Ever since he was a young boy, Jesse Palmer had big plans to play in the NFL, and let’s just say he has gone from passing footballs to surpassing all of his other goals as well!
Jesse was born in Toronto, Canada to a professional football player father who played in the CFL and a mom who was a model and also owned her own modeling agency. The persistent Palmer, who mostly grew up in Ottawa, was offered a scholarship to play at the University of Florida and was subsequently drafted in 2001 by the New York Giants.
“One of the best things that happened in my life was getting picked by the Giants.As a football player you have no control over who drafts you. I got lucky. I got drafted to New York City and it opened my eyes to a lot of possibilities. I was able to tap into a lot of my passions and things that I like and at 22 years old I was experiencing an entirely new world. I played for five seasons here in New York and had the chance to do a local internship with an NBC affiliate and was also doing radio during the off-season – this was my aha moment – I thought, I can do this tv thing when I’m done playing football. I went on to play a season in San Francisco in 2005 and Montreal in 2006 and then started working for ESPN and moved back to the city. That’s how my tv career kicked off. I’ve been really lucky to have had different opportunities open up both in and outside of the sports world. I’ve tried different projects for different networks and I’m grateful for all of it.”
While he might have been well-known amongst sports fans having played for the Florida Gators and then in the NFL, when Jesse was picked to appear on The Bachelor in 2004, he gained a whole new frenzied fanbase – women! “The show put me in front of a completely different audience and demographic. I was 24 years old at the time and thought it was this cool life experience. I did it in the off-season in Los Angeles. I was very naïve to the doors that it would open down the road. At the time I didn’t know what I would do after football. There was The Real World and only a couple other reality shows out there at the time. I really had no idea what I was stepping into but it ended up being a great experience and it would benefit me later on in life. All I can say is that it was wild and crazy! This really led to new opportunities, including with The Food Network and then Good Morning America, which introduced me to a totally new demographic all over again. My television career has really been evolving due to my being able to do a variety of different things.”
While working for Good Morning America, Dr. Phil’s production company reached out and flew Jesse to LA. While out there, Jesse met with Carla Pennington, the executive producer of The Dr. Phil Show, who knew that he was just the guy to bring the best of DailyMail.com, the most read English newspaper website, to a tv platform. Jesse now delves daily into pop culture’s hottest topics as host of Daily Mail TV, which is in its third successful season.
“Daily Mail TV allowed me to host my own show for the first time. I had hosted the Palmer and Pollack Show in 2011 on ESPNU but Daily Mail TV has been a great opportunity to quarterback my own show, as I like to say. We even won a daytime Emmy last year for outstanding daytime news program. It’s a great concept. We get to work hand in hand and there’s tremendous synergy there. It’s a global brand- it’s successful, it’s known and its tried and true premise of the format really works. We’re having a great time here doing the show. Most of the filming is done in studio but I do travel sometimes in the early season to do interviews. I once did an exclusive with Sarah Palin in Alaska. I also traveled to Louisville, Kentucky to interview Danielynn and Larry Birkhead.”
“While he might be spending most of his time in New York for Daily Mail TV, Jesse does travel to film for The Food Network and ESPN. “I always host the Holiday Baking Championship, which I will start shooting in May, in either New Orleans or Los Angeles. I also filmed Bakeaway Camp with Marth Stewart in Bedford, New York, and all my stuff with ESPN is in Bristol, Connecticut. I also travel during college football bowl season and the college football playoffs. The NFL draft is in April in Las Vegas so it’s still a lot of moving and shaking!”
He might be Canadian, but New York City has Palmer in the palm of her hand! Jesse, who has lived everywhere from Hoboken to Harlem to the Upper West Side, has now called Chelsea home for the past eight years. One of Palmer’s favorite things to do is discovering new places – and pizza joints – in and around New York! “Prince Street Pizza has great takeaway square pizza, there is always a line. I’ve been told I need to venture off the island and to Brooklyn to find more. Carbone is one of my favorite restaurants for Italian. They’re always opening new spots. I have a list of places I want to check out, and this includes all different types of food and cuisines.”
With a successful athletic and now television career, what’s next for Jesse? Wedding planning! That’s right, this former Bachelor star is no longer a bachelor! Jesse and his fiancé, Emely, who he met at Rumble Boxing in Chelsea, are currently planning a summer destination wedding in the South of France. While Palmer said he is happy to live anywhere, Emely, a Brazilian model, is determined to remain in Chelsea. “She has a defined area on a map of Manhattan’s borders and she’s not allowed to leave Chelsea. I must say it does have everything you need. We’re going to have a small wedding with family and friends, and we’ve got these great wedding planners from the region. I proposed to Emely in Champagne, France this past summer and we started touring around Europe looking at venues a few weeks later. We were able to get our list together before football season and then we booked the venue and got the ball rolling during football season. It’s been a lot less painful than I had originally anticipated!”
When he’s not working or wedding planning, this former football player and his fiancée enjoy traveling. Their favorite city is Paris, which they make sure to visit at least once a year. The couple also travel yearly to Brazil to visit with Emely’s family and always attempt to explore another country in South America while they’re in the region. Mostly recently, they fell in love with Uruguay. “We discovered this gem last year.The food was absolutely fantastic. We stayed in a tiny town called Garzon. It’s not a secret to South Americans, but it’s lesser known to North Americans. We recently went to Mexico City and Cabo which is becoming an amazing foodie destination as advertised. We’re both pretty spontaneous. We pack our stuff and jet off for ten days. It’s great looking for new places and new adventures.”
The Palmer’s also make plans to get together during the year. Jesse makes time to visit his brother in Orlando – where he also has a home – as well as parents and younger brother in Los Angeles. From playing football to realizing his television passions, Jesse never drops the ball, in whatever professional endeavor he pursues.
