Patricia Krentcil says ICE agents nearly arrested her because of her deep tan.
The New Jersey woman, known widely as “Tan Mom,” recounted the encounter on a recent episode of her podcast “Light. Tan. Up. With Tan Mom & Adam Barta.” Krentcil, who rose to viral fame more than a decade ago, told listeners she was leaving a restaurant with friends when immigration officers intercepted her outside.
“They asked me, am I an American citizen and I’m, like, ‘yes’, you know. It blew my mind,” she said on the podcast. Krentcil claimed the agents were on the verge of placing her in restraints before she talked her way free. “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.”
The self-described tanning enthusiast said she “held [her] own” despite finding the situation “terrifying.” She described herself as “scared” during the questioning but ultimately managed to avoid detention.
Krentcil directed sharp criticism at President Donald Trump following the incident, saying he was “supporting all this nonsense.” Her remarks on the podcast tied the encounter to broader immigration enforcement actions under the current administration.
The claimed stop marks another legal brush for Krentcil, whose name first became tabloid fodder in 2012 over a child endangerment case involving her daughter. That earlier episode transformed her from a local mother into a national punchline and, eventually, a sustained media personality with her own podcast platform.
In the 2012 case, a nurse at her daughter’s school contacted authorities after the six-year-old girl allegedly said she went “tanning with mommy.” Police arrested Krentcil and charged her with child endangerment based on the claim that she had allowed the child to use tanning beds.
Krentcil fought the charges aggressively and publicly. A grand jury ultimately declined to indict her, but not before she mounted a vocal defense across multiple outlets. “That nurse made the worst mistake of her life,” she said at the time. “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 gave a statement during that period, insisting on her innocence. “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 framed the entire prosecution as a “witch hunt” driven by jealousy, telling reporters there was “somebody out there” who was “jealous” of her.
In an interview last year, Krentcil offered an alternative explanation for her daughter’s reddened skin: the girl had simply gotten a sunburn from playing outside, not from any tanning bed exposure.
The 2012 case’s most lasting legacy proved to be a single soundbite. Days after the accusation surfaced, Krentcil told a local news crew “I like to tan,” a phrase that went “global” in her own description and cemented her “Tan Mom” persona. She later admitted that she had tanned as frequently as seven days per week during certain periods of her life, though she expressed hope her children would not adopt the same habit.
Krentcil’s podcast appearance represents her latest effort to parlay decades of notoriety into ongoing relevance, this time by attaching her personal narrative to a charged political topic. The ICE claims remain unverified by independent sources, and the agency has not publicly responded to her account.