News anchor Frank Somerville says he was ‘trashed’ during DUI arrest

Veteran Bay Area television news anchor Frank Somerville said he was “trashed” when he crashed his Porsche into another driver in 2021, but denied he was drunk on another occasion when he slurred his words on air.

In a shocking interview with San Francisco station KRON, Somerville admitted to past problems with drugs and alcohol.

“At the absolute worst, it would have been almost every night,” he said. “What I was trying to do quite honestly, was just escape … I was so sad and lonely from [my] divorce and missing my kids and the pandemic sure as hell didn’t help because now, I was all alone.”

The newsman made his own headlines after a viral video showed Somerville ramming his Porsche into an Audi stopped at an intersection in Oakland, Calif. on Dec. 30, 2021.

Somerville said he remembered drinking heavily that night and decided to go on a taco run.

The video captured Somerville rear-ending the other car at about 8 to 12 mph and then pushing the Audi into a pole.

The driver of the other car suffered some injuries but the Audi was totaled and Somerville was arrested for Driving Under the Influence.

“I got trashed,” he admitted. “I mean, there’s no other way to say it. I got trashed in my apartment and 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.”

Somerville had been a longtime anchor at KTVU FOX 2 before he was taken off the air in June 2021 — just a few months before his DUI arrest.

He had attracted criticism there when he was caught struggling through a newscast and slurred his words.

Somerville claimed he mistakenly took two Ambien — a drug used to help someone fall asleep— right before the 10 p.m. newscast on May 30, 2021. He maintains he was not drunk during that newscast.

“I was taking what I thought was one of my prescription drugs, instead it was two Ambien,” he said.

Somerville said he was in rehab while he was off the air for nine weeks. He returned to his anchor seat in August 2021 but was suspended again the next month when he disagreed with the station’s management over the coverage of the Gabby Petito story.

Petito, 22, was bludgeoned and strangled to death by her fiancé Brian Launderie during their cross-country trip. The story garnered national attention after a lengthy manhunt for Laundrie, whose body was found in a Floria swamp after he committed suicide.

“I thought the coverage across the country of Gaby Petito was insane,” he told KRON. “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.”

The veteran newsman said he would “really like” to go back to work and is completing a DUI program in the meantime.

“I mean that’s what I love,” he said. “I love what I do. I love anchoring.”