Ever wondered if the former Disney Channel star has any ink?
Zac Efron used to have one tattoo – the word ‘YOLO’ on the side of his hand, which he got in 2011. He had this removed around 2014 though. In 2012, he got a semi-permanent tattoo on his inner arm – a picture of some feathers – which is no longer visible. He has also worn fake tattoos for movie roles – like for the movie Bad Neighbors.
Read on to learn more about Zac Efron’s – albeit brief – history with tattoos!
Zac Efron Used to be a Teen Idol
Zac Efron started his career as a child actor, and his work with Disney Channel soon made him a bona fide teen idol. Critics and fans alike acknowledged this – movie fans compared him to a young Cary Grant, who was also known for his charm. Critics, such as those at Rolling Stone magazine, called him “the new American heart-throb” when he was just 22 years old.
Zac made his acting debut on a TV series called Firefly. He also regularly played Cameron Bale on The WB’s Summerland. This show was canceled in 2005, after which Zac played guest roles on shows like NCIS, CSI: Miami, and Disney’s The Suite Life of Zack and Cody. The same year, he landed the leading role in another Disney production: High School Musical. In fact, 2005 was a big year for Zac, it was also the year his first feature film, The Derby Stallion, came out.
High School Musical was the hit franchise that made Zac famous. He even found love on the set of this series – Zac dated his co-star Vanessa Hudgens for quite some time. Even though Zac has struggled to shake off his Disney image in the years following High School Musical by doing more mature films – ranging from comedies like Neighbors and Dirty Grandpa to gritty biopics like The Greatest Showman (for P.T. Barnum) and Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile (for serial killer Ted Bundy) – he is still grateful for getting to experience High School Musical.
“I think those movies were like, I don’t know, a couple thousand bucks and we were so happy. We were just friends doing what we loved and I think that was what my affirmation was, that if it’s this much fun and people like it that much then we must be providing them some sort of service,” he has said, adding on another occasion, “It’s hard to compare them to anything. Man, the first time you fall into a rhythm with something where you can just be yourself and you’re immersed with people you love… the cast was incredible.”
Zac Efron Had His Only Tattoo Removed
Zac Efron’s second, and semi-permanent tattoo, made a public appearance for the first time in 2012 when he showed off a tattoo of a double feather picture on his right bicep as he starred on the cover of Men’s Health magazine. At the time, he claimed that the tattoo wasn’t permanent, which seems to be true since it is no longer visible.
Zac’s second tattoo, which he got in 2011, was not as – for lack of a better word – well received. In 2011, he got the term ‘YOLO’ tattooed on the side of his hand. ‘YOLO’ stands for ‘You Only Live Once’ and was originally meant to convey the same meaning as ‘Carpe Diem.’ However, the term soon became the subject of internet jokes and memes, and so did Zac’s tattoo as a result. The tattoo even had its own fan-made Twitter account!
Zac soon had this tattoo removed, it seems, but he did so rather quietly. The tattoo has not been seen on his hand since at least 2014. He never announced that he planned on removing it, nor has he ever spoken about either tattoo in public. For his role in the 2014 movie Bad Neighbors, he wore a fake tattoo on his other bicep. This tattoo was the symbol for the frat that his character was a part of.