People were talking about Zac Efron’s face, but does he really look that different??

Tristan Thompson meets up with a friend for lunch at celeb hot spot The Ivy

I really don’t pay much attention to Zac Efron at this point, and I guess I assume most people are like me? I can go months without paying attention to anything he’s doing. I don’t wish him ill or anything – he has his niche and his fanbase, and God bless. But it was weird seeing Efron trend over the weekend because of a new video (and screencaps from the video) showing a somewhat different-looking Efron. From what I’ve seen, Efron spent his late 20s and early 30s (he’s 33 now) getting super-ripped and gaining muscle weight. His face “filled out” and he just… aged. But Efron’s fans were like “WTF, he doesn’t look 18 years old anymore” and “he must have had plastic surgery!!” Maybe he did get a little nip and tuck, but I don’t even think it was that dramatic? Anyway, all of this has sparked a larger conversation about how men can have f–ked up body images too. Sure.

As for Efron’s personal life, he recently broke up with his Aussie girlfriend and an insider has spilled a lot of tea to Us Weekly:

Not ready to settle down. Zac Efron split from girlfriend Vanessa Valladares after 10 months partly because their schedules no longer aligned, a source exclusively tells Us Weekly.

“Zac is about to start a busy year of filming and wanted to make a clean break now,” the insider says, noting the former couple were living together near Byron Bay, Australia, which Efron was paying for. The High School Musical star, 33, is scheduled to leave Australia and go to Canada in May to start working on Firestarter alongside Anne Hathaway for two months, which would leave Valladares, 25, in the home alone.

According to the source, Efron’s “intense filming schedule” would mean he’d be paying for a house he’s not living in, which “wasn’t going to work for him” right now. With travel restrictions in place amid the coronavirus pandemic, the waitress who was first linked to Efron in June 2020, wouldn’t be able to relocate with the Greatest Showman actor.

“Zac is secretly relieved about this turn of events as he feels she would be a distraction to him during the filming of the intense drama,” the insider explains. The source adds that the Baywatch actor’s friends pointed out that “he was getting in too deep and spending too much time” with the model so soon after they got together. The duo’s “24/7” interactions paired with Efron’s upcoming workload — he will fly back to Australia and New Zealand once Firestarter wraps to shoot The Greatest Beer Run Ever before filming Three Men and a Baby toward the end of the year — was too much. “He felt it was best to end this now,” the insider says.

[From Us Weekly]

Sounds like the woman was his “Australia-only” girlfriend and now that he’s going to be working in Canada, he’s done with his Aussie GF. I dislike the references to how he’s paying for the Oz home they shared and he didn’t want to leave her alone in a home he’s paying for. I mean… this wasn’t some woman he picked up last week! This was his live-in girlfriend for nearly a year. But whatever, I barely care.

Photos courtesy of Efron’s social media.

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74 Responses to “People were talking about Zac Efron’s face, but does he really look that different??”

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  1. Ariel says:

    I didn’t see surgery. I saw change from a teen boy skinny body to a grown man who works out body, some weight and some age. Men fill out a little later than women.

    • shurrr says:

      All I see is surgery. Why does male cosmetic surgery just look SCARY? Men age so well naturally & most Hollywood men w fillers look like an horror movie

      • WithTheAmerican says:

        That jaw implant is killing me with those lip fillers. And he has a mid face lift look, bordering on beginning of Stallone’s face work.

        Bad Ken doll.

      • Lizzythe2 says:

        Agreed. I think it looks horrible and scary.

      • Veronica S. says:

        I think it’s because most movie stars tend to have slightly exaggerated/stand out features, and Hollywood men in particular have strongly structured faces. There’s only so many ways to enhance that before going overboard because bone structure is really noticeable if you alter it at all.

        Although, I’ll be honest that I don’t think men age better or worse than women. I think they just a.) tend to find their vanity later in life than women because they aren’t pressured with it as much in younger years (though that’s definitely changing), b.) we link female beauty and worth to youth in ways that we don’t men, which means we’re more critical and tuned into female aging signs than we are with mens because the latter aren’t judged so openly by their looks.

