TMZ reported earlier today that actress Vanessa Hudgens is working closely with the FBI to discover the perpetrators who hacked into her Gmail account, stole and distributed personal nude photographs of her.

A source revealed in a mass email that the perps are not hackers targeting celebrities, but rather former friends of the actress.

Our source is quoted as saying:

Vanessa thinks she is part of this hacking ring but in fact she isn’t. She was careless and left her account open, then an ex-friend of mine and her friend starting trying to sabotage her. I don’t think either of the girls will confess no matter how serious the situation gets. Ultimately, this could end with someone being falsely accused.

The two people being accused in the email are none other than actresses Alexa Nikolas and Kayslee Collins. Both of whom have been friends of Hudgens for years.

Why would they do such a thing? Well, allegedly the motive is pure jealousy.

The full email we received is as follows:

I am writing to you today because I have some important information to disclose. I have long hesitated to do this out of fear of the repercussions which may occur, pertaining to the parties involved. However, in light of recent events, I feel it is my duty to divulge all I know before the situation gets out of hand.

As you may have heard, recently, more nude pictures belonging to Vanessa Anne Hudgens have been released into the public domain. These pictures were personal and Vanessa is obviously distraught by the fact that her privacy has been invaded. The source of these pictures was this Flickr account:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/sweet-melodies

The “Sweet Melodies” account has since been deleted. I am certain that the owners of this account are two teenage girls, Kayslee Collins, 19, and Alexa Nikolas, 18. I know this because I was formerly a close friend of Kayslee Collins and an acquaintance of Alexa Nikolas. Kayslee and Alexa are responsible for all of the distribution of Vanessa Hudgens’ personal pictures, dating back to September 2007.

In 2006, Kayslee and Alexa were close friends of Vanessa, but they later drifted apart due to Vanessa’s work commitments (The High School Musical movies). Vanessa was especially fond of Alexa, even inviting her to star in her debut music video, to make up for the fact that she had been too busy to spend time with her.

Later that year, Alexa suggested that Vanessa take some racy pictures to keep her boyfriend interested. Vanessa agreed and privately took some naked photos of herself. Kayslee then took photos of Vanessa and Alexa kissing. Alexa and Kayslee took no nude photos of themselves.

Vanessa took more nude photos that year and the next, but she was careful and deleted the pictures from her mobile phone. Vanessa uploaded her pictures to her email account and sent them to her boyfriend, like Alexa had suggested. On one of these occasions, she did this while she was at Alexa’s house. Alexa downloaded the pictures onto her computer when Vanessa accidentally left her email account logged in.

Since September 2007, Alexa and her friend Kayslee have been leaking Vanessa’s pictures every time she has movie coming out. I believe this is because of them being jealous of her successful movie career.

On March 12 2011, Alexa created the Sweet Melodies Flickr account, she uploaded racy photos (which were taken in 2007). The images Alexa uploaded included Vanessa Hudgens nude and her making out with Vanessa. Alexa knew that if she uploaded the images of her and Vanessa kissing, Vanessa would become suspicious, because she was the only one who had access to those images. To avoid that happening, Alexa took some nude pictures of herself (on March 12 2011).

She made sure she censored the images of Vanessa, who was 17 at the time this set of pictures was taken (although she was 18 in the previous sets). She also partially censored the pictures of herself, again to avoid suspicion.

Vanessa doesn’t suspect Alexa or Kayslee and is spending huge amounts of money hiring lawyers because she believes her email account was hacked into by someone “out to get her”. In the past she has even suspected previous boyfriends and family members.

Being a young person in the entertainment industry myself, I am aware of how detrimental scandals like this can be to someone’s career. When I became aware of what Alexa and Kayslee were doing, I immediately stopped contacting them and refused to get involved. But now I believe it is a very serious matter, especially since Alexa and Kayslee plan to leak more of Vanessa’s pictures, the day before her Sucker Punch premiere (March 22).

I am desperately trying to prevent this from happening so I have decided it is necessary for me to contact the media before it is too late.

I believe the world deserves to know the truth about what these young “stars” have done and the unnecessary hurt they have caused Vanessa Hudgens, her family and her friends.

Another recipient of the email is website The Blemish. Their take on all this? “Alexa sounds crafty. Taking nude photos of herself and leaking them along with Vanessa’s to throw her off the scent? Brilliant! Now we’re all winners. She’s like the Ethan Hunt of nude photo scandals.”

We currently have people working to discover the truth behind these allegations and will update you with any information we find out.

If this story ends up being true I would feel SO bad for Vanessa. I mean really, your two girlfriends doing this to you? That’s just awful. Ugh, girls can be so brutal to each other sometimes…