Dave Franco is setting the record straight on what he calls one of the weirdest rumours he’s ever faced — that he was romantically involved with Neighbors co-star Zac Efron.
Speaking on the Call Her Daddy podcast, the 40-year-old actor revealed that an ex-girlfriend once confronted him after seeing a photoshopped image of him and Zac looking unusually close at a basketball game. “This girl that I was kinda seeing at one point reached out and was like, ‘Hey, what’s this all about?’” Dave said. The image sparked headlines speculating about a possible relationship, and according to him, “it had some legs.”
Franco, who has been happily married to Alison Brie since 2017, laughed off the rumour, calling it completely baseless but bizarrely persistent.
He also revisited one of the more painful (and awkward) on-set moments from Neighbors: Zac Efron dislocating his thumb during a crotch-grabbing scene involving both actors. “It definitely wasn’t because my penis was hard,” Dave joked, clarifying the real reason behind the injury. “I think it was a dislocated thumb, to be fair, but it happened. There’s a scene where we’re both grabbing each other’s crotches at the same time… He came in with enough force from the wrong angle.”
The comedic scene escalated in the film with Dave’s character managing to “get hard on cue” to win the standoff, which ultimately made Zac’s character let go — a ridiculous but memorable moment in the movie.
Zac had previously joked about the incident during a 2014 appearance on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, saying he broke his hand because Dave had “balls of steel.”
While the dating rumour turned out to be nothing more than internet fiction, the behind-the-scenes story adds yet another hilarious layer to the chemistry fans loved in Neighbors.
