Former KTVU anchor Frank Somerville is asking for a second chance after the Oakland, California Fox owned station declined to renew his contract this year.
Somerville was in the news for a tumultuous 2021. In June, he was sent home for slurring his words during a newscast. He was suspended by the station in September after a disagreement with the news director over a story involving Gabby Petito’s murder and was arrested for DUI in December.
Somerville went on Facebook to tell viewers his firing had no bearing on the DUI and blamed “an accumulation of a lot of things. Including serious mental health issues.”
He said he wasn’t drunk the night he was sent home for slurring his words. Somerville said he had accidentally taken two Ambien and was lucky to have made it home that night.
Somerville said he felt like he had PTSD after he started obsessing about work, so much so, that he would attend the funerals of “young black men and women who were killed on the streets of Oakland” and go to viewings for a police officers killed in the line of duty, “to let people know that I cared and that KTVU cared.”
He said the last thing he was going to do was let the station know about his pain. “Main anchors don’t do that,” said Somerville. “So I tried to deal with it on my own. Prescription drugs. Alcohol. It was the worst decision I ever made but I felt that I had no other choice. I literally felt helpless. I also felt who am I to feel sorry for myself? I didn’t lose anyone. It’s the families who deserve sympathy. Not me.”
He finished his post by saying he “will never be in trouble with the law again” and that the DUI will not define him.
“I’ve always believed in second chances and that’s what I’m asking for now,” he wrote. “I also want to say sorry to all my co workers and all the viewers. I never had a chance to say goodbye and for that. I’m sorry. Peace.”