April 01, 2024 • bachelor insider
This Week in Bachelor Nation History: Jesse Palmer Starts His Journey as the Bachelor!
Bachelor Nation first met Jesse as the lead on Season 5 of “The Bachelor,” and he’s remained a loyal member of Bachelor Nation ever since.
Now he’s back, as the host for both “The Bachelor” and “The Bachelorette,” but this week we’re throwing it back to when he was the show’s lead.
This week marks 18 years since Jesse’s Bachelor debut and his season was history-making for a couple of reasons.
While nowadays there always seems to be a professional athlete or two cast on the Bachelor franchise shows, Jesse was the very first pro athlete to be the Bachelor.
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Before his time as the Bachelor, Jesse played college football for the University of Florida, and then competed as an NFL quarterback for five seasons in the early 2000s, splitting his time between the New York Giants and the San Francisco 49ers.
After his time on the show, the Toronto native spent half of the 2006 season with the Montreal Alouettes of the Canadian Football League.
And while Jesse currently lives in the United States, he’s a native of Canada. Until Jesse starred in “The Bachelor,” all the previous leads were Americans.
Now, we see contestants from all over the world on the Bachelor franchise shows, and there are also international “Bachelor” shows.
Jesse was just the beginning of Bachelor Nation going global!
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After his time as the Bachelor, Jesse went on to host “Daily Mail TV” from 2017 until 2020. He took a brief break from the news program in 2018 to host the kickoff season of “The Proposal,” the reality dating competition from the producers of “The Bachelor.”
Additionally, he hosted The Food Network’s “Holiday Baking Championship” and also serves as a contributor for “Good Morning America.”
Now he’s back on our screens hosting “The Bachelor” and “The Bachelorette,” and we couldn’t be happier!
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While Jesse didn’t find his happy ending during his time on “The Bachelor,” in 2020 he married the love of his life, Emely Fardo Palmer Jesse. The two got engaged in 2019 after meeting in 2017, and had an intimate wedding ceremony in June 2020.
