Zac Efron Addresses Jaw Surgery Speculation

Last April, an Earth Day PSA featuring the 34-year-old actor went viral after fans alleged that he looked very different from before, which led to tons of speculation about a potential plastic surgery procedure that made his jaw appear much more square. But while he never publicly addressed the buzz surrounding "Jaw-gate," Efron is now ready to tell the truth behind the change in his appearance — and the story itself is a pretty painful one.

In a new interview with Men's Health, the Baywatch star admitted that his face shape did change, though it wasn't because he made a purposeful decision to go under the knife. In fact, what actually happened was that he broke his jaw after falling over at his house in November 2013, which subsequently led to his face and jaw muscles to work much harder.

As the publication relayed, Efron had been "running through his house in socks and slipped, smacking his chin against the granite corner of a fountain," after which he "lost consciousness" and later woke up with "his chin bone was hanging off his face." And this resulted in his masseter muscles — which are used for chewing — to no longer work properly in tandem with his other facial muscles, meaning his jaw had to overcompensate for this.

“The masseters just grew. They just got really, really big,” he said, before adding that he still works with a specialist and does physical therapy for his jaw. However, Efron also went on to reveal that he didn't know about Jaw-gate until his mom asked him whether he got plastic surgery, which he chalked up to the fact that he's tried to avoid social media ever since he skyrocketed to superstardom at 17.

He said, “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.”

Read everything Efron had to say about the rumors in his Men's Health interview here.

Photo via Getty / Brendon Thorne