Health Scare

Zac Efron Recovering After Hospitalization for “Minor Swimming Incident”

The High School Musical star was rushed to an Ibiza hospital after an apparent mishap in the pool.
Zac Efron
Zac Efron attends the Los Angeles premiere of Netflix's “A Family Affair” at the Egyptian Theatre in Los Angeles, California on June 13, 2024.MICHAEL TRAN/Getty Images

Actor Zac Efron spent the night in a Spanish hospital, after an unspecified incident in a swimming pool prompted an emergency response. The Iron Claw actor is said to be recovering well following the health scare, which was preceded by a five-day vacation reportedly spent with Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky.

TMZ was first to report that 36-year-old Zac Efron, who most recently starred in Netflix age-and-fame-gap rom-com A Family Affair, had been vacationing at a villa in the Spanish town of Ibiza, which is known as the “party capital of the world.” On Friday evening, the website reports, Efron “was found inside the swimming pool by two people working at the villa who pulled him out of the water.”

The actor was rushed to a nearby hospital, and spent the night there before being released the following morning. According to a representative for Efron, the actor experienced a “minor swimming incident,” but declined to provide additional details. He was taken to the hospital as a “precautionary measure,” the rep says, but did not elaborate on why that measure required an overnight stay.

The Emmy-winning actor (for his Netflix series, Down to Earth With Zac Efron) has been a paparazzi mainstay in recent weeks, with photographers capturing him on a St-Tropez boat with some-time action star Gerard Butler and at the Paris Olympics opening ceremonies. Immediately prior to his Ibiza trip, Efron was reportedly partying on the Greek island of Mykonos with Chesky, whose short-term-rental platform, Airbnb, recently made headlines for promising a new level of luxury perks to lure travelers away from hotels and into company-boosted homes.

The night before Efron's swimming scare, he was spotted onstage with DJ Martin Garrix at the Ushuaïa Ibiza Hotel and Beach Club. In video posted to TikTok by the musician, Efron sauntered onstage during his Thursday set, then danced at his side.

The pool incident comes over a decade after another health crisis that sent Efron to the hospital: in November of 2013, the actor has said, he slipped and smacked his face on the corner of a granite fountain while running through his home in socks. The impact knocked him unconscious, and when he awoke, his jawbone “was hanging off his face.”

The resulting therapy to repair the damage prompted the significant changes to the actor's face since his years as a teen hearthrob, but the conversation around that incident—or this one, we assume—doesn't faze the actor, who said in 2022 that “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.”