The most dramatic hosts ever? Not if Jesse Palmer has anything to say about it.
Palmer, 44, addressed Chris Harrison’s recent comment that Wells Adams should’ve gotten the gig for the first time during an exclusive interview with Us Weekly.
“[I have] no reaction, really. I mean, he’s obviously entitled to his own opinion as everybody is,” the former NFL quarterback told Us. “I’m just really happy for Chris and wish him the best in his next venture.”
ABC cut ties with Harrison, 51, in 2021 after his apparent defense of then-Bachelor frontrunner Rachael Kirkconnell, who was under fire for resurfaced photos from an Old South-themed party she attended in college. The former host broke his silence on the controversy on his podcast, “The Most Dramatic Podcast Ever,” last month and revealed he was surprised by his replacement.
“Wells has always been a very good man and a good friend of mine. Wells was in a very difficult situation because obviously he was still kind of connected to the show and he was doing stuff on Paradise, but he was one of the first to reach out to me and just say, ‘Look, I’m staying out of this. I love you and respect you.’ … I thought, to be completely candid, that Wells was going to get the job,” Harrison said. “I even told him, I said, ‘Hey, man, I won’t speak out publicly because I don’t think that will help you at all. In fact, it would do a lot more harm than good. But I really hope you get the job. I think you’d be great at it.’”
The network named Palmer — the season 5 Bachelor — the host ahead of Clayton Echard’s season 26. He has since helmed season 8 of Bachelor in Paradise and Gabby Windey and Rachel Recchia’s season 19 of The Bachelorette.
“I think authenticity is, obviously, really important,” Palmer told Us about what he learned before going into Zach Shallcross’ season. “I think everybody is a bit unique and different in terms of their own personalities and the different things that they’re looking for. I think for Zach, the biggest advice drawing on what I’ve seen from them — and my own personal experiences too — is just being true to yourself. And I know it sounds super cliche.”
Palmer noted that “being the Bachelor is something that certainly you can never prepare for” — and the pressure is hard to avoid.
“It’s hard not to come into that role and wonder, you know, ‘How can I be the perfect Bachelor? What can I say that is going to make these women fall in love with me and what can I say that’s gonna make millions of people in Bachelor Nation at home watching fall in love with me too?’ But I think as soon as you start doing that, you forget yourself and you become inauthentic,” he continued. “And it comes across that way to the women in the house and to people at home. So I would say one of the things I’m most proud of Zach over the course of his journey was he really did stay true to himself. And he is not trying to be somebody he’s not.”
The Bachelor airs on ABC Mondays at 8 p.m. ET. Scroll through for more from Palmer:
