Zac Efron has had a tough but transformative year: rehab, breaking his jaw, and violent Skid Row incident. In a revealing new interview with The Hollywood Reporter, the Neighbors actor opens up about his struggles, and how joining Alcoholics Anonymous has helped him get back on the right track.
"I was drinking a lot, way too much. It's never one specific thing. I mean, you're in your 20s, single, going through life in Hollywood, you know?" the 26-year-old heartthrob told the mag of life pre-rehab. "Everything is thrown at you. I wouldn't take anything back; I needed to learn everything I did. But it was an interesting journey, to say the least."
Back in April 2013, Efron secretly completed a brief stint in rehab for problems with cocaine and alcohol. Since then, he's joined AA. "I just started going. And I think it's changed my life," he told THR. "I'm much more comfortable in my own skin. Things are so much easier now. It's a never-ending struggle."
Although a source told Us Efron's been in a "good place" following the rehab stay, trouble continued to follow him. Last month, the actor and his bodyguard got into a scuffle with a "vagrant" in L.A.'s Skid Row neighborhood.
"We were having trouble finding somewhere — a lot of places were closed — and the car ran out of gas off the 110. It was ridiculous. We had to pull over, and I called Uber," Efron explained to THR. "A homeless guy, or vagrant, tapped on the driver's-side window. Before I knew it, he [my bodyguard] was out of the car, and they started fighting. I saw that [the homeless man] was carrying some sort of a knife, or shank, and I got out of the car to disarm him."
He added: "At some point, he dropped the knife, and I got hit pretty hard in the face — and almost instantly the police were there to break up the fight."
Efron has gotten back to work after the incident. He's currently promoting his comedy The Neighbors with costar Seth Rogen, and even managed to show off his rock hard abs during the 2014 MTV Movie Awards in L.A. on April 13. Up next, he's set to star in the film The Associate.
