Yep, Zac Efron reportedly has a new girlfriend [1] — and the way he and Vanessa Valladares met is absolutely movie-worthy! The actor's relationship with Valladares, an Australian model [2], apparently started in a surprising way that pretty much sounds like the start of a Hollywood romantic comedy [3].
According to People, the pair met while Valladares was working at a café Efron came into [4]! Back in June, the source said, Valladares was working at the Byron Bay General Store & Cafe in Australia — where Efron recently moved to — when she and Efron first met. "Zac met Ness earlier in the summer," People's source added. "They started hanging out in July and recently took a ski trip together. You can tell that they are having fun. She spends a lot of time at this house."
Since their mid-summer meeting, Efron and Valladares have been spotted out and about together quite a bit. They've had a very quiet way of taking their relationship public: neither has spoken publicly about it or posted about each other on social media. In fact, a quick check of Instagram reveals that they don't even follow each other on the platform!
The few sources that have spoken anonymously about their relationship, though, seem to think they're a good match. "Zac and Vanessa are really good for each other [5]. She has calmed him down a lot, and he's not partying too much," one source told Us Weekly. "Vanessa loves to be active — she and Zac have that in common." A separate source also told Us, "Things moved quickly, and Vanessa spends most nights at Zac's house. They are both very smitten with each other [6]."
Efron's love life [7] has been in the spotlight for well over a decade, ever since he shot to stardom with 2006's High School Musical [8] (and famously dated his co-star from that series, Vanessa Hudgens [9]). Moving to Australia was, in part, due to his desire to live a life further from that spotlight. "I gotta get out of Hollywood, I'm done. It's not a place conducive to living a long, happy, mentally-sound life," he said during his Netflix docuseries Down to Earth with Zac Efron [10]. "I love California, I just think that dense population of people and city life is clearly not leading to many centenarians." It seems like Australia has been working out great for him so far!