Woman dubbed 'Tan Mom' claims she was nearly arrested by ICE agents because of her deep tan
A woman dubbed ‘Tan Mom’ says she was questioned by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents and almost put in handcuffs due to her extremely bronzed look.
Patricia Krentcil - also known as Tan Mom - said she almost landed herself ‘in a pickle’ after immigration officers approached her when she left a restaurant with pals and began questioning if she was a US citizen because of her super-tanned complexion.
Speaking on a recent episode of her Light. Tan. Up. with Tan Mom & Adam Barta podcast, Krentcil said: “Back to the ICE issue, I was at a restaurant with my girlfriends and I walked out with my friends, as we were done eating, and the ICE people stopped me.
“They asked me, am I an American citizen and I’m, like, ‘yes’, you know. It blew my mind.
Advert
“Because I was so tanned, they were about to handcuff me and take me away [to] God knows where because once you get in those trucks, you don't know where you're going anymore.”
Krentcil said despite being ‘scared’ by the ‘terrifying’ situation she ‘held [her] own’ and managed to get out of it.
Krentcil said she believes she was stopped by the ICE agents due to her dark tan and slammed President Donald Trump for ‘supporting all this nonsense’.
This isn’t the first time the New Jersey mum has had a brush with the law due to tanning.
She hit headlines in 2012 after she was arrested and charged with child endangerment after it was claimed she allowed her six-year-old daughter to use tanning beds.
A nurse at the daughter’s school claimed the little girl told her she went ‘tanning with mommy’.
Krentcil strenuously denied the claims and a grand jury failed to indict her on the charges.
Speaking at the time, she said: "That nurse made the worst mistake of her life.
"I don't think dollars can put something on it, for what they did to us, emotionally. That school is pathetic. It was definitely a set up, I don't care what anyone says."
She also told TMZ: “I'm innocent and it's proven... I would never -- never -- put my daughter in a tanning booth. We go out shopping. That's what we do.”
She also branded the whole thing a ‘witch hunt’ and said there was ‘somebody out there’ who was ‘jealous’ of her.
In an interview with Vice last year, Krentcil said her little girl got a sunburn from being outside and had not been on a tanning bed.
Opening up about the experience, she said that days after she was accused of child endangerment she did an interview with local news, in which she famously said ‘I like to tan’, which quickly went ‘global’ and led to her viral fame.
Krentcil admitted that at some points in her life she was tanning seven days a week but said she hoped her kids would not follow in her footsteps.
LADbible has reached out to US Immigration and Customs Enforcement for comment on Krentcil’s claims.
Claire Reid