Conjoined twins Abby and Brittany Hensel beam in rare photo of themselves with Abby's husband
29 October 2024, 00:17 | Updated: 29 October 2024, 00:24
Conjoined twins who starred in a 2010s reality show have resurfaced again after sharing a rare picture together with one of their husbands.
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Abby and Brittany Hensel, who starred in the TLC series Abby & Brittany were seen beaming in the new snap alongside Abby's husband Joshua Bowling.
After documenting their life for many years, the twins, both 34 - who share a body but have two heads - have made rare public appearances but were pictured for the first time since Abby and Joshua's 2021 ceremony, which were only made public months ago.
Bowling set the selfie as his profile image on Facebook, where he has kept friends and followers up to date with their lives without sharing his wife and sister-in-law's likeness.
The couple now live in Minnesota where the twins are primary school teachers while Bowling works as a vet, having previously served in the United States Army.
The 2021 wedding ceremony, held in secret, saw the 34-year-old sisters don the same dress as they gleamed with happiness on the big day.
Following reports of their marriage, the twins shared a reaction update, posting a video to their TikTok captioned: "The internet has been extra LOUD today. We have always been around".
And in a follow-up post earlier this year, the twins shared a photo of the pair posing alongside Bowling with the accompanying audio: "This is a message to all the haters out there, if you don't like what I do but you watch everything that I'm doing, you're still a fan."
The sisters faced a torrent of abuse online after sharing the pictures of the nuptials on the happy day.
The twins ended their reality show over 10 years ago and have kept Abby's relationship with Bowling out of public view.
Last year, the pair posted on their TikTok account called @abbyandbrittanyhensel a clip of the two dancing in Abby's wedding dress, while another account on Facebook called Britt And Abby showed them in a picture on the happy day.
"People have been curious about us since we were born, for obvious reasons," the twins said in their original reality show.
"But our parents never let us use that as an excuse. We were raised to believe we could do anything we wanted to do."
The sisters are Dicephalus twins, and are one of very few sets of twins to survive childhood. They are conjoined at the torso so have separate heads and brains.
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They initially shot to fame on their self-titled TLC show Abby & Brittany, and later appeared on The Oprah Winfrey Show.
They documented their major life events through school and graduation, and navigating life their life as conjoined twins.
While they have separate heads, the two are joined from the waist down and share organs - including reproductive organs.
Abby controls the right arm and leg, while Brittany controls the left arm and leg. The two can therefore eat separately and complete a variety of tasks independently.
The then-teenagers expressed their desire to have children one day during their reality show.
Their mum explained in the show: "That is probably something that could work because those organs do work for them."
"Yeah, we're going to be moms," the twins agreed.
