Remember me
An image accurately shows U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth dressing in emo fashion for his senior yearbook photo.
Rating:In July 2026, an image spread online supposedly showing U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth's yearbook photo from his senior year of high school in 1999. The image showed the purported Hegseth with a very emo look — wearing all black, with side-swept, medium-length bangs and black eyeliner.
Snopes readers contacted us asking whether the image was real.
It was not.
Hegseth grew up in Minnesota and graduated from Forest Lake Area High School in 1999. So, we searched to see whether the school's yearbooks were archived. They were.
Hegseth kept a busy schedule, according to the 1999 yearbook, playing on the football and basketball teams. He also sang in choir, received a nomination for homecoming king and was voted by his classmates as "Most Likely to Marry" alongside his girlfriend. (According to The New Yorker, they did marry in 2004 but divorced in 2008 because Hegseth admitted to multiple affairs.)
Here's how Hegseth described his high school experience in the yearbook, listed in the order "nicknames; activities; post-high school plans; favorite high school memories":
Hegseth, Peter: Archi, Pistol; Basketball '96 '99, Football '97, '98, Basketball State Tournament '99, beating Blaine; go to a college (maybe military academy), marry a beautiful wife (M.S.), roll in the dough, have Pete Jr. and teach him hoops; Prom '98, '99, 50 yard line, loungin' with L.E., J.H., R.R., D.J., my main man N.D., all my great memories with M.S., S.O.'s all the hoops games and football, TPing T.W.'s state is fine in '99, from the womb with K.R., Russian Civ. with K.R., N.H., lunch with N.D., T.W., J.H., N.H., cliff jumping with M.S., canoeing down the St. Croix with the gang, Perkins after games
But there was no sign of Hegseth's supposed emo look. Here's what his real photos looked like:
(Forest Lake Area High School, Snopes illustration)
OpenAI's verify tool identified a SynthID watermark in the fake yearbook photo, suggesting it was AI generated, though Snopes could not independently confirm the photo's source.
SourcesEditor, Hannah Davis News. "A Look Back at Hegseth's Local Roots." Hometownsource.Com, 5 Feb. 2025, https://www.hometownsource.com/forest_lake_times/news/a-look-back-at-hegseths-local-roots/article_f5ab2f2c-e31a-11ef-acb9-bbfe0c19df29.html.
"From Princeton to the Pentagon: The Many Faces of Pete Hegseth '03." The Princetonian, https://www.dailyprincetonian.com/article/2025/01/princeton-features-profiles-pete-hegseth-defense-secretary-nominee. Accessed 17 July 2026.
Mayer, Jane. "Pete Hegseth's Secret History." The New Yorker, 1 Dec. 2024. www.newyorker.com, https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/pete-hegseths-secret-history.
