Buddy Valastro's new show, 'Buddy Valastro's Cake Dynasty,' premieres Nov. 11 on A&E.
It's been just over three years since Buddy Valastro suffered a horrific injury to his right hand, when it was repeatedly impaled during a freak accident at his home's bowling alley.
In an interview with ET's Rachel Smith at his factory in Jersey City, New Jersey, the TV personality simply known as the Cake Boss offers a health update while also making it very clear he's kept a positive attitude through the ordeal thanks to his knee-slapping sense of humor.
"I have about 95 percent," Valastro tells ET when asked if he has full use of his hand. "I'll never be a hand model."
In the years that followed, he's undergone multiple reconstructive and corrective surgeries to repair the substantial damage. This past September marked three years since the accident, and he tells ET how many more surgeries he'll need to regain full use of one of his fingers.
"I need one more surgery to move my finger around," he says. "Considering what happened to me, I'm pretty blessed. I had a metal bar right through me."
Valastro was hospitalized following a malfunction with the bowling pinsetter at his home's bowling alley. Valastro tried to release the bowling pin from the cage mechanism, but his right hand became lodged and compressed inside the unit. He was then unable to remove his hand, and a 1-1/2' metal rod slowly and repeatedly impaled his hand three times between his ring finger and middle finger.
A rep for Valastro told ET in September 2020 that when he was unable to remove his hand from the impaled metal rod, Valastro's then-16-year-old son, Buddy Jr., and then-13-year-old son, Marco, took for a reciprocating saw "to cut through the metal rod and relieve his father from the machine."
At one point things looked bleak. There was a moment, before one of his surgeries in February 2021, when he wondered if he would ever be able to simply bend his hand. At the time, he was in the midst of launching season 3 of his and Duff Goldman's competition show, Buddy vs. Duff.
"I had no idea how I was going to do the show and stuff. I was six weeks out of surgery but the day after surgery, doc is like, 'Go, squeeze.' When I was able to make a fist it was like, 'Hallelujah, Lord!" he recalled in July 2021 to ET. "It was insane and without that I would have never been able to do the show. And these cakes were actually some of the best cakes I think that me and my team and Duff and his team ever made."
More than two years later, Valastro's turning the page and gearing up for another show, A&E's Buddy Valastro's Cake Dynasty, which will offer a behind-the-scenes look at Carlo's Bake Shop alongside Valastro and his family as they intensely work to meet the high demand. And as his business empire continues to expand, so does the workforce, which now includes Valastro and his wife, Lisa's, kids and Valastro's sister and cousins.
This new venture is such a far departure from the show that catapulted him to superstardom.
"Very different," Lisa exclaims when asked how the new A&E series differs from his previous series.
"Honestly, that was 14 years ago and my life has changed in so many different ways," Valastro adds. "This is about where we are now and with our children. We have restaurants, vending machines, bakeries, a manufacturing facility. And we are going to be in Walmart! And everything is cooked here."
Buddy Valastro's Cake Dynasty premieres Nov. 11 on A&E.
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