Brit MP Quits to Be With Metallica Manager

Britain's Conservative Party is losing one of its rising stars to New York City and heavy metal. Louise Mensch has decided to step down as a member of parliament to move to the US with her three children, reports the Daily Mail. She married Metallica manager Peter Mensch—whom she had known since she was a teenager—last year. In a letter to Prime Minister David Cameron, Mensch, who was elected in 2010, said she had been "struggling for some time to find the best outcome for my family life."

Mensch, author of 16 racy chick-lit novels, was one of the governing party's most colorful members, the Guardian notes. She played a key role on the committee that grilled Rupert Murdoch over phone-hacking last year. As the Murdoch probe began its work, she received an email threatening to expose her youthful drug use. She made the email public, along with her response. "I am somebody who has used drugs in the past," she told an interviewer last month. "I said this when someone tried to blackmail me over this during the Murdoch hearings. It's something I regret incredibly, that in my youth I messed with my brain." (More Louise Mensch stories.)