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- Insider interviewed 21 of Matt Gaetz's former high school classmates.
- Some of them aren't surprised by the scandals spilling out now.
- They're texting each other about him and gossipping in a Facebook alumni group.
- See more stories on Insider's business page.
Back in the late 1990s at Florida's Niceville High School, Matt Gaetz had a reputation as a know-it-all who talked over his peers and obsessed over wealth and social status, according to Insider interviews with his former classmates.
Gaetz once bragged in high school that he had a friend whose family was so wealthy that the friend used the seatbelt from his dad's old private jet as a belt for his pants, his former debate teammate said.
The Florida Republican congressman's high school classmates are dishing about him to Insider and gossipping about him on their Facebook alumni group – one Beavis and Butt-Head meme is particularly stinging – now that Gaetz's sex scandal is dominating headlines and cable news shows. Gaetz is the subject of a Justice Department sex trafficking investigation; he denies that he acted illegally.
In middle school, Gaetz got into a fight with a teacher about the definition of "archipelago." Gaetz went home and made copies of what he thought the definition was, his former classmate said, then he plastered them all over the teacher's door.
"I've met people like Matt and it's one of those things that every once in a while you'd go, 'Oh, maybe I'm reading this wrong.' And then two seconds later you'd go 'Oh, no, he's just an asshole,'" said Kira Bloechl, a former Gaetz classmate who hung out with him during his debate club days.
Insider interviewed 21 former Gaetz high school classmates, who had a lot to say about him.