Buddy Valastro, 45, has almost fully recovered two years after his hand was crushed in a terrifying accident at his home bowling alley. “Thank God and the fans and the support and love from everywhere across the world was so amazing,” the Cake Boss star told HollywoodLife in an EXCLUSIVE interview about his partnership with Klondike. “It really touched my heart and now five surgeries later, countless hours of physical therapy, I’ve always got to thank Dr. Michelle Carlson at HSS for helping me and Deena, my occupational therapist, who worked very hard to get me back to what I say is about 95 percent of what it was,” he added.
Buddy’s hand injury happened when he was spending time at his New Jersey home with his family on Sept. 20, 2020. His bowling alley pinsetter malfunctioned and when he tried to fix the issue, his right hand became lodged in the machine, leading to a metal rod coming down and into the upper middle section of his hand three times. Buddy thought he’d never be able to bake again early on after his injury.
Thankfully, the famous baker has come so far in his recovery, which was documented in a TLC special called Buddy Valastro: Road to Recover. However, as he explained to HL, Buddy still has more work ahead of him before his hand is completely back to normal.
“I’ve got one more surgery to correct my middle finger a little bit to be a little straighter,” he said in the EXCLUSIVE interview. “But from where I was compared to where I am today is night and day. Like forget about it, I just feel so blessed,” Buddy added. “I really feel lucky about that.”
Buddy previously credited his family, which includes his beloved wife Lisa, 43, and their four children, daughter Sofia, 19, and sons Buddy Jr., 17, Marco, 15, and Carlo, 11, for being so supportive during his ongoing recovery journey. “They definitely stepped up to the plate,” he told Entertainment Tonight in July 2021. “In times of crisis, you don’t know what people’s reactions are going to be. ‘How are we going to do this?’ ‘What are we going to do?’ We all came together and I am so proud of my boys and thankful to my whole family.”
The Cake Boss alum also opened up about his partnership with Klondike, which is celebrating its 100th anniversary. Buddy revealed that the company came to him in hopes that he could make a “really cool, iconic cake” in honor of the anniversary. “I was really excited because, being a cake decorator, you don’t always get cakes that are easy to make in the sense of, how do you tell the story of the brand or translate it into a cake? But for me, Klondike was really, really easy.”
He added, “I grew up eating Klondike bars. It was my dad’s favorite ice cream. So when I dreamt of the cake, I thought of the iconic foil wrapper, the silver wrapper. I thought of the bear and I thought of the logo, and then closed my eyes and I pictured this winter wonderland of a cake. It was 100 years, so I said let’s do a 10-tiered cake, one tier for every decade, and have a life-size polar bear kind of chilling out with a party hat and celebrating.”