Judge Hassles the Hoff over Video

Judge suspends actor's visitation privileges with two teenage daughters pending further review of videotape shot by 16-year-old daughter in which actor appears intoxicated

By Gina Serpe May 07, 2007 8:16 PMTags

Forget an exorcist—what David Hasselhoff really needs is a merciful judge. Unfortunately, he doesn't appear to be having luck with either.

Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Mark Juhas on Monday suspended the actor's visitation privileges with his two teenage daughters in the wake of leaked footage showing the Hoff in what appears to be a rather advanced stage of intoxication.

"The videotape changes the landscape, it just does," Juhas said in court.

Hasselhoff, who over the weekend ended his run in the Las Vegas production of The Producers, did not appear at the custody hearing, which was originally scheduled for Tuesday. However, ex-wife Pamela Bach and her new attorney, Debra Opri, were in the courtroom pushing for the temporary visitation ban.

While Bach and Opri originally requested Hasselhoff be prohibited from seeing the girls until June 1, Juhas instead granted a two-week ban on visitation, until May 21, when a follow-up hearing has been scheduled.

Whether or not the ban will be extended at that point will be determined by Juhas, pending further review of the now infamous tape.

"It was a good day in court," said Opri.

Although the erstwhile Baywatch star is prohibited from having any one-on-one contact with either 16-year-old Taylor (who shot the now infamous video nearly three months ago) or 14-year-old Hayley, both of whom live full-time with their mother in Los Angeles, he will be allowed to make unmonitored and unlimited telephone calls to the girls.

Meanwhile, in the two-week gap before the next hearing, Juhas ordered Bach and her daughters to meet with court-appointed psychologist Angus Stracham. The judge made the ruling over Bach's objections, saying he wants to determine the toll the former couple's intensely acrimonious custody battle is taking on the teens and to evaluate whether the current custody and visitation agreement is working.

Hasselhoff's attorney, Mel Goldsman, had been pushing for the one-on-one, in part because Stracham was the author of a report that claimed Taylor would be better off living with her father and that also alleged that Bach had tested positive in the past year for cocaine.

Strachman was originally scheduled to give testimony in court Tuesday, but the hearing was called off in the wake of the video leak, something Juhas said raises stronger concerns about the well-being of the teenage girls.

"You and I are going to part company on this," Juhas told Goldsman, asserting the video trumped the psychologist's report.

The video—of a shirtless, slurring Hasselhoff sitting on the floor of his Las Vegas hotel room attempting to eat a hamburger and getting scolded by his daughter for being drunk—was distributed to several entertainment shows and posted online.

Hasselhoff, a recovering alcoholic, on Friday denied that the tape was made at his request, telling E! News' Ryan Seacrest that Bach was to blame for releasing the footage. Bach has denied the allegation and Opri has gone so far as to claim that neither she nor her client had even viewed the tape.

They may be the only ones.

On the video, the 54-year-old America's Got Talent judge explains to his daughter that he was drinking again " 'cause I'm lonely. I have trouble in my life...I don't have you in my life."

Hasselhoff told Seacrest that the relapse only lasted a day and that he has been sober since, but added that he was considering "hiring an exorcist" to help him get through this rough patch.

And, despite Taylor's insistence that his bender would get him kicked out of The Producers, Hasselhoff managed to finish his gig.

On Sunday night, he wrapped up his run in the production, taking his final curtain call to a standing ovation.