Hegseth was a teenager in Forest Lake, Minnesota, playing basketball in a small-town gym and writing in his yearbook about cliff jumping and going to Perkins diner after games. This was before he became the center of a controversy at the Pentagon, before the Senate confirmation that needed a vice-presidential tiebreaker, and before Fox & Friends Weekend and the debates over military policy.
That’s a good place to start. Because in July 2026, a fake yearbook picture went around the internet that was said to show Hegseth as a teenager wearing black eyeliner and having bangs that were swept to the side. As things often do, the picture got around quickly. Snopes found it and confirmed that it was made by AI, even finding a SynthID watermark. The real yearbooks from Forest Lake Area High School were kept safe and could be found by anyone. It turned out that the real Hegseth had a crew cut and a big smile. There is nothing at all mysterious about it.
In some ways, the real story of Pete Hegseth in high school is more interesting than a made-up picture. He was born in Minneapolis on June 6, 1980, and grew up in Forest Lake, a pretty big suburb north of the Twin Cities. In Forest Lake, Friday night games are important, and everyone knows the coach. Before he retired in 2019, his dad did work as a basketball coach for high schools in Minnesota. It’s hard to miss that background when reading about what Hegseth did during those years.
In 1999, he graduated with the highest grade. He played football. He played basketball and set school records for long-term three-point shots, three-point shots in a single season, and three-point shooting percentage in a single season. He was named to the all-conference team twice, and his senior year he was named to the all-state team. His yearbook name was “Pistol,” which was a reference to the fact that he was good at shooting from far away. He was put forward to be homecoming king. Other students in his class chose him and his girlfriend as the “Most Likely to Marry” couple. Her initials are written all over his yearbook entry like teenage code.
His yearbook entry is like a picture of a certain type of American eighteen-year-old in 1999: someone who is sure of the future, not too guarded, and still thinking about prom and canoeing down the St. Croix River with friends. He wrote down his plans for after high school: “go to college (maybe a military academy), marry a beautiful wife (M.S.), make a lot of money, have Pete Jr., and teach him hoops.” It makes you feel almost calm, even though you know what happened next.
The newspaper Reserve & National Guard Magazine says he did choose Princeton over the US Military Academy, even though he turned down a basketball scholarship at West Point. He was in charge of a conservative student newspaper at Princeton and joined ROTC months before September 11, 2001, when everything changed. There is no straight line from that gym in Forest Lake to Guantánamo Bay, Iraq, Afghanistan, Fox News, and finally the Pentagon. It’s never true for anyone. But the main idea was there in 1999, drawn out in a yearbook that not many people looked at until a fake photo made them.
It’s still a little strange how false information tends to spread when public figures are already being watched closely. There have been real, well-known problems during Hegseth’s time as Secretary of Defense. The fact that she had to make up a fake past for him says something, but it’s not clear what. Maybe the real story of a driven kid from Minnesota who joined the army, became famous on TV, and then became one of the most powerful people in the U.S. government is seen as too ordinary. Or maybe it’s too complicated to fit into a single picture.
There is a picture in the yearbook of a young man with a crew cut and a smile that people wear when they don’t know how hard the future will be. At least that looks like it’s real.
