Vince Vaughn confesses ulterior motives in his (high school) political career

In 2024, we’ve been trained (or ‘conditioned’ may be more accurate) to view political candidates’ motivations with a, let’s say, healthy dose of skepticism. Nowadays, any old state senator or representative is running for some sort of morally bankrupt reason—one that’s usually pretty easy to guess. Luckily for Vince Vaughn and his ambition to actually graduate high school, however, the late ‘80s were a slightly simpler time. (They weren’t innocent by any means, but they also weren’t… you know… now.)

In his recent visit to the Hot Ones gauntlet, the Bad Monkey actor revealed that he ran for class president of Lake Forest High School “100% to ensure I graduated.” Vaughn may not have been great in the classroom, but he was certainly ahead of the curve on that particular scheme! 

“I started to get jobs and stuff when I was in high school, and I had really pushed it to the limit where my senior year, if I didn’t pass a class then I would have a summer school ahead of me, which seemed like a prison sentence,” Vaughn explained. “The other kids that were running for it were like, ‘This is gonna look great for college. I have ambitions of going to potentially an Ivy League school’… Mine was not. Mine was, ‘If I give that speech, it’s really hard to hold back the senior class president.’”

He was right. “I ended up winning that election. I think I was a refreshing candidate,” he continued. “That senior year, the teachers were a little easier on me… I felt like I had a little bit easier of a time… than before I wore the mantle of the leader of that class.” You can rag on Vaughn’s long-gestating Dodgeball sequel all you want—and we certainly have—but at least he’s using the tricks he learned senior year to make movies about playground games, rather than applying them to any of the country’s higher offices.