'Bachelor' Star Hannah Ann Sluss' Pageant Career Had Its Ups and Downs

Hannah Ann Sluss, a model and contestant on Peter Weber's 'The Bachelor' season, competed in pageants when she was younger, like several other contestants.

ABC's "The Bachelor" - Season 24
(Image credit: John Fleenor)

Potential Bachelor spoilers ahead. Model Hannah Ann Sluss, who nabbed the first impression rose from Bachelor Peter Weber and stands to do well this season, is one of several pageant girls from the slate of contestants vying for Weber's heart. Considering that she's absolutely one to watch—and, intriguingly, since she herself doesn't address her pageant work very much—let's do a deep dive into what we know about Sluss's former life as a pageant star.

Sluss competed in pageants, but didn't win a major title.

According to Us Weekly, Sluss is a former Miss North Knoxville and came in fourth in the competition for Miss Tennessee USA in 2017.

According to this pageant results website, she was also first runner-up in 2018, second runner-up in 2014, and first runner-up in 2015, as well. So she competed in a bunch, and did well—but never nabbed the top spot.

She doesn't talk a lot about her pageant days.

Sluss posts more frequently about her modeling career on Instagram, but she does occasionally allude to her pageant work—like in this post, which references a Miss USA competition:

And in this Instagram video from one of the competitions:

And judging by her comments, she definitely has local fans who know her from this work.

She almost went viral in a bad way.

Listen, pageants sound really hard and I have absolutely no judgment for anyone who decides to compete. Reality Steve unearthed a video in which Sluss had a tough time with a question relating to punishment of fraternity brothers who cause the death of their pledges (again, I would not know where to even begin answering that one). Sluss clearly freezes, asks for the question to be repeated, then sort of goes off track about hazing and violence on college campuses in general.

It's kind of a bummer that we can't dig up more of the stuff that wasn't a mistake, although there is this Facebook video in which Sluss intros herself with a pretty heavy Southern accent that she appears to have lost since then:

Reality Steve has said that the pageant girls (and the ensuing drama) is gonna get crazy this season, so Sluss is absolutely one to watch.

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Katherine J. Igoe
Contributor

Katherine’s a Boston-based contributor at Marie Claire who covers fashion, culture, and lifestyle—from “Clueless” to Everlane to news about Lizzo. She’s been a freelancer for 11 years and has had roles with Cosmopolitan and Bustle, with bylines in Parents, Seventeen, and elsewhere. It’s “I go to dinner,” not “Her huge ego,” but she responds to both.