Jemma Palmer

Biography

Jemma Sara Palmer (born 10 April 1983) is an English businesswoman, television personality, model and former professional wrestler. She is best known by the name Inferno, which she used in the 2008 British television series Gladiators. She mainly worked on the British independent circuit during her professional wrestling career, with a brief stint at WWE, where she was assigned to their development territory Florida Championship Wrestling (FCW). She also appeared on the twelfth season of the UK version of Big Brother.

== Professional modelling career == Palmer grew up modelling under the encouragement of her mother, winning the Little Miss Midlands and Miss Littlesea competitions as a child. As an adult, she entered a number of competitions, becoming a finalist in the 2006 Musclemania Britain which she later won, Miss Hawaiian Tropic, Ms USA Dream Bikini Body and Miss Maxim UK competitions. She also came third in the Maxim Little Black Book UK modelling competition. She went on to model in many publications including Muscle & Fitness, Nuts, Loaded, WWE Magazine, and FHM. Following Palmer's success at gaining celebrity status within the fitness and entertainment industries, she now also judges the types of contests that launched her career. She announced that she would be judging the 2017 Bodypower model search.

== Television appearances ==

=== Gladiators ===

While her mother encouraged Palmer into modelling, her father encouraged her into athletics. She enrolled in the cadets where she began to train in climbing, abseiling and amateur wrestling. She would later gain a purple belt in submission wrestling. As a fan of Gladiators growing up, when rumours mounted of a revival show in 2008, she began sending promotional material to television companies. Her wrestling manager landed her an audition for the similarly timed American Gladiators revival, but she received a call up for Sky1's British version days later and passed their fitness test. She performed in both series of Gladiators under the name Inferno, sporting red hair and a fiery, flirtatious personality. Despite not appearing on the American version, BBC America aired Gladiators in the United States. As a cadet, she also later appeared on Sky1's Battle of The Forces which pitted the British Army, Royal Navy and RAF against each other. Some of the most popular Gladiators characters, including Gladiator Inferno, were imortalised as action figures for fans to purchase and are now collectables.

=== Big Brother ===

Palmer became a contestant on the twelfth series of Big Brother, replacing Mark Henderson, who chose to walk on Day 27. She was reunited with her sister Faye, who had been in the competition since the beginning. Much of her time in the house was centred around a feud with Aaron Allard-Morgan, who was dating her sister at the time. Despite this, she did not want to ruin her sister's experience in the house, and chose to walk on Day 48. As she had been up for eviction, this forced Big Brother to change course, and in a twist move, it was announced that any housemates who had been nominated (which included Faye), were now up for eviction. Ultimately, Faye was saved by the public, but was evicted from the house a week later. Having previously stated that her age was 25, Big Brother outed Palmer's actual age as 28, following a shopping task in which housemates had to decipher the correct combination to secure the rationed food for the week. Big Brother's clue was "Jem's age (28) / the number of people whom Aaron had snogged" (Tom+Faye+Maisy = 3), giving the number 2803 which opened the lock. As she was lying about her age, the lock could not be opened, so the remaining three housemates walked from the task room, failing the task.

== Professional wrestling career ==