      • HeyJude says:

        He 100% has a chin-implant. I needed reconstructive jaw surgery after car crash injury and they debated putting one in me because my jaw didn’t go back to the same shape as before. Before they do that when it’s reconstructive they basically give you a course on how it’s going to change your face so you’re prepared emotionally for all the possible outcomes.

        So I can vouch that’s a chin-implant. You can see the tell-tale stippling lines around it on each side from where his original jaw line and face is. (This same issue is why I declined one and just kept my new shape.)

        It seems like he got some fillers too. He’s been this same weight for a while, this is a difference for sure. I hope for him he gets it all adjusted. It’s bad work.

    • Yvette says:

      @Ariel … I came here to say the same. He just looks older and more mature and worldly. Zac has packed on some serious muscle weight as well, which makes a difference. If he were the same size as he was 10-years ago, we wouldn’t be haven’t this conversation.

    • MyJobIsToPrincess says:

      Nah, Zac has put on some maturity weight and looks good but has DEFINITELY got a chin implant. That square chin is not original. As long as Zac is happy I am happy for him.

    • Frida_K says:

      Meh.

      Anabolic steroids can make a person’s jaw thicker. I look at him and think he’s been taking a little something-something to get so jacked, muscle-wise, and it shows in his jaw. That’s pretty common in certain gyms and in competitive bodybuilding circles.

  2. Lauren says:

    He looks like he got some lip fillers, and his forehead seems a bit rigid? He does look a bit stiffer, but still is 100% recognizable, so I’m guessing fillers and botox.

  3. MaryContrary says:

    Other than maybe lip fillers, he just looks like he bulked up and has aged. I don’t see anything crazy.

  4. Kendeezy says:

    He looks like he’s trying to be Rob Lowe.

  5. M says:

    It’s the ‘roids. Makes him look like all the other meatheads without necks. The baseball glove tan doesn’t do him any favors either.

    • Frida_K says:

      Yep. I commented above before I saw your remark here. But that’s my vote. He looks roidal to me for sure.

  6. Merricat says:

    His lips are very bad. I can see why people are distressed by this. It’s more than aging.

  7. tealily says:

    He looks kinda puffy in that top photo, but more like alcohol/salt bloat than fillers to me. He looks just normal in the second photo.

    • Emm says:

      Yeah, that top photo looks puffy and usually when you bulk up your face slims down and becomes more chiseled because of all the fat loss.

  8. Silver Charm says:

    I think the deal with the ex was that she signed up to do a reality show and he wasn’t down with it? Not that she needed his permission or anything.

  9. Izzy says:

    I honestly thought that was Rob Lowe at first. So yeah, he really does look that different.

  10. Anners says:

    Honestly, if his name wasn’t in the title I don’t think I’d have recognized him. Then again, I’m an old and was not part of his original fan base. My mental image of him is from the high school musical posters.

  11. cassandra says:

    I feel like he’s always had ‘LA Face’. The man was using crazy amounts of Botox at 20

  12. Amy Bee says:

    He’s put on weight since his school musical days which is understandable and natural but his jaw line is totally different and he looks like he’s put fillers in his cheeks.

  13. Midge says:

    He had fillers, including in his lips.

  14. Nicole says:

    Jaw and lips he looks silly

  15. NewKay_ says:

    He’s a beautiful man…in that his features are fine and pretty- like Rob Lowe.

    I generally like Zac Efron, I watched all three High School Musicals with my pre-tween kids and was surprised by how much I enjoyed them. I can see why he was such a phenomenon and people are so attached to him at that age…and look.

    I also appreciate his acting range. I loved the Greatest Showman and he was phenomenal and disturbingly good as Ted Bundy.

    I read somewhere that he really did have a messed up body image and was on the brink after High School Musical, but his family and his determination managed to get him back and get him re-centred. He talked about how he keeps to himself a lot.

    Peoples weight goes up and down. It’s ok. He did a Netflix series where he looked average and not so well toned- bow he’s toned up, shaved his beard and groomed his hair. Wish people would leave the poor guy alone.

  16. Susan says:

    It’s the jawline for me…completely different than the old one. Too bad, he was a cute kid I thought. I find that often men who have work done look even more—disconcerting, is that the word?—than women. Maybe its my predisposed surprise that men do it, I don’t know.

