Zac Efron has spoken out about speculation he has undergone plastic surgery on his face.
Last year, the High School Musical star appeared in a promotional video for Earth Day, which quickly went viral as many pointed out that his jawline looked different to usual.
During a new interview with Men’s Heath, Zac was asked about the rumours, insisting there is no truth to them.
Instead, the Emmy winner said that the changes to his face were due to an injury which he sustained after slipping over in his home and smacking his chin against the edge of a fountain.
The actor told the outlet that as a result of his injury, his chewing or ”masseter muscles” had to overcompensate.
“The masseters just grew,” he insisted. “They just got really, really big.”
Zac added that he wasn’t made aware of the online furore about his appearance until he received a phone call from his mum, as he deliberately keeps away from social media.
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.”
Elsewhere in the interview, Zac spoke about the effect bulking up for certain roles has had on his physical and mental health.
Zac recalled: “I started to develop insomnia, and I fell into a pretty bad depression, for a long time.
“Something about that experience burned me out. I had a really hard time recentering. Ultimately they chalked it up to taking way too many diuretics for way too long, and it messed something.”
After a string of comedies including Baywatch, Dirty Grandpa, Neighbors and Mike And Dave Need Wedding Dates, Zac has branched out into a variety of different films in recent years.
These have included the musical The Greatest Showman, the divisive Ted Bundy biopic Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil And Vile and the upcoming action comedy The Greatest Beer Run Ever.
During his Men’s Health interview, Zac admitted he was currently in the process of bulking up for another undisclosed role, but did not offer additional details.
“That Baywatch look, I don’t know if that’s really attainable,” he insisted. “There’s just too little water in the skin. Like, it’s fake; it looks CGI’d.
“And that required Lasix, powerful diuretics, to achieve. So I don’t need to do that. I much prefer to have an extra, you know, two to three percent body fat.”
Read Zac’s interview in full in the new issue of Men’s Health.