Cake Boss Buddy Valastro admitted on Monday to driving while impaired, saying he’d learned a valuable lesson from his arrest last month.
“One is too many, and that’s what I’m going to practice” when it comes to drinking before getting behind the wheel, the reality TV star said after pleading guilty to driving impaired, which is a violation, not a crime.
His driver’s licence will be suspended for three months, and he’ll have to pay a roughly $300 fine (Dh1,100) and attend classes on the hazards of drinking and driving.
He said he hadn’t realised he wasn’t fit to drive after having alcohol at a business dinner, but “the fact that you realise you could have hurt someone is horrible.”
Apologising, Valastro said he pleaded guilty because he wanted to own up to his mistake.
“I’m very disappointed in myself,” he added.
The 37-year-old baking whiz from Montville, New Jersey, was arrested on misdemeanour drunken driving charges after police said they saw his yellow 2014 Corvette swerving through traffic in Manhattan around 12.30am on November 13. A court complaint said he was unsteady, smelled of alcohol and had a blood-alcohol level of 0.09 per cent” New York’s legal limit is 0.08 per cent.
“You can’t arrest me — I’m the Cake Boss!” he told officers, according to an account prosecutors gave at his arraignment.
The cake master, whose formal name is Bartolo Valastro, stars in Cake Boss and Next Great Baker. His Carlo’s Bakery has four locations in New Jersey.
TLC said in a statement that his arrest was “a personal matter” and declined to comment further.
Valastro had a scare at sea in July, when his boat was enveloped by fog in New York Harbor during a dinner excursion with friends and family. With about 12 people aboard including children, Valastro said he used radar and GPS to keep going for a time but then called for help.
Police and firefighters soon found the fogged-in boat, and police towed it to safety.
