Jaw-gate, as the public came to know it, was a defining moment in Zac Efron’s career, whether or not it deserved to be. 

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After photos of Efron emerged online sporting a noticeably pronounced jaw in April 2021, speculations of plastic surgery ran rampant. The once baby-faced heartthrob was now a five-o-clock shadowed, chisel-jawed man. Side-by-side photos of Efron in 2019 and him in 2021 occupied every corner of the internet. Fans lamented over the unattainable expectations celebrities endure in Hollywood. Plastic surgeons chimed in on YouTube to outline where exactly Efron had gone under the knife.

Through it all, Efron remained silent. Then, a year and a half later in September 2022 he finally opened up to Men’s Health about the ordeal. In 2013, he experienced a traumatic jaw injury, one that caused his jaw to shatter. In a fluke accident that almost cost him his life, Efron slipped and fell after running through his house in socks. His face connected with the granite corner of a fountain, and when he woke up his chin bone was hanging off his face. It was eventually operated on and wired shut. 

This was reported on in 2014, but in 2021 the public seemingly experienced a mild case of amnesia, all but forgetting the perfectly good reason for Efron’s facial changes. 

Zac Efron before and after his accident (2013 to 2015)

The photo on the left is of Efron at the Tribeca Film Festival on April 19, 2013. The one on the right is from Aug. 20, 2015, a full year and a half after the accident. While it can’t be argued that age does mysterious things to our bodies, it’s hard to ignore the noticeable difference in Efron’s jaw. 

For starters, it’s more pronounced. This can happen regardless of jaw surgery, as age is known to shrink baby fat and highlight sharp features that were previously less prominent. Nevertheless, knowing what we know, it’s almost impossible not to put two and two together. 

The difference in Efron’s facial features didn’t become seriously noticeable until 2017 when he massively transformed his body for the film Baywatch. He became famously shredded for the role, and although his facial changes were evident, they were overshadowed by the sheer shock of his physical transformation. Years later, Efron revealed to Men’s Health that he endured mental and physical complications as a result of sculpting his body into the masterpiece that was shown on screen. 

Efron said filming Baywatch caused him to develop insomnia and that he “fell into a pretty bad depression, for a long time.” Efron cited diuretics — water pills that remove the fluid from your body — as the main cause of his issues. 

Still, the biggest difference in Efron’s features didn’t come to light until 2021 in his infamous Earth Day post on Facebook in which his jaw looked twice as pronounced as it did years earlier. As it turns out, Efron has an explanation for this, and no it has nothing to do with plastic surgery. 

Zac Efron, then and now (2013 to 2023)

The photo on the left is from that same Tribeca Film Festival on April 19, 2013. The one on the right is from the Toronto Film Festival in September 2022 in promotion for the film The Greatest Beer Run Ever. 

It’s impossible to deny the changes in Efron’s face. The biggest and most noticeable difference is the length of his jaw and the prominence of his jawline. More specifically, his masseter, the muscle that runs through the rear part of a person’s cheek. Previously soft, Efron’s masseter now looks as muscular as his biceps, which throws the hollow parts of his cheeks into stark relief. 

After his near-fatal jaw injury, Efron underwent physical therapy to help his masseter and other muscles of his face work in harmony. Now, he says they work “like a symphony,” but back then the muscles on the side of his face and cheek had to compensate for his weakened masseter. 

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Efron took a break from his usual physical therapy while staying safe from the pandemic in Australia. “The masseters just grew,” he told Men’s Health during this time. “They just got really, really big.”

Efron’s mother was the one who informed him of Jaw-gate. Efron himself stays off social media. In fact, he invested little stock into the knowledge that his face broke the internet in 2021. His body has been breaking the internet in one way or another since he was 17 years old in High School Musical. “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.”