Sydney Responds to ‘Bachelor’ Fans Who Say Her ‘Sob Story’ Is Fake
During last night’s three-hour episode of The Bachelor, contestant Sydney Hightower went on the first international one-on-one with Peter Weber.
The two jetted off in a helicopter to take in the views of Costa Rica. When they landed, there was a picnic waiting for them in a lush field. Later, the two met for dinner next to a romantic watering hole. Throughout the course of their date, Sydney began to open up to Weber about why she might come off as “mysterious.”
She told him about the struggles of growing up with a white mother and father who’s African American and Dominican. She also told him she’s only seen her father five times in her life total. Growing up in Alabama, she said her peers would bombard her with racist comments about her and her family.
“They would call me Oreo girl, and my mom names I don’t want to repeat,” said Sydney, adding that people would vandalize their home and that she ate lunch in the bathroom stall throughout the course of her senior year. She also didn’t go to prom or homecoming.
“That angers me so much that that kind of stuff still goes on and that you were made to feel that way,” said Weber. “I’m so amazed by your strength.”
The bachelor told the camera that Sydney possesses the qualities he’s looking for in a wife: someone with a “huge heart” who has “so much love to give.” It also doesn’t hurt that Weber says she’s the best kisser of the bunch.
Why some ‘Bachelor’ fans think Sydney’s ‘sob story’ is fake
When the episode was airing, a few fans called Sydney out for exaggerating her struggles.
“LMAOOOOO i knew Sydney’s lame a** sob story wasn’t true,” tweeted one person with a photo of Sydney in high school winning “Upperclassmen Top Beauty” in what looks to be a pageant.
However, several fans pointed out that just because she won a beauty pageant doesn’t mean she wasn’t a victim of racism.
Sydney’s response
Sydney noticed the fan tweets about her beauty pageant win and addressed them on her Twitter.
“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,” she wrote in another tweet.
“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 in another tweet.
Read more: ‘The Bachelor’: Who Do Fans Even Like at This Point?
