David’s Hasselhoff’s battle with alcoholism has continued well beyond the floor burger-eating video seen around the world. The National Enquirer notes that he’s been in the hospital four different times for alcohol poisoning since last October and that he was in and out of Cedars-Sinai twice in December for alcohol detox.

His family is worried sick about him and three of his sisters as well as his two teenage daughters, Haley, 15, and Taylor, 17, staged an intervention in early December. The Hoff spent Christmas and New Years in a rehab in Hawaii.

“David would drink a gallon of vodka and then pass out. He’d check into the hospital, come out, say he was fine, then do it again,” said the source.

During one of his last drinking bouts, the ex “Knight Rider” hunk even asked his 17-year-old daughter Taylor to drive to a liquor store for vodka, the family friend revealed.

“Taylor refused, and David tried to drive off. When his other daughter Hayley, who’s 15, tried to stop him, he scratched her hands,” said the source.

Finally, on December 8, the morning after his final hospital stay, Hasselhoff’s two daughters and three of his sisters confronted him about his boozing, said the source.

“David’s sisters – who’d flown in from different cities – and his daughters pleaded with him to come to his senses and go to rehab,” the friend revealed.

“There was crying and hugging until David got it through his thick head that rehab was what he had to do.”

[From The National Enquirer, print edition, January 21, 2008]

David’s daughters visited him in Hawaii while he was at rehab and the source reports that they said that he seems to be making progress. The article doesn’t clarify whether he’s out now or is still in rehab on the island of Oahu.

In late November the Hoff was overheard bitching loudly about the state of his career, which probably hasn’t improved much since. His chance at even a minor recurring TV role on a sitcom will have to wait until the writer’s strike ends. According to IMDB he will appear in Anaconda 3: The Offspring, which is listed as a TV show in post-production. He is also in talks for a cameo in the Knight Rider television movie. It looks like a reality show would be the only hope for The Hoff in this bleak strike period. Celebrity Rehab 2 would be thrilled to have him, but even though he’s become something of a punch line he strikes me as too dignified for that.

David Hasselhoff is shown on 11/17 at the opening of Planet Hollywood Resort and Casino with Danny Devito and Rhea Perlman. Hasselhoff is 6’4″, and he makes those two look so little! Danny Devito is said to be 5 feet tall.