Ulrika Jonsson: I'm addicted to sunbathing

Ulrika Jonsson has confessed she is addicted to sunbathing and refuses to apologise to the “tanning police.”

The 52-year-old Swedish-born TV presenter has admitted she has been loving soaking up the sunshine during lockdown and hit back at “the Grinches of summer” who have criticised her tan on social media.

Jonsson wrote in her column in The Sun newspaper: “I will not make any excuses for being a sunbather, a sun lover, nay, a sun worshipper.”

Adding: “But it turns out some people are either jealous or come over all irritated in the presence of a tan. There are those who appoint themselves the obsessively judgemental Tanning Police and regularly hand out penalty comments to strangers for premature ageing and for giving the colour mahogany a bad name.”

Admitting that sunlight has a damaging effect on skin and can cause health problems she said: “I don’t nag smokers nor drinkers for their habits.

Read more: Ulrika Jonsson jokes she’ll be a virgin again when lockdown ends

“My drug of choice is the sun and as I’ve lived by the sword, I shall, no doubt, die by it - as long as it’s in the sun.”

The former TV-am weather presenter claimed that growing up in Sweden - where there is just five hours of daylight during the winter - her love of sunshine is in her DNA.

Read more: Ulrika Jonsson missing new man as they're forced to isolate apart

She also claimed that sunshine had helped cure her childhood eczema and that as an adult she has experienced Sad (Seasonal Affective Disorder) caused by a lack of Vitamin D in the winter.

Jonsson - who is mother daughters Martha, 16, and Bo, 20, and sons Cameron, 25, and Malcolm, 11 - also said that when her children were younger she “always put less cream on my kids but then placed them in the shade for much of the day.”

The NHS website warns: “There's no safe or healthy way to get a tan. A tan does not protect your skin from the sun's harmful effects” adding that people should “aim to strike a balance between protecting yourself from the sun and getting enough vitamin D from sunlight.”

The former Gladiators presenter recently revealed she and her ex Brian Monet are closer as a result of the coronavirus pandemic, saying there has been “a real joining of forces”.

Jonsson split from Monet last year after what she has previously said was a “sexless” marriage.

But she has now revealed they are getting on better than ever and that lockdown has given them a sort of “exclusive, farewell ‘tour’.”