  17. smcollins says:

    I read comments in regards to this that he had some sort of an accident a while back, where he fell on his face or something (a la Carrie Underwood) that required his jaw being wired shut and some reconstructive surgery. I don’t know how accurate that is but could explain his jawline appearing different 🤷🏻‍♀️

    • Jess says:

      That was like a decade ago though. We wouldn’t be seeing the change now

    • molly says:

      Or he could have Botox and fillers and sculpting and lifting like every other famous person and plenty of non-famous people. Add in the steroids and extremely restrictive diet, and yeah, he’s jacked with his face and body. A lot.

    • Alice says:

      Rumor at the time was that he allegedly was using a lot of hard drugs at the time and was “curb-stomped” by his dealer.

      • molly says:

        Oh yeah, that Skid Row fight. Whatever crisis/PR firm he’s using, they’re worth every single penny for making that story come and go quickly. The fact that people associate him with HSM and a bunch of good movies instead of getting curb-stomped over hard drugs is truly remarkable. Great job to someone!

  18. fifee says:

    I know he’s now a grown man and will obvs look different from his High School Musical days, but im convinced he’s had a chin implant. The lower half of his face looks bizarre.

  19. Cee says:

    puffy, steroids, chin implant. That’s my guess.

  20. Tiffany says:

    Zac gained weight and you see it in his face.

  21. Melissa Wnorowski says:

    Chin implant, fillers to bulk up the jaw, and lip fillers to make his naturally thin lips seem more proportionate to his new lower face. He was aesthetically pleasing before and imo the work took away from that. Poor guy. I hope it makes him happy.

  22. Trix says:

    I looked at the photos yesterday because yeah this is a topic now and was curious.

    I think his scruff gave him the illusion of shadows/contour on his face that aren’t actually there and without that and some weight gain and aging it looks like there’s something different going on when it’s not. It’s also possible that combined with whatever work he did have in his 20s is actually showing up in the way he is aging now. I don’t think it’s new but meh.

    I don’t know about his lips. One area looks weird to me. It could be new work or old work changing or biting the lip.

    Whatever. I don’t think he looks terrible but hopefully he’s learning what works for him and isn’t doing anything else.

  23. Velvet Elvis says:

    Faces don’t change like this with just normal aging or weight gain. He’s either had a chin implant or is taking steroids, which can cause a larger, sculpted jawline. Something strange going on with his lips too. He doesn’t look bad, just less of the pretty boy face he’s known for.

  24. Jess says:

    It’s so sad that arguably one of the most naturally attractive men in Hollywood has fought so hard with body dysmorphia. I do think think this is more work than natural because even bulked up he still had that more lean build with a chiseled but not large jaw line. This jawline is enormous in a rob Lowe but almost cartoonish way. It’s like he went from 28 to 45 overnight? I hope it’s temporary and he finds a way to love himself again

    • Cait says:

      He had a major nose job when he was in his teens. He always had a lot of insecurities. Just look at him in Summerland and than Highschool musical

      • Jess says:

        I don’t think he did actually. He was you g in summerland and even comparing pictures now, I don’t see it. He’s from the town 15 min north of me and only a couple years younger. That would have been hot talk back then

    • Juxtapoze says:

      100% agree. He was a beautiful man with NO need for any work. Makes me really sad he couldn’t see it.

  25. Ana Maria says:

    He now has Quagmire/Stan Smith’s jaw line

  26. Lunasf17 says:

    He looks like he got a chin implant, fillers and lips done. This definitely isn’t just aging and filling out lol. I just wish people were honest about their procedures instead of acting like they just suddenly went through a dramatic growth spurt in their mid 30s.

  27. Starkille says:

    He’s gotten his lips done and something with his jaw (some sort of filler?). He doesn’t look that different, it’s subtle. Wasn’t he a Disney kid? I’m sure they fked the men up as well as the women.

  28. K says:

    Fillers and badly done. Ugh start with the smallest amount ffs. This looks like he pulled up to a gas station and did his tires and face at the same time.

  29. Case says:

    It looks kinda like steroids to me. His jawline is quite different and he looks like he got lip filler. He’s been in the public eye as an adult for several years now and never looked like this before. Something is very different.

