‘Stop lying’: Ex-students argue over high school graduation, three years later

A feud between two ex-high school students has been reignited after claims about a shock act on graduation day.

As much as we like to pretend otherwise, every single one of us has at least one high school event that we remember in vivid detail — usually because of our outrage.

This is certainly the case for two women who butted heads at a high school graduation ceremony and are now beefing it out on TikTok.

Amara Valerio started the biggest TikTok beef this year when she shared a story about her high school graduation. Picture: TikTok / @amaravalerio

Amara Valerio, 20, shared a story time on TikTok about a girl named Sara who crossed the stage to steal the microphone off her while she was singing the national anthem at a graduation ceremony in 2019. Valerio wasn’t graduating that year, but said she had been asked to sing by the principal.

“Another girl wanted to sing the national anthem but the administration told her ‘no’, because shorty could not sing,” Valerio said in her original video.

“The day of the graduation as [I] start to sing, she storms the front of the stage, takes the mic … and says ‘it’s my senior graduation and I believe that I deserve to sing the national anthem’.”

Apparently this student then proceeded to sing, apparently quite poorly. Then, for some reason, the mic-stealing Sara’s father started a fight with Valerio’s mum after it was all over. She even had a short clip of the event.

@amaravalerio Replying to @radaradaradarad sara if you’re reading this u suck #fyp#foryou♬ original sound - Amara Valerio

You can’t really blame people (like me) for getting invested — when I say it’s dividing TikTok, I truly mean it.

At this point, I was absolutely on Valerio’s side. It gets better though.

Somehow this story, which got Valerio 1.4 million views, and 8.2 million views on her video of the graduation, got back to Sara even though it happened three years ago and the pair have had no contact ever since.

In a very detailed seven part response, Sara, 21, said that the act had nothing to do with her wanting to sing the national anthem. Apparently it didn’t even have anything to do with Valerio.

“It was never about me singing,” she shared, “that school had did [sic] me dirty too many times. This is the story of how I got them back.”

At this point, I obviously grabbed the popcorn while I watched the rest. Sara went on to detail an administration at her “trash” school that had been pretty terrible to the graduating class, and another student (who was actually graduating that year, unlike Valerio) who had successfully auditioned to sing the anthem until the principal stepped in to get “her pet” to sing instead.

“It wasn’t because she (Valerio) can’t sing, I think her voice is beautiful,” explained Sara. “It’s talent that’s been trained for years, good for her. But again, she was a junior at the time, not a senior.”

Then, in a twist, it was actually another teacher who suggested Sara should sing to get back at the principal. While at first she thought it was a joke, she soon realised he was not kidding.

“I said to him ‘you’re insane’. He throws his hands up a little and says ‘why not’?” she details.

“I looked him dead in his eye and I said ‘why does it have to be me? He told me ‘because you’re the only one that’ll do it’.”

'I never meant to hurt you, but at the end of the day it was not about you.' Picture: Tiktok / @snakeysev

Look, there’s a lot of detail and I truly recommend you taking the time to watch them all because it’s so juicy and low stakes.

Sara is actually very gracious and apologetic to Valerio for getting caught up in a plan against the teachers. She even apologised for a since-deleted video where she apparently reacted pretty emotionally to the original video.

Except for one bone she has to pick about Valerio claiming Sara’s dad picked a fight, when apparently it was the other way around.

“Drag me all you want girl, do not bring people into this that are not involved … If she didn’t lie and say that sh*t about my Dad, I wouldn’t care,” Sara explained.

“Why would it make sense for my dad to be angry at them, and initiate a fight?” she asked, before saying it was actually the other way around, even though her poor dad had no idea about the plan.

“I never meant to hurt you, but at the end of the day it was not about you … Stop lying.”