Patricia Krentcil of New Jersey was in court yesterday facing child-endangerment charges after police said she brought her daughter into a tanning booth, causing the 6-year-old girl to suffer burns.
But Krentcil says that her daughter, Anna, got her sunburn the natural way — playing outside on a hot day.
She told New York's CBS 2 TV — not that anyone looking at her really had any question about this issue — that she loves to tan. "I've been tanning my whole life, going to the beach, tanning salons and so forth," she said. But she insisted she would never let her fair-skinned daughter accompany her into the actual booth.
The controversy began when a school nurse noticed the burns, which Anna attributed to going tanning "with Mommy." The school then contacted the child-services agency. Officials suspected that Krentcil took the child into the tanning booth without the salon's knowledge.
Krentcil posted $25,000 bail and was released to Camden County authorities, where she had an outstanding municipal charge, a spokeswoman for the prosecutor's office said.
It's illegal in New Jersey for anyone under 14 years old to tan. But Krentcil's hue, which actually borders on looking like blackface makeup in this clip, makes it pretty obvious that there's no limit at all on how much adults can use the facilities.
Watch this video, courtesy of the Today Show:
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