  30. Andrea says:

    Shame. Good looking guy. I think he likely got a chin implant and then had to balance out the rest of his face. He seems like a nice guy. I hope he stops because he runs the risk of becoming Mickey Rourke. I wish celebrities (male and female) would tell themselves, their agents, their managers, producers and whoever else tells them need to improve with plastic surgery to shove it.

  31. Hello Kitty says:

    To me his face has that look of someone taking too much human growth hormone

  32. NotSoSocialButterfly says:

    He’s starting to look like David Hasselhoff, so he’s done *something*.
    His face is meatier like it’s fillers, booze or ‘roids. Or some combination of the three.

    Edit: Don’t hassle the hoff, or more accurately, the love child of the hoff and Jay Leno.

  33. Queen Anne says:

    He looks like rob lowe now. Zac was always so cute and handsome. I truly believe he has had work done and I find this very sad. Just very very sad.

  34. Sarcasm101 says:

    He looks awesome. People do get older. Lol!

  35. Zoe says:

    He broke his chin a few years ago and had to have it operated on, maybe that’s what makes him look diffefent?

  36. Veronica S. says:

    Holy shit, yeah he does. Dude always looked like a cartoon character, but in a kind of amusingly “slightly too perfect looking” way. This is just blatantly artificial, more than just aging filling out his face. (Tom Welling is an example of an actor whose face changed A LOT with aging but clearly didn’t have major work done.) He’s got borderline Joyce Wildenstein syndrome going on around the cheeks and eyes. I have to assume he just got fillers and botoxed and took the photo too early, but man, if not…he needs a new doctor. His facial features are completely unbalanced now. I do not understand how these celebrities find these doctors when their looks are their bread and butter. You have to imagine there are so many radically unethical aesthetic surgeons there working on people with dysmorphic disorders and taking total advantage of them.

  37. Elle says:

    I’d love to see him play Tony Curtis, has that same look.

  38. Emily says:

    His chin and jaw look much wider. This could be dental surgery, or weight gain, or maybe steroids (I don’t think Efron needs any help getting and staying ripped, but they do widen the jaw).

  39. Silvie says:

    I would love to see him age into a career like Chris Pine’s, who I also thinking is getting better-looking as he gets older. Everyone I know in the industry says Zac is a great guy.

  40. Jenn says:

    I spent too much of my weekend looking at photos of Zac Efron through the years, and I’m pretty sure he started experimenting with fillers five years ago, maybe longer. I think up until now people just hadn’t noticed. (Elsewhere I saw someone suggest HGH, which can indeed cause acromegaly and swelling, so that also seems plausible.)

    Really, though, I think he was suddenly asked to do this Earth Day video and, despite still being swollen from fillers, he agreed. I think he’ll look like himself again really quickly.

  41. lise says:

    he obviously had some work done on the chin/jaw/lip area. might be surgery, might just be fillers. it probably looks more dramatic bc he’s gained a bunch of muscle weight too. he’s still handsome. idk, it’s not khloe kardashian/renee zellweger level, more like taylor swift/hailey bieber level which is probably to be expected from someone who started in hollywood so young and relies in a big way on looks for roles

  42. Amando says:

    I don’t see surgery, I see weight gain and a mature man.

  43. Jm says:

    The golden ratio prescribes that the chin should just about be 1/2 the size of the forehead. He used to be much closer to that and it’s not generally a proportion that changes with age.
    Regardless, he’s allowed to do whatever makes him happy and he’s still handsome.

  44. AndaPanda says:

    He looks noticeably different and it’s more just age or a tan. He should have left himself alone but being the heartthrob is a lot of pressure I guess.

  45. Tinydancer says:

    Jaws and chins dont grow in months.
    I feel bad for him. I think we are less used to surgery on men so we spot it. Also, they cannot play the contour card.
    Im suprised he had a gf. 10 months is a big deal, I guess she was not the one. (Mooving is nicer than :well, I really like you but not in Love…)

  46. Justjj says:

    To me it looks like this surgery is reconstructive in nature-like maybe he had another recent accident? I’m not sure this is just regular OTT plastic surgery. I think he has a history of shady stuff, drugs and booze, right? It’s sad. I’ve always thought he was cute, but Hollywood is fuqt and I think it’s caught up to him in one way or another…