Zac Efron Clears Up Rumors About Plastic Surgery and His Changing Face

When 34-year-old Zac Efron appeared in a Facebook video for “Bill Nye’s Earth Day Musical” last year, fans had a lot to say about how different the star looked. With more pronounced cheeks and a chiseled jawline, many speculated that he had possibly undergone plastic surgery procedures that made him appear “overdone.” The star never came forward to denounce those rumors until now. In a new interview in the October issue of Men’s Health, Efron says there is no truth to the rumors, but that didn’t stop his own mother from asking him about it.

In an incident last spring, Efron says he was injured when running through the house in socks and hit his chin on a granite fountain, knocking him unconscious. The star said he could see and feel his chin bone dangling from his face. As a result of the injury, Efron says his masseter muscles were inflamed and got noticeably larger. “The masseters just grew,” he said. “They just got really, really big.”

Efron says those muscles, used for chewing, work together with the other muscles of the face “like a symphony.” After the injury, he says those same muscles inside his face and jaw had to overcompensate which left him looking visibly changed.

To treat his facial injury, Efron says he works with specialist and has physical therapy to help resolve the issue, but the actor notes that plastic surgery was not the cause. While he wasn’t aware of “Jaw-gate” and the speculation on the internet, he did find out when his own mother called him to ask whether he’d had anything done. The actor shared that he tends to stay off social media and speculation like this are a big reason why. “If I valued what other people thought of me to the extent that they may think I do,” he says, “I definitely wouldn’t be able to do this work.”