Conjoined twins Abby, Brittany Hensel back in spotlight after wedding speculation. It's gone too far.
The internet, once again, can't seem to stop talking about conjoined twins Brittany and Abigail Hensel − and experts say the unwelcome obsession over their personal lives has gone too far.
The 34-year-old twins, who rose to fame in several television shows including "The Oprah Winfrey Show" in 1996 and the series "Abby & Brittany" in 2012, were recently thrust back into the spotlight as multiple outlets, including Today and the New York Post, reported Abigail had a private wedding ceremony in 2021.
The Hensels have said little about the nuptials themselves, but they seemed to confirm the ceremony on their unverified TikTok account where they shared what appears to be wedding photos in 2023. The twins haven't commented directly on the ensuing discourse, but they did share two TikTok videos late last month that seemed to reference it. In one of the videos, they wrote in the caption, "The internet is extra LOUD today. We have always been around," and, in another, they included an audio addressing "all the haters out there."
Experts in disability and media studies say heightened fascination around the Hensel twins' personal lives illuminates a lot about how people treat and talk about those with unusual bodies. The truth is, the Hensel twins, like anyone else, deserve to live a normal life and not spark discussion whenever they do so.
"We see something where this is unusual, this is exciting, this is a little out of the ordinary, and it's not something that many people are equipped to talk about very well," says Elizabeth Ellcessor, an associate professor of media studies at the University of Virginia and author of the book "Restricted Access: Media, Disability, and the Politics of Participation." "And so we see a lot of social media attention and other coverage that is focusing on this as being particularly remarkable, when people in their thirties get married all the time."