Zac Efron finally explains facial transformation

Zac Efron sparked plastic surgery rumours with these photos – a year on, he’s finally revealed what was really going on behind the scenes.

Zac Efron has finally set the record straight on his face transformation one year after sparking plastic surgery rumours.

The actor told Men’s Health in his October 2022 cover story, published this week, that he shattered his jaw while running in his house with socks on.

Efron, 34, said he slipped, hit the corner of a fountain, passed out and woke up to his “chin bone … hanging off” his face, Page Six reports.

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These 2021 photos of Zac Efron shocked his fans.

The star has revealed a traumatic injury was behind it.

Amid the High School Musical star’s recovery, his facial muscles got “really, really big” to compensate for the injury, so he worked with a physical therapist to counteract their growth.

When Efron took a break in Australia, “the masseter [muscles] just grew,” the former Disney Channel star, who previously broke his jaw in 2013, explained with a shrug.

Fans first noticed Efron’s transformed face in April 2021, which led to rumours that he had gone under the knife.

The following month, his friend Kyle Sandilands denied Efron had work done.

“It’s like getting a Picasso and having a kid finger paint all over it,” Sandilands quipped on The Kyle and Jackie O radio show in May 2021. “Why bother? … I would know if he’d had any plastic surgery.”

Zac Efron takes aim at those plastic surgery rumours in this Men’s Health interview. Picture: Ture Lillegraven for Men’s Health

Efron’s mother, Starla Baskett, was the one to clue her son into the plastic surgery speculation, as he chooses to remain off social media.

The 17 Again star did not appear fazed, telling Men’s Health: “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.”

Efron is on the cover of the October 2022 issue of Men’s Health. Picture: Ture Lillegraven for Men’s Health

Efron described more injuries elsewhere in the interview, from a dislocated shoulder and torn ACL to a broken wrist and blown-out back, although those occurred when he was training.

While the actor now has a mindful exercise routine with yoga, stretching and self-massaging, he worked out rigorously while filming Baywatch.

Efron reveals he was “burned out” after making the 2017 Baywatch remake. Picture: Ture Lillegraven for Men’s Health

The experience led to a “dark depression” and “insomnia,” Efron told the magazine, explaining that the 2017 movie “burned [him] out”.

The star, who did not feel better until six months after filming wrapped, said: “I had a really hard time recentring. Ultimately they chalked it up to taking way too many diuretics for way too long, and it messed something up.”

Efron noted that he also suffers from agoraphobia.

“I just don’t go out,” he shared, calling “people in large groups” a “trigger” for his anxiety disorder, which is characterised by extreme fear of entering crowded spaces.

This story originally appeared on Page Six and is republished here with permission

Originally published as Zac Efron finally explains facial transformation