Just when you thought ”Tanning Mom” Patricia Krentcil had faded into obscurity, she’s back firmly in the glare of the spotlight again.
The 44-year-old mom- of- five wants the world to know that she is a good mom, and in an effort to prove this, she detailed her day-to-day life in an exclusive “Today” interview.
“I’m up at 3 in the morning, making sure all the wash is done. My husband goes to work at 4:30,” Krentcil reveals. After her hubby heads out for the day, Krentcil says she makes pancakes, packs her kids’ school bags, “and then they’re all off and gone. And then I work all day inside and outside the house.”
The New Jersey mom is adamant that she is innocent in the charges of second-degree child endangerment, which stem from her allegedly letting her daughter, Anna, tan in a stand-up tanning booth.
Anna “never went in,” Krentcil said. “She was not near a bed. Anna goes out with me…we go shopping and nails and this and that. She did not do anything wrong.”
She still maintains that Anna’s burns came from a day out in the sun. “It was beautiful out. And they were in the pool. Not the big pool, the kiddie pool,” she said. “She’s a redhead. She got sunburned.”
She added: “Every allegation was completely wrong and I just want people to leave us alone.”
Krentcil has become somewhat of a laughing-stock in the media, from hilarious tabloid headlines screaming “The Toast of the Town”. to becoming a punchline on “Saturday Night Live” and earning a spot in a monologue from Jimmy Kimmel, who said, “Is she tanning or did she fall down a chimney? She looks like Wiley Coyote after the dynamite stick blows up.”
But the bronzed housewife says she can handle the jokes, but her children are finding her newfound celebrity status difficult to deal with (though, we doubt she is doing herself any favors by posing braless for the paparazzi, which she did last week).
“They’re mad they’re picking on mommy again.” Krentcil explains.
And in what could be a case of the pot calling the kettle black, Krentcil has some advice for others out there: “Look in the mirror and look at yourself, instead of looking at me.
“And I’m sorry I’m tan. I can be tan; it just feels good. But I really think that these moms and dads or whoever, need to step off and step away.”
Incidentally, she claimed that she hasn’t been tanning since the whole debacle propelled her into the national spotlight, though her skin seems to have lost none of that charcoal color that has come to define her appearance.
Krentcil is due back in court June 4.
What do you think?