Healthy Outlook

Italian singer, dancer, entrepreneur, and LGBT advocateAlessandro “Alex” Palmieri's take on health is what propels his international career.

BY JOHN SOTOMAYOR

In a recent trip to Fort Lauderdale, I decided late on my departure date to stay an additional night without a reservation. As the sun began to set, I found an island-style oasis tucked away near the center of Wilton Manors called Inn on the Drive. The boutique guest- house had a vacancy, so I booked a deluxe queen room on the second floor of building one. After a late-night carousing with the guys by the pool, I awoke needing to find the manager. I had no idea how to locate him.

They do not operate with a traditional front desk, so I looked around for anyone to help. I noticed movement in the lanai room nearby so I knocked on the large glass French doors. I saw a muscular figure wrapped only in a towel come to the door. He opened it, and in a sexy Italian accent asked, “may I help you?”

I was lost in his deep blue eyes and handsome face, but managed to vocalize that I was looking the manager. He grabbed his phone, dialed the number (having stayed there for several weeks, he had the manager’s contact saved), and passed the phone to me. After returning his phone I learned he was from Italy on an extended stay, and that he was returning home the next day. That was the end of it.

A few hours later, I stopped by local gay establishment, the Pub, for lunch. He was there. I didn’t know his name, so I called out, “Hey, Italy!” We began to talk and I discovered his name was Alessandro Palmieri. He goes by Alex professionally. I introduced myself as the publisher of Embrace. I then discovered that the guy I was having lunch with — the guy who only hours earlier I met wearing only a towel and rescued me from a frantic search for the inn manager — was a successful singer and former boy band performer from Milan, Italy.

Over lunch, I discovered Alex’s singing and dancing career lasted for 10 years, from 18 to 28, with one EP, three albums, and 20 singles. We exchanged information and kept in touch. Over a period of time, Alex shared more details about his stellar life.

A Robust Career

Since the age of six, Alex has been studying dance. His first television appearance was in 2010 on the Canale 5 program Pomeriggio Cinque, which featured Barbara D’Urso. His debut single, “Move,” was released in 2011. His performances in several discos, TV appearances (including an interview on La3), and online activities helped him gain celebrity and media recognition. He competed in the second season of the Rai 2 reality series Social King in 2011, placing himself among the top four contestants. Thanks to the collaboration with the Swedish DJ Tim Bergholm, the single “Popstar” was produced during the duration of this TV program. He later performed the song on Match Music TV as part of the promotional tour.

After releasing several other singles and giving numerous appearances in Italian nightclubs, Palmieri released “Monster Boy,” a track produced by the Ukrainian Jandy Andrey Prudnikov, at the end of 2012. In 2013, he gave a performance at the Milan Gay Pride. Additionally, this song was played on the Italian TV channel Sky Sport during the Alessandro Bonan-hosted program Calcio Mercato. He secured his first record deal with Believe Digital in the fall of that year, and he later released his first EP, Back Alive, which was co-produced by Bergholm and Prudnikov and teased by the first single Wasted. Later, Alex appeared as a guest at LGBT pride celebrations and went on a club tour throughout Italy. Additionally, he released additional singles from the album, always accompanied by music videos.

He released the lead single, “Maniac,” in November 2014 to promote his first full-length album. His official Vevo account launched with this video. In 2015 he appeared as Ivana Spagna and Power Francers’ support act at the Verona Pride. Uncensored, an album created by Believe Digital, was released in November 2015. Prior to the album, the single “Nicholas’ Got a Secret,” produced by Luca Sala and Palmieri, was released. The subsequent tour was the first to include dates in several parts of Europe, including Regenbogenparade in Vienna, CSD München, Warsaw Pride, and Copenhagen Pride. Two singles from the album, “Save Me” and “Single,” were released concurrently with the European tour.

In the first gay season of Uomini e Donne on Canale 5 in September 2016, Alex appeared as one of the love interests and appeared for one month. During the same time, he renewed his contract with Believe Digital and in November, he released the single “Online.” Swiss TV RSI La 2 aired the first preview of this song, and 2017 saw the airplay of the music video on OutTV in Belgium and the Netherlands. After that, the song was promoted throughout Italy on a national tour that began in Cagliari and stopped in a number of other towns.

