Vanessa Hudgens is a star of High School Musical.

But she was almost a star on the American Idol stage.

"I love singing and I thought that to get a chance to do [American Idol] would have been amazing," Hudgens told Australia's Daily Telegraph this week. "The only way I thought that I would be able to get myself out there would be on American Idol. But I was 15 at the time when I said that I wanted to do it and you had to be 16 to audition."

However, once the singer's 16th birthday finally arrived, High School Musical was already in the cards. The rest is Disney Channel history.

"When I turned 16, High School Musical came along and I got to do it," she said. "So I thought I'd skip on American Idol."

Matt Richenthal is the Editor in Chief of TV Fanatic. Follow him on Twitter and on Google+.