Conjoined Twin Abby Hensel of “Abby & Brittany” Is Married!

After conjoined twins Abby and Brittany Hensel received public recognition while appearing on The Oprah Winfrey Show in 1996, they went on to star in their own reality series on TLC, Abby & Brittany, in 2012. The show, which lasted one season, followed the 22 year olds’ final semester in college, their graduation, and the first few months of their postgraduate lives. From traveling around Europe to preparing for their first job as teachers, the conjoined twins took viewers along for the ride.

According to public records, which Today covered on March 27, 2024, Abby married Josh Bowling, a nurse and United States Army veteran, in 2021. Although Abby hasn’t discussed the details behind her nuptials, some of the photos are going viral on TikTok. One video posted on May 1, 2023, which accumulated 10 million views, shows a series of images taken on Abby’s big day: one of the conjoined twins beaming at Bowling and another of the sisters posing with two of Abby's wedding guests. Based on the pictures, the bride and her sister wore an A-line wedding dress with an illusion neckline and an embellished bodice.

In the 2003 documentary, Joined for Life, Brittany shared that she and her sister were interested in having children, which could potentially be the next future milestone for the family if they’re still considering pregnancy. “Yeah, we’re going to be moms,” Brittany said. “We haven’t thought about how being moms is going to work yet. But we’re just 16—we don’t need to think about that right now."

The sisters currently live in Minnesota, where they were born and raised, and they teach fifth graders at a school there, according to the outlet. In their free time, Abby, Brittany, and Josh enjoy taking hikes, eating ice cream, and snow tubing, according to Bowling’s Facebook.

Abby and Brittany are dicephalus conjoined twins, which is a rare phenomenon that occurs in one of every 200,000 births, where two babies are born physically connected to one another with two heads and one torso. The sisters share a bloodstream and all of their organs below the waist, but Abby controls the right side, while Brittany controls the left.

According to Today, when Patty and Mike Hensel, their parents, gave birth to Abby and Brittany in 1990, the doctors said if they underwent separation surgery, the probability of the twins surviving would be slim. Because of the high risk involved, Patty and Mike decided against the operation.