Zac Efron is aware of those plastic surgery rumors, but is trying to laugh them off. As the 34-year-old actor promotes his new movie The Greatest Beer Run Ever, even returning to the red carpet for the first time in three years, he’s been asked about the internet’s obsession with his seemingly changing jaw-line.
“My mom told me. I never really read the internet, so, I don’t really care,” Efron told Entertainment Tonight about speculation he altered his face.
In 2013, Efron broke his jaw after apparently slipping in a puddle of water at his home. The High School Musical alum had his jaw wired shut and received several stitches. The actor called the plastic surgery rumors “funny,” but added of the accident: “It sucks. I almost died, but we’re good.”
Efron’s face became the subject of headlines in 2021 after he briefly appeared in Bill Nye’s Earth Day special. The actor had an explanation for “jaw-gate” in the latest issue of Men’s Health:
When I ask him about this, he tells me that the masseter muscles, used for chewing, work together with the other muscles of the face “like a symphony”; when he was injured, the muscles on the inside of his face and jaw had to compensate. He works with a specialist and does physical therapy to mediate this, he says, but in Australia he took some time off from that, too. “The masseters just grew,” he says, shrugging. “They just got really, really big.”
The Greatest Showman star said he avoids social media unless he’s promoting a project, so he noted that the online chatter didn’t get him down.
“If I valued what other people thought of me to the extent that they may think I do, I definitely wouldn’t be able to do this work,” he told the magazine.
MORE: Zac Efron responds to internet speculation about his face
