The Hoff Grounded

Flying the friendly skies has turned into a big hassle for the Hoff.

British Airways officials stopped David Hasselhoff from boarding a flight from London to Los Angeles this week after the former Baywatcher was exhibiting some erratic behavior.

On Wednesday, the same day his contentious divorce from actress Pamela Bach became official, the actor was due to fly from Heathrow to LAX and was waiting in a first-class airport lounge around 7 a.m.

According to eyewitness accounts supported by video, the 54-year-old actor, who was in London shooting a TV commercial, appeared befuddled, had trouble standing, mumbled incoherently to other passengers (Sky News quoted one witness who overheard him say, "My life is a mess.") and made a pass at a shop clerk.

Airline officials decided Hasselhoff was too loopy to fly.

"A male passenger was denied boarding flight BA279 Heathrow to Los Angeles service as he was deemed to be unfit for travel," British Airways spokesman Anthony Cane told E! Online without identifying Hasselhoff by name as mandated by British law.

The America's Got Talent judge was forced to cool his heels in the waiting area, where onlookers snapped photos and video of the onetime Knight Rider star cruising around in an electric cart typically reserved by airport employees to ferry around the elderly and infirm.

Finally, Cane said, "He was reassessed by staff and he was accepted for travel" on a flight departing two hours later.

Upon landing in Los Angeles, the "Hooked on a Feeling" singer, who's been in and out of rehab over the last five years and has a drunken driving arrest under his belt, denied that his behavior had anything to do with falling off the wagon. British media reports to contrary were simply "not true," he said.

"Due to a new medication prescribed by his doctor in London on Tuesday, for an infection in his injured hand, Mr. Hasselhoff became ill at Heathrow Airport and requested to be put on a later flight to Los Angeles," his publicist, Judy Katz, said in a statement.

Despite his career renaissance with the America's Got Talent gig (which forced him to bail on the part of Captain Hook in a London revival of Peter Pan), a role in the new Adam Sandler comedy Click and, per reports, even a Knight Rider musical (featuring music by Teddy Pendergrass) set to open in Australia later this year, Hasselhoff's personal life has been in tatters.

His divorce with Bach has been anything but amicable, with the two trading allegations of physical and emotional abuse.

The medication that Katz referred to was to treat an infection in the actor's right arm. He underwent emergency surgery in London about three weeks ago after slicing four tendons and an artery during a bizarre shaving accident in his hotel.

The incident was much ridiculed by the British tabloid press, which pointed to allegedly unsteady behavior at Wimbledon several weeks ago to deduce that Hasselhoff was so "steaming drunk" that security had to escort him out of the All England Club. He's denied the allegations.

In the current issue of Newsweek, Hasselhoff skirts the personal problems and instead focuses on his day jobs. He said he's not sure if he'll return to America's Got Talent next year and would rather work on his own project, a reality show titled Travels with the Hoff

Based on that sojourn in London, we'd definitely tune in.