“Cake Boss” Buddy Valastro Is Already Icing With His Non-Dominant Hand Following Injury

“Cake Boss” Buddy Valastro Is Already Icing With His Non-Dominant Hand Following Injury

From Prevention

  • On Sept. 20, Buddy Valastro suffered a hand injury that caused nerve and tendon damage.

  • The Cake Boss star has undergone two surgeries and will complete extensive physical therapy.

  • Valastro is already practicing cake decorating with his non-dominant, left hand.


Leave it to the Cake Boss to defy the odds. On Sept. 20, Buddy Valastro suffered a bowling-related hand injury that caused nerve and tendon damage, and he’s already decorating cakes again—with his non-dominant, left hand. At this rate, he’ll be back to work at Carlo’s Bakery in no time.

The Hoboken, New Jersey native shared a gallery of Instagram photos on Oct. 4 that pictured him at a dining room table with his three oldest children, sons Buddy Jr., 16 and Marco, 13, and daughter Sofia, 17, each of them decorating their own cakes.

“Family time is the BEST time!” he captioned the post. “Doing it all over again, left handed..” In the photos, he sat at the head of the table, supremely focused while holding a piping bag in his left hand, his right still in a cast. The pastry chef didn’t share close-ups of his finished work, but from a distance, the details looked well-done.

Instagram followers were impressed by his work. “Never retreat never surrender. Rock on brother ?????,” Chef Guga Rocha commented. “So amazing!!” professional golfer Michelle Wie West wrote. “So glad to see you getting back into the groove,” a fan added. “The talent does not exist in only one hand. ??”

The injury occurred at Valastro’s home bowling alley. He tried resetting its pins, and it went horribly wrong. “I’ve reset it a hundred times,” he told People. “I guess I looked away, and then my hand got pinned. The metal barb pushed right through the middle of my ring finger and my middle finger. I was stuck in a machine.”

He continued: “If it was four inches lower, it would have hit my wrist and forget it, I could have bled out … or it could have ripped my fingers off. So much could have happened.”

Using pliers and a saw, his sons and brother-in-law were able to free him. Since the accident, he’s already undergone two surgeries and will complete extensive physical therapy, with the possibility for more operations.

Before his recent practice run, Valastro feared he would never pick up the piping bag again. “I have a thing with my hands. If I get a paper cut on my hand, I’m pissed off. My hands to me are my lifeline of everything I do,” he said. “And I wonder, ‘Am I ever going to do what I used to be able to do?’”

As of right now, it looks like he is well on his way.


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