The tour continued in Europe in the summer of 2017 with three dates in Germany (Konstanz, Mannheim, and Düsseldorf), then stops in Florence, Budapest, and London, the singer’s first visit to the UK. The performance in Trafalgar Square was a part of the London Pride festival and served as support for Fleur East’s concert; Alex was also interviewed by London Live there. Along with the live performances, Alex announced that a new album was in the works. The album’s lead track, “But Nobody Knows,” was released in October 2017. The song was created by producer Johann Bach in Italy and California, and the news organization Adnkronos debuted the video clip in November.

Reset, an electro-pop album by Alex with Believe Digital that was produced in January 2018 and for which Alex once again wrote all the lyrics, was influenced by the sound of the 2000s. The album, which featured previous singles “Online” and “But Nobody Knows,” was created with the aid of Alex’s fans, who raised money for the recording costs through a crowdfunding effort. It was recorded in Italy, Ukraine, Sweden, and California. The third song from the album, “Time Resetted,” which was created by Alex Zitelli and Livio Boccioni, was released alongside it. He then made a few TV appearances to promote the album on TG Norba 24, RSI La 2, and Rai 1 on the television program Unomattina.

The first Italian dates of the Reset Tour were revealed by Alex in March during an interview with Radio 105 Network. With performances in Germany, Poland, and Spain over the summer of 2018, live performances in Europe were expanded. In September, the fourth single from Reset—the anti-bullying song “If That Was You”—was released. The ballad received favorable media coverage in October after Eleonora Daniele, the host of the Raiuno TV program Storie Italiane (Italian Stories), introduced it. Later, the station Rete 4 aired a sneak peek of the music video.

The dance/pop song “In the Backstage,” the final single from Reset, was released in January 2019. He played it live on Unomattina. and in February he revealed a second leg of the Reset Tour with an additional 7 shows in Italy. With its last concerts in Germany (Munich and Hamburg), the Czech Republic (Prague), and Austria, where Alex was the first Italian singer to perform on the stage of EuroPride 2019 in Wien, the Reset Tour returned to Europe that summer. In the interim, he acknowledged that work on a new musical endeavor was underway, and in December, Palmieri revealed that the new album Wrong would be released in 2020 in an interview with TG Norba 24.

The first track, “Fake News,” from the new album Wrong, released in January 2020, served as an introduction (which had come out the previous October). The album’s pop sound, which was created in collaboration with artists from Italy, Ukraine, California, and the Philippines, was described by Alex as “less commercial and more personal than prior discographic work.” It debuted on the Eleonora Daniele-hosted Raiuno TV program Storie Italiane (Italian Stories), which featured a sneak peek from the second single Room 05’s music video.

Alex announced the Wrong Tour dates commenced in Munich after the music video’s premiere, but after the first one, more stages were postponed because of the COVID-19 pandemic. He was interviewed by Radio Rai and Rai 3 while under quarantine, and the third single, the ballad “Beatrice,” was released in September. That song, which honors women and the emancipation of women, was played on BBC Radio in the UK in the fall. In October, Tg3 on Rai 3 and Raiuno in the program Unomattina conducted interviews with Alex, and both programs aired a sneak peek of Beatrice music video.

In December, Alex made his television debut in Albania with a number of appearances, including an interview on RTSH and a 10-minute live performance on Christmas Eve to have on Televizioni Klan as a guest of Ornella Muti. “Dangerous Scandalous,” the fourth single from Wrong, was released at the beginning of comeback. 2021 and received positive reviews in Albania. It was selected for the television festival Knga Magiike in March 2021. By then, Alex was meantime, exhausted, so he announced in May that he would take a break from the music industry.

Next Level

A year has passed, and Alex hopes to have started an a huge comeback. In the meantime, the entrepreneur started an OnlyFans page to fund his next move in the music industry.

“My position is quite good, I’ve always to fund been in the top two since I started,” said Alex. “You can find me on onlyfans.com/alexpalmieri with hot and exclusive content.”

He was in Fort Lauderdale after a modeling shoot in Miami. Earlier in his worldwide the music travels, he had photoshoots done in Dubai, Saudi Arabia and Livigno, Italy. He shared some of those photos with us to include with this exclusive interview. The outlook for Alex’s comeback looks good.