Zac Efron’s Complete Dating History, From Vanessa Hudgens to Vanessa Valladares

The Iron Claw actor Zac Efron was only a teenager when he filmed High School Musical, a film that sky-rocketed him to fame and made his personal life a subject of intense fascination to fans. At the time, Efron dated his co-star Vanessa Hudgens, and they were quite the young Hollywood power couple. Many years later, Efron is supposedly single, but he’s had some public romances along the way—often with other co-stars.

He did say on Ellen DeGeneres’ talk show in 2016 that he’s had trouble romantically.

“Dating is kind of hard,” he explained. “A forced awkward situation is very strange. Especially for me, for some reason. I like to go and do something adventurous. I like to go out and do some sort of crazy activity.”

That same year he told U.K. Times, “Dating is something I’ll never be able to do. As in the dictionary definition of dating, because one way or another, I’ve impacted that person’s life and they’ll soon realize it. A date has to be very long to dispel whatever people think about me.”

He added, “Amazingly, when I signed up for Tinder, nobody swiped me! They thought [my profile] was fake.”

Here’s Efron’s complete (known) relationship history so far.

Vanessa Hudgens

Efron and Hudgens met in 2005, and started dating when they were only 17. With the popularity of High School Musical, their relationship was pretty high profile. They dated for about five years, which is long for both Hollywood and teenagers. Fans were obviously curious about why they broke things off, though it was said to be mutual and amicable.

In 2022, Hudgens made an appearance on the Awards Chatter podcast, and shared more than she ever had before about their split. First, she said how glad she was to have Efron in her corner at that time in her life.

“It was this massive phenomenon and [all] eyes were on me,” she recalled. “And it’s just a really weird foreign thing to go through. And by being in a relationship, it kind of kept me stabilized and grounded, and I had someone to lean on who was going through it as well.”

But it wasn’t easy to see her boyfriend become such a big star, even if she was one, too.

“I went through a phase when I was really mean because I was so fed up,” said Hudgens. “Girls were running after [Zac], and I was giving them death stares. Then I realized that’s not what that’s about.”

In a separate interview with Shape, she referred to long distance issues that popped up after High School Musical.

“Long-distance relationships are hard no matter what,” she said. “When you don’t have face-to-face time, it’s just different. Having an iPhone helped, but it just wasn’t the same.”

Lily Collins

In 2019, Efron starred in Netflix’s Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile as serial killer Ted Bundy, and his co-star was Lily Collins. But the pair actually dated years earlier, in 2012. They’ve obviously stayed on good terms, though they dated for only three months.

A source told Glamour at the time, “They’re no longer together… it was just a casual thing and it fizzled…They were never in the same place at the same time.”

A second insider said that Efron “was never very serious about” about the unconfirmed romance.

Michelle Rodriguez

Efron and Fast and the Furious actress Michelle Rodriguez dated briefly in 2014, enjoying a summer of romance in Ibiza, Spain, that involved a lot of PDA-packed pictures. After just a couple of months, it was reported that they split in August.

“It was never that serious,” one source told E! News, with a second insider saying, “No one ever really thought of them as together, just more of summer fling and nothing serious.”

Sami Miró

By the fall of that year, Efron was dating businesswoman Sami Miró.

“It’s definitely different,” she told ELLE at the time of all the attention her relationship was receiving. “It kind of just comes with the territory, and I know there’s no really changing that, so you just have to embrace it.”

They dated for two years, and then in April 2016, Efron suddenly unfollowed her and deleted all their photos on Instagram together.

A source said that the breakup was because they “did not have the same feelings for each other as they did when they first started dating,” and that the actor was the one who ended the relationship, adding that “the spark had died.”

“It wasn’t an easy breakup,” the source said. “Distance and work schedules got in the way with their relationship, and Zac wanted to focus on his career.”

Alexandra Daddario

Efron was linked with actress Alexandra Daddario after they filmed 2017’s Baywatch. The same month he split with Miró, they appeared in some group photos together at a restaurant posted by Priyanka Chopra.

Daddario denied rumors of something more than a co-working relationship that May.

“I don’t know that I started it,” she told E! during a Baywatch press conference. “We work together closely; he’s my love interest in the film. I understand why people would go crazy over something like that, but Zac and I are very good friends.”

They never confirmed anything, but he posted a pretty gushing birthday tribute for her in March 2018.

Daddario is currently married to Andrew Form, but she and Efron appear to have a friendly relationship still.

Rebecca Ferguson

In December 2017, it was once again rumored that Efron was dating a co-star, this time Rebecca Ferguson. He shared a photo of them on set for The Greatest Showman where she seems to be looking at him with great interest as he smiles for the camera.

“A picture is worth a thousand words,” he wrote in the caption. “Only words I can think of now are: wtf were u thinking dude?! Look at her!! #GreatestShowman #RebeccaFerguson.”

He followed it up soon after with a post where he’s gazing at Ferguson, joking, “I finally looked…”

But it was never confirmed that they were more than co-stars with chemistry.

Sarah Bro

Olympian Sarah Bro and Efron were first linked in January 2019, and were seeing each other off and on for about a year. In early 2020, a source told Us Weekly, “The relationship just wasn’t working out. She came back to L.A., and it never got going again.”

Halston Sage

Their split might also have had something to do with Efron’s relationship with Halston Sage, who he first briefly dated in 2014 after starring in Neighbors.

“They are definitely an item,” a source told E! News at the time. “They were seeing each other a bit during filming of their movie together and ever since he went to rehab, they got a lot closer. Her friends love him and say he is so sweet. He’s really good to her.”

But they were over by that summer.

Years later, the same source who revealed Bro and Efron’s breakup stated that he and Sage were “in a serious relationship and in love” in early 2020 and that they had “spent the holidays together, with part of that time in Santa Barbara.”

Vanessa Valladares

It’s unclear when Efron ended things with Sage, but he was first linked with model Vanessa Valladares in June 2020. She was working at the Byron Bay General Store & Café in Australia when they struck up a friendship that turned romantic by July.

“Things moved quickly, and Vanessa spends most nights at Zac’s house,” a source told Us Weekly. “They are both very smitten with each other.”

A second insider said that Valladares had “calmed [Efron] down a lot” from partying, adding, “Zac and Vanessa are really good for each other…Vanessa loves to be active. She and Zac have that in common.”

The pair broke up 10 months later, which was first reported by The Daily Telegraph. Efron’s friend Kyle Sandilands commented on the report on The Kyle and Jackie O Show, saying, “It’s not just The Daily Telegraph. I can also confirm after speaking with him yesterday…It’s only recent, but not, like, yesterday recent. But they’ve gone their separate ways… No drama, but it’s done.”

Aimée Lutkin is the weekend editor at ELLE.com. Her writing has appeared in Jezebel, Glamour, Marie Claire and more. Her first book, The Lonely Hunter, will be released by Dial Press in February 2022.