‘I’m sick of the lies’: Frank Somerville owns up to dark side, problems with alcohol

SAN FRANCISCO (KRON) — “I’m sick of the lies. I’m sick of the chaos, and I’m sick of being sick,” Frank Somerville said. The former Bay Area TV news anchor said he is done with drinking alcohol and brave enough to admit that he has a problem.

“I hurt my ex-wife and my kids because of my selfish behavior. That’s the hardest one. I did it because I was drinking and I did it because I was a selfish prick,” Somerville said.

In a one-on-one interview with KRON4 special contributor Pam Moore, Somerville revealed he had an awakening on June 6. It was the day he was arrested in Berkeley twice in less than 24 hours.

The former anchor said he was angry when he went to his brother’s Berkeley house. The brother called police. After Somerville was released from jail, he returned to his brother’s house 3:30 a.m. The police were called again, Somerville was arrested for DUI, and he displayed “objective signs and symptoms of public intoxication,” police said.

Moore asked, “We know there was a family altercation, domestic situation, that led to your arrest, twice. (What is) the status of that case?”

Sommerville replied, “It’s still pending. No one has heard my side. And that will come out at some point. I just don’t think it’s appropriate for me to talk about my side yet. Court cases move incredibly slowly.”

Moore asked, “What was the lie that you are no longer living?”

Somerville said he admitted he needed to stop drinking completely, joined Alcoholics Anonymous, and changed his life. He’s living a new sober lifestyle that includes following AA’s 12 step recovery program, attending five AA meetings per week, and exercising, according to the former anchor.

“On June 6, I surrendered. I surrendered to myself, to God, or a higher power,” Somerville said. “I’m a completely different person now. I’ve taken care of the things that trigger me, the things that I was afraid of.”

For decades, Somerville was one of the most-watched TV news anchors in the San Francisco Bay Area. Somerville said he was a “damn good” news anchor at KTVU, but he had a dark side no one knew about. An overwhelming sense of shame prevented him from enjoying success.

His first public scandal happened on May 30, 2021, when he audibly slurred on-air during a newscast. A video clip of the slurring racked up hundreds of thousands of views on YouTube. Somerville took a leave of absence and went to rehab. He returned to KTVU on-air three months later.

Somerville was suspended from KTVU in September 2021 and never returned. Then on December 30, 2021, he drunkenly crashed his Porsche into another car and a pole in Oakland. He was arrested for DUI.

On March 28, 2023, the ex-KTVU anchor sat down with Moore to talk about his first DUI arrest. He said, “I got trashed. There’s no other way to say it. I got trashed in my apartment and I wanted to go to Taco Bell. I made the idiotic decision to drive.” In the March interview, he told Moore that he was still drank alcohol occasionally at San Jose Sharks hockey games.

This week, Moore asked, “So you had the first case (in Oakland). How was that resolved?”

Somerville replied, “I went to drunk driving classes. But you know what? Sadly I went right back to my old behavior. That’s the difference — I didn’t change my old behavior.”

Somerville said sobriety and AA’s 12 steps are life-changing. Attending meetings with other alcoholics helped him open up and share things that he had never talked about before. He’s learning how to deal with life’s “up’s and down’s” without reaching for a drink.

He used to view his alcoholism as a giant mountain that he could never climb.

“Six months ago, I thought I was a hopeless lost cause. I felt shame for so long. My message today is really, really simple: If I can do it, anybody can do it,” he said.

Today, he views each alcohol-free day as another milestone in building a stronger foundation. Somerville said, “I don’t ever want to go back to that way of life.”