Former KTVU anchor Frank Somerville did a sit down interview with KRON anchor Pam Moore recently to go over his terrible, awful, very bad 2021.
A DUI arrest in December 2021 capped a year highlighted by a suspension in September and not making it through a newscast in June.
When it came to the DUI, Somerville told Moore he was drinking and got very intoxicated in his apartment on the night of he rear ended another car on Dec. 30, 2021.
“I got trashed,” Somerville said. “I mean there’s no other way to say it. I got trashed in my apartment, and I wanted to go to Taco Bell, which is two and a half blocks away from where I live. I made the idiotic decision to drive. I had absolutely no business at all to drive — at all.”
From the suspension to the DUI, Somerville says 2021 was the year everything “exploded.”
The night he slurred his words, Somerville blamed two sleeping pills and not alcohol for his inability to finish the newscast. He said he took two Ambien instead of the prescription drug was supposed to take before the show.
Somerville then took a nine month leave of absence “to focus on his health” which included a stint in rehab.
Just weeks after returning in August, Somerville made headlines again.
In late September 2021, KTVU suspended Somerville because of a disagreement he had with the station’s coverage of the Gabby Petito disappearance and murder.
Somerville, who has has two daughters one of whom is Black, believed the media disproportionately covers tragedies of young white women as victims while stories of their Black and brown counterparts are largely ignored.
“I thought the coverage across the country of Gabby Petito was insane,” he told Moore. “There was no reason for it other than she was a cute white kid. But for some reason, I was suspended over that. I still, to this day, am not sure why.”
He has not been on the air since the suspension and the December 2021 DUI. He said he has attended counseling, is completing a DUI program and is hoping for a second chance.
“Well, technically, what I’d really like is to go back to working,” Somerville said. “I mean that’s what I love, I love what I do. I love anchoring.”
He also told Moore that he has had problems with drugs and alcohol.
“At the absolute worst, it would have been almost every night,” Somerville said. “What I was trying to do quite honestly, was just escape… I was so sad and lonely from the divorce and missing my kids and the pandemic sure as hell didn’t help because now, I was all alone,” he said. “I was a total mess.”