Did Sydney Hightower Lie About Her Past To Peter Weber On 'The Bachelor'?
Sydney definitely isn't a fan favorite 'Bachelor' contestant at this point.
ABC The drama is getting real on Peter Weber's season of The Bachelor and now, some of that drama is carrying over into social media in real time.
After one contestant, Sydney Hightower, claimed she spent her high school years being bullied, fans are sharing yearbook photos from her school that they say show otherwise. Uh-oh.
So who is Sydney Hightower, and is she actually lying? Here's everything we know about the situation so far, but knowing The Bachelor, we wouldn't be surprised If there's a lot more to the story that will be revealed later.
1. The drama started when Hightower told Weber about her high school years.
On Monday night's episode, Hightower let Weber know that as a mixed-race teenager growing up in Alabama, she had "a target on my back." She said that she was bullied and ate lunch in the bathroom while everyone else was hanging out with their friends, and it seemed to be a story that Weber really responded to. But being that the internet exists and Bachelor fans are always on top of everything that contestants say on the show, It quickly became obvious that there may have been more to it than what Hightower had shared during their date.
2. Later, photos of Hightower in beauty pageants and on homecoming court in high school surfaced online.
A Bachelor fan on Twitter who claims to have attended Hightower's high school uploaded photos from her yearbook, showing that Hightower may have actually been more popular than she let on. In the photos, Hightower seems to be competing in beauty pageants, as well as being named "Upperclassmen Top Beauty" and one of her class' Sweethearts. In other photos, Sydney can be seen posing with Hannah Brown, the 2019 Bachelorette, and there are even rumors that Hightower may have bullied Brown that are going around.
3. Hightower is now defending herself on Twitter.
Although Hightower has since deleted her Twitter account, she did attempt to clear things up earlier this week in a series of tweets.
“Feels ridiculous I even have to address this. But correct I did win a beauty pageant my senior year of highschool. That was voted for by 5 judges. Not by my peers. Winning a pageant based off of outer beauty does not take away the racial bullying and isolation I’ve been through,” she wrote. "I was also on the cheer team in middle school and in many clubs in highschool. You’ll do anything you can to fit in, and I tried. I won pageants because of my ‘looks’ and I was in clubs because I wanted a scholarship to get into college. Not because I was accepted by my peers.”
4. She also shared more details about how she was bullied.
In a later tweet, Hightower got more specific about the kind of bullying she endured.
“Any one from my highschool want to pull out the videos of girls stuffing my locker with Oreo cookies, vandalizing my home, shoving me in the hall ways? Teachers literally referring to me as a halfbreed? Calling my mother the worst names I’ve ever heard in my life? I doubt that," she wrote.
5. Who is Sydney Hightower? She's a retail marketing manager from Birmingham.
According to Hightower's ABC bio, she recently got out of a long-term relationship before joining The Bachelor and felt ready to find the right love for her.
"She is looking to find that one person who wants to fully give his all to her and build their lives together," her bio said. "She loves to hike, dance and plan fantasy vacations for her and her future husband. She also loves to bake and says that her dream man will have a sweet tooth just like her. Sydney is fiery, fierce and not a force you want to mess with."
6. It's not clear if Hightower was actually lying or not.
Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on how you look at it, Hightower was eliminated on Wednesday night's edition of the show, so whether or not she was lying to Weber is a bit of a moot point now. But it seems like the internet may not be as forgiving of her now that these photos from her high school years have surfaced.
Nicole Pomarico is an entertainment and lifestyle writer whose work has appeared in Cosmo, Us Weekly, Refinery29, and more.