Sydney Hightower and Hannah Brown of 'The Bachelor' Went to School Together

By Katherine J Igoe

Jan 23, 2020

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ABC

Bachelor contestant Sydney Hightower, who captured Bachelor Peter Weber's heart early on and has been embroiled in some of the drama this season, has an interesting show connection—she went to the same high school, at the same time, as former Bachelor contestant and Bachelorette herself, Hannah Brown!

Which is weird, right? You'd think that the show, which loves exploring every aspect of drama imaginable, would have totally mined this tidbit for all it was worth—asking Brown about Hightower or vice versa. And yet, there's been absolutely nothing about it. Even though Hightower was on the exact same date Brown showed up at, and even won the rose for that one. Hmm.

The two went to the same high school.

Hightower and Brown both went to Tuscaloosa County High School and, according to Tuscaloosa News, graduated at the same time (Brown was the class VP, because of course she was, and homecoming queen). Hightower hasn't exactly made a secret about it, but neither does she seem to want to make it a big thing. She posted Chris Harrison's intro of her, and it's mentioned right in there:

View On Instagram

But there has been no reference to it on the show, and I haven't seen her talk about it on social media. And Brown has cameoed twice on the show so far. Did they not get along? Does Hightower not want to be known as "the girl who knows Hannah?" She's certainly talked about her past, like about how how difficult it was to grow up biracial in the South, so we know that she doesn't mind sharing about herself to Weber. (Maybe she doesn't want to get into her unpleasant younger years, which, I hear you, girl.) Also, no girl on the show exactly loves Brown right now (lol) after Brown pulled focus and distracted Weber. Or perhaps they only know of each other but never really connected—sometimes the simplest answer makes the most sense. But then why would the show bring it up in the first place?

Oh yeah, and they also went to college together.

What?? That's right—Hightower and Brown both went to the University of Alabama. Now, 'Bama is huge (like 33,000 students huge) so I'm not expecting two people out of a class of 8,000-plus to necessarily see a lot of each other. But the second similarity is an interesting one. Again, the two MUST have at the very least known about each other...right?

Clearly, this is not the same as Hannah Ann Sluss and Hannah Godwin being BFFs and posting photos together all the time, but I can't quite figure out the nature of their relationship—if there even is one.

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