILY chalked this up to some crazy look-a-like fan trying to extort money or something. Spin masters.
The ironic bit for me is this– the very day this young moron sent the picture out “supposedly” I had jumped into a lovely convo with co-workers Jessie & Kat. They were talking about how Vanessa’s on magazines & such SIMPLY because she dates Zac “The IT boy” Effron. Unfortunately she had like 3 lines and no real story for High School Musical 2 other than the fact she was Zac’s girlfriend. Sad. Even Sharpey’s pink-wearing, minor-character brother “Ryan” had more of an importance/storyline/interest in the script.
c) Funny, yet another case of a Disney kid shedding the “perfect” image. Hmm. Perhaps I should say smashing? Or demolishing? Or train-wrecking. Yes, perhaps the term “train-wrecking” should be morphed into some sort of action word regarding young actors making incredibly public mistakes.
Disney, what’s the deal? At least they still have Shia “Awesomeness” Lebouf and Hilary “Fighting the good fight” Duff in their portfolio. Both managed a relatively calm coming-to-age-in-the-biz story.
It’s a shame about that Britney (Oh, my– what a sad, sad girl. VMAs must be embarrassed).
d) Funny that she had to go and involve Nickelodeon’s DRAKE BELL. That wasn’t a necessary piece of information to have go public, was it? I mean, really– did it matter who it went to? If anything, adding another kid actor into the mix just makes the situation more interesting (I wouldn’t have commented on it, after all, if the intrigue of Disney’s actress involving a Nickelodeon actor in this debacle). –Even Bell is Deny, Deny, Denying this. Perhaps this will become some sort of cross-cable-channel West Side Story… After all, everyone involved can sing, right? Or maybe even a Romeo & Juliet tale, with Josh Peck as Horatio. Nah– I like the West Side Story visual better. I can see this big dance number happening now (need a script? Let me know, our people can talk, lolz).
Perhaps Vanessa read my last post when I pointed out the trend of 8 year olds moving from Drake-amore to Zac-obsession. Probably not. 
All in all, I think I’m going to go with #2: This smells fishy.
There is no such thing as bad press– isn’t that the saying? So what if you take down a relatively good, Disney gal. In the long run she’ll probably make some sort of come-back as America’s tarnished sweet heart. Look at Paris. She’s all philanthropy-y (or so she said last night at the VMAs).
Vanessa can come out as some sort of hero to the teens– telling her sad, embarrassing story as a warning to kids like her about hazzards in social networking– phones included.
After all… if you saw the VMAs last night you would have seen Ms. South Carolina making her 2nd “comeback” (first was on The Today Show) after the disasterous viral pagent debacle of last week. She would have been a blip on the screen– just another blonde barbie contestant on a pagent show, but instead, her silly answer has made her a star– and MTV gave her a full 2 minutes of screen time to make fun of herself further (actually, while watching her try to make light of her situation last night I found myself annoyed, if not angered, by everything out of her bubbly mouth. It wasn’t funny to begin with, and yammering on and on in stupidity hoping to lighten her tarnished reputation proved to be a bad idea).
OH well. Enough silly, biz cattiness for one day. Back to the worthy stuff - kids & communities. 
technorati tags:Vanessa, Drake, Bell, Nickelodeon, Disney, PR, spinmasters, Teens, technology, privacy, stupidity
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