Actress Caught Driving Drunk, Loses Driver's License
Kate Ritchie, who starred in the long-running Australian soap opera Home and Away, was charged with drunk driving in a Sydney suburb on Aug. 22. She was slapped with a three-month suspension of her driver's license. Ritchie, 44, apologized for her actions on Instagram Sunday.
Ritchie was driving her blue Subaru station wagon when police pulled her over while they conducted random breathalyzer tests in Pagewood, New South Wales reports News.Com.Au. She had a positive test result, so police took her to a local precinct for a second test. The second test showed she had had a 0.06 blood alcohol concentration (BAC) level. This is just over the 0.05 legal limit in NSW.
The actress was given an infringement notice for "driving with low range prescribed concentration of alcohol." Her driver's license was suspended for three months. She was also fined $600, The Daily Telegraph reports.
"Recently I undertook a random breath test. Although it was low level, the test came back positive," Ritchie wrote on Instagram. "I made a poor decision and there is no doubt I understand the seriousness of my actions. I am truly sorry."
Ritchie is best known for playing Sally Fletcher on Home and Away for 20 years, leaving the series behind in 2008. Almost immediately after the show ended, she began working in radio, and now hosts Nova FM's morning show Kate, Tim & Joel with Tim Blackwell and Joel Creasey. She missed several episodes of the show after testing positive for COVID-19.
Ritchie has continued appearing on television though, recently filming a new season of Australia's Got Talent as a judge with Shane Jacobson, Alesha Dixon, and David Walliams. Ritchie and her ex-husband, retired rugby player Stuart Webb, have a daughter, 8-year-old Mae Webb. She made headlines in December 2021 when she and her boyfriend, 25-year-old security consultant John Bell, split after a year of dating.
In April 2021, Ritchie opened up about her struggle to find her own identity after playing Sally Fletcher for 20 years on Home and Away. "She gave me purpose and a sense of achievement. I feel differently now, after loads of therapy," Ritchie told Anh's Brush With Fame. "I thought the only thing I'd ever done of value in my life was when I was her. I was lost, and I wondered how I was going to survive without her. How were people going to react to me if I wasn't Sally? Sally was a great person, a great friend, and a great daughter ... did people only feel something for me because they liked her?"