Vanessa Hudgens is making news at the Oscars before the award show has begun.
The "High School Musical" star announced her pregnancy on the red carpet of the Oscars at the Dolby Theater in Los Angeles on Sunday. The child will be her first.
Hudgens might be on the red carpet in California, but her husband is a bit further south in Peoria, Ariz., at a spring training game. That would be Cole Tucker, a utility player currently signed with the Mariners. Though he was not in the starting lineup for Sunday's game against the Giants, he is likely still with the team on the bench.
Here's what you need to know about Tucker and his relationship with Hudgens.
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Who is Cole Tucker?
Tucker is a 27-year-old baseball player who was signed by Seattle to a minor-league deal before the 2024 season. He is with the team in spring training.
Tucker is with his fourth team in professional baseball, having previously played for the Pirates, Diamondbacks, and Rockies.
Cole Tucker baseball career
The Pirates made Tucker the 24th overall pick in the 2014 MLB Draft, selecting him out of Mountain Pointe High in Phoenix. He had been committed to play at Arizona in college, but he opted to forgo college baseball and enter the draft.
Tucker quickly began to rise in the minors, and after the 2017 season, he was ranked by MLB Pipeline as the Pirates' No. 5 prospect. He reached Triple-A to start 2019, posting a .261/.346/.413 line with eight homers in 77 games. He earned a call-up to the majors, where he slashed .211/.266/.361 with a pair of homers.
The shortstop spent all of the COVID-shortened 2020 season in the big leagues due to the cancellation of the minors, and he posted a line of .220/.252/.275 with a homer. The next year, he split time in Triple-A and the majors, hitting eight home runs between the two levels and hitting below .225 collectively. He saw 18 games in the majors in 2022, but the Pirates wound up designating Tucker for assignment in May. He was claimed on waivers by the Diamondbacks.
In the 2022 minor-league season, Tucker posted a .209/.279/.276 line between a brief Rookie League stint and his two Triple-A appearances.
Tucker found his form with the Rockies in Triple-A in 2023, slashing .280/.391/.407 with five homers in 70 games and earning two separate stints in the majors, during which he posted a .500/.600/.500 line in 10 plate appearances. He elected free agency after the season and signed a deal with the Mariners.
Cole Tucker brother
Tucker is not the only first-rounder in the family. His younger brother, Carson Tucker, was the No. 23 pick in the 2020 MLB Draft by the Guardians.
Carson Tucker played in the Rookie League in 2021 and at Class-A Lynchburg in '22 and '23. Through 73 minor-league games, he has a .164/.279/.246 line with three homers and eight steals.
Vanessa Hudgens-Cole Tucker relationship timeline
Nov. 22, 2020: Hudgens and Tucker are spotted together holding hands, kicking off rumors about their status.
Feb. 14, 2021: Valentine's Day is as good a time as any to go Instagram official. Hudgens posted on Instagram a photo of her and Tucker announcing the relationship between the two.
Feb. 2021: Tucker addresses his relationship with Hudgens to the media. As he prepared for Pittsburgh's spring training, he explained he didn't want to be treated any differently having Hudgens around than any of the other players who brought their significant others to camp.
I got a girlfriend and she's cool," Tucker said, per KDKA. "She'll be around. You will see her, but you saw the headline, it is what it is."
April 2021: Hudgens reveals she and Tucker met in a Zoom meditation group, per Entertainment Tonight.
"He's just kind of perfect for me. I am [happy]. I really am," Hudgens said, per ET. "I think that it's also so important to stay grateful for everything that you have in life. I've been making that a priority, and I feel like it's just been making magic happen all the more."
Feb. 9 2023: Hudgens posts on Instagram that she and Tucker had gotten engaged. The backdrop? Paris. Not a bad place to pop the question.
Tucker proposed with an oval-shaped diamond on a gold band, with Hudgens saying she had helped suggest what type of ring to get for her, she later told Vogue. While she had an idea of how the ring might look, he still caught her by surprise with the proposal.
"I was very surprised," Hudgens told Vogue. "I dropped a hint that that would be the ideal place, but kind of forgot about it because I didn’t want to have any expectations on the trip. I just wanted to enjoy it for what it was, and he caught me completely off guard.”
Dec. 2, 2023: Tucker and Hudgens are officially married. They were wed in Tulum, Mexico, and had the wedding at the Azulik City of Arts, per Vogue. Hudgens wore a Vera Wang dress for the ceremony.
The pair had the wedding outside, and Jay Shetty, the Zoom meditation host from the couple's first meeting, officiated the wedding. She said they wrote their own vows.
“[Writing my own vows] was important to me,” Hudgens told Vogue. “I would also say to everyone: Write your own vows and read them. It is the most beautiful thing ever in a relationship to be that open and vulnerable and raw in front of all of the people you love proclaiming your love. It’s just beautiful. I loved it.”
March 10, 2024: Hudgens walks the red carpet at the Oscars and reveals that she is pregnant with her and Tucker's child.
Vanessa Hudgens has arrived to the #Oscars+ one pic.twitter.com/KQlqdaFV6t
— Deadline Hollywood (@DEADLINE) March 10, 2024
