Credit: Charles Sykes/Bravo
Karen Huger has been charged with DUI and hit with other driving citations after a car accident on Tuesday night.
As the Real Housewives of Potomac star, 60, insists that she was simply emotional about her late mother’s passing, crying as she drove following a dinner date with a friend, a series of new reports claim Karen was driving fast and recklessly before crashing into a median and a couple of road signs.
According to court records obtained by TMZ on March 20, Karen is facing one count of DUI and another citation for DWI, the first of which will require her to appear in court.
“[Karen was] negligent … [and] driving way over the speed limit and driving with a suspended registration,” the report stated, confirming she received a total of six traffic violations with fines up to $510.
After Karen reportedly ran into a median and a crosswalk sign in Potomac, Maryland with her 2017 Maserati, she was said to have continued driving and hit a parking sign, damaging her vehicle and causing the airbag to deploy.
Following the incident, Karen released a statement to TMZ.
“Thank you all for your prayers and well wishes during this very frightening experience. I am still in shock from last nights incident, but grateful to be alive today. With the passing of my Beloved Mother, grief comes and goes in waves, and with [Mother’s] Day approaching it has felt more like a tsunami,” she said. “Last night I met a girlfriend for dinner, we talked and brought up some very emotionally sensitive topics. I was crying on my way home and saw a car heading right for me. I swerved to avoid the head-on collision, hit the divider and then a tree. I’m hurt, bruised up a bit, but so grateful I am alive! I did receive citations, one of which was unrelated to the incident which is understandable, but what was most surprising is that the car that almost hit me just drove away!”
“I would like to stress, it’s important to understand your emotional state when driving and may this be a reminder to all to use their seatbelts, my Mother may be my Guardian Angel but the seatbelt saved my life,” she added.
In addition to Karen failing to mention her DUI charge and potential arrest, cops from Montgomery County also didn’t speak of an incarceration, and there is no booking to prove or disprove whether she was ever behind bars.
Karen’s DUI charge comes just months after her fellow Real Housewives star, Real Housewives of Orange County‘s Shannon Beador, 59, received her own DUI after hitting a house in Newport Beach following an alleged dispute with her former boyfriend, John Janssen, 60, who is now dating her co-star, Alexis Bellino, 47.
The Real Housewives of Potomac season eight airs Sundays at 8/7c on Bravo.