Tan Mom Moving To London To Tan Again?

“Tan Mom” Patricia Krentcil may be moving to London to seek the sun. If you ever had any doubts about her sanity, you can now be confident that, yes, she really is that clueless.

The overcooked 44-year-old told Jane Atkinson and Georgina Dickinson at UK’s The Sun that she has been barred from “every” tanning salon in New Jersey. “I need to get out of this place so I can regain my freedom,” Krentcil said. Moving to London is “the only way my family and I can find happiness.”

She also told The Sun reporters that she hopes to sell her own brand of tanning lotion in England. M-kay. Because London is all about the deep, dark Caribbean tan, right?

Patricia Krentcil shot to notoriety as the world’s foremost “tanorexic” last spring. According to Christine Roberts at the New York Daily News, the leather-faced lady was tanning 20 times a month until she was arrested for taking her now 6-year-old daughter into the tanning booth, a claim she still denies.

Maybe the erstwhile Tan Mom has figured out that London isn’t all that sunny because she backed off on her statement when she spoke to Roberts. In that interview, she claimed that she wasn’t banned from the New Jersey salons. “I could go tanning if I wanted. I just haven’t,” she said.

It isn’t the first time she’s changed her story. In August, Krentcil asserted that she’d quit tanning. She confessed at the time that her tanning was a serious addiction.

Telling wild stories? Check. Child endangerment? Check. Embarrassing arrest? Check. We’ll agree that she certainly looks like an addict from here.

Board certified dermatologist Debra Jaliman acknowledged in Web MD that tanorexia is a genuine addiction. However, she noted that being an addict is no excuse for child abuse. If the allegations are true that Krentcil took her fair-skinned, red-headed, freckled-faced 5-year-old into a tanning booth, she feels that a crime has certainly been committed:

“In my practice, I’ve noticed a disturbing trend: a growing number of children and teenagers with skin cancers. How any parent can take a child to a tanning salon is beyond me. I think tanning salons should be made illegal.”

Tan Mom may or may not run to England to hide from an enraged public. If nothing else, her bizarre behavior may warn other people of the tragic consequences of chasing too much tan.