
The earlier playmates share what they’ve been to since leaving the mansion, their new lives open air of L.A. and re-establishing their faith in God.
Karissa and Kristina Shannon are wanting once more on their time throughout the Playboy Mansion.
As quickly because the headline-grabbing twins of The Women Subsequent Door, the now 35-year-olds are stepping out of the shadows and dipping their toe once more into the spotlight after embarking on a model new, extra wholesome chapter of their lives open air of Hollywood.
In a model new interview with PEOPLE, the sisters replicate on their wild rise to fame, the trauma that adopted, and the way in which a cross-country escape helped them uncover peace, operate, and their faith as soon as extra.
From WingHouse to the Mansion
The Shannon Twins’ journey began in small-town Florida, the place that they had been raised by their Italian grandmother (“Nonna”) after a rocky childhood. “We obtained right here from a small, poor Italian family,” Kristina explains, together with that the sisters don’t affiliate with their mom and father “to nowadays.”
By 16, that they had been working at Ker’s WingHouse — a Hooters-style restaurant — the place they turned native stars, landing on billboards and calendars.
“That’s the place our modeling occupation truly started. We labored odd jobs until we had been 16, after we started working there,” Karissa shares, with Kristina calling it their first “centerfold.”
Getty
Women Subsequent Door’s Holly Madison Reveals Why She And Kendra Wilkinson Are Not On Speaking Phrases
View Story
Playboy caught wind of the twins shortly after, when a photographer that that they had been working with despatched their images to the publication.
“The calendar man who was capturing the entire Ker’s WingHouse calendars, that photographer was moreover submitting photos to Playboy. We had been 17,” Karissa says.
The response was pretty on the spot, with Kristina claiming that Playboy head, Hugh Hefner, was “dying over the pictures.”
“They talked about, ‘He loves you women. You guys are in,’” Karissa remembers.
Prepared in your permission to load the Instagram Media.
Life Behind the Playboy Curtain
Their debut made historic previous, with Kristina and Karissa the youngest twins, and for the time being, the first to get their very personal month throughout the Playboy calendar. Nevertheless behind the scenes, points weren’t so glamorous.
“We had been truly merely kids. We had been all pure. We didn’t have fake tooth. We didn’t have fake boobs like the other women or fake hair. We merely walked spherical with pure faces over tan because of we had been always throughout the photo voltaic in Florida,” Kristina explains.
Bullying, jealousy, and isolation had been the norm, they talked about, and even with the extra consideration from Hefner, the ladies had a troublesome time feeling at residence throughout the mansion.
“Hef would current us specific consideration as compared with the other women,” Karissa remembers. “It made Kristina cry. Kristina truly cried and wanted to go away the mansion after we had been capturing. And I instructed her, ‘These women are older. They know how one can play the game greater. Nevertheless we’re pretty. We’re proper right here. Now we have made it this far.’ And so we ended up staying and Kristina purchased by means of it, nevertheless there was lots bullying.”
Nonetheless, they caught it out — landing centerfold shoots, a activity on The Women Subsequent Door and additional.
Fame, Loss & Hitting Rock Bottom
After three years throughout the Playboy orbit, the cracks started to point.
With Karissa noting that Playboy “left an infinite hole in every of our hearts and our spirits,” notably after that they had been stripped of religion and the family at residence that grew up with.
The dying of their Nonna and Kristina’s DUI, every in 2014, had been pivotal elements for the pair, shifting their focus to renewing their faith and discovering their means on the planet that started when every Kristina and Karissa turned unhappy with their our our bodies and the life-style selections they made after leaving the mansion.
“All people was saying we had been going by means of our ‘Anna Nicole half’,” Kristina remembers, referencing the late Playmate Anna Nicole Smith. “We gained weight. There was alcohol and medicines. We had been truly unhealthy and misplaced and, even at elements, suicidal. We had no person. It was merely us, trying to find out it out after dropping ourselves.”
Getty
Kendra Wilkinson Says She Has ‘Little Little little bit of a Intercourse Downside,’ Admits She’s Nonetheless ‘In Love’ with Ex-Husband
View Story
So, they purchased their magnificence salon and made the selection to go away Los Angeles. They first settled in Las Vegas sooner than willpower to start out out over in Ann Arbor, Michigan, the place that they had been born sooner than re-locating to Florida, the place that they had been raised by their grandmother.
“We didn’t know the place to go, so we decided to return to the place we had been born and depart L.A.,” Karissa says. “We purchased the marvel salon we owned on the time, and talked about, ‘Let’s get the hell out of proper right here and reside a simple life. Let’s merely start therapeutic.’”
Therapeutic throughout the Midwest
Once more in Ann Arbor, the twins lastly slowed down.
“Being in nature desensitized us. We ended up being acknowledged with manic despair, ADHD, bipolar dysfunction and generalized anxiousness dysfunction. Being open air the city helped us decelerate,” Karissa reveals, explaining the the pair used the switch to “to hunt out out who we’re and easily be selfish, try to reside often.”
“We had been fully merely capable of be selfish for the first time. And we had been all about God and praying all the time to Jesus,” she explains. “We had been truly praying and easily trying to change our lives. And I actually really feel like that’s after we truly grew up.”
Jimmy Kimmel Reside/Getty
Pamela Anderson Reveals How Rather a lot She Was Paid to Attend Donald Trump’s Birthday Social gathering
View Story
Shifting to an pure lifestyle that included pure meals, merchandise, medication and self-care, the pair entered their “therapeutic interval” which took years nevertheless modified them every for good.
“I didn’t suppose we’d ever come out of it. Nevertheless Michigan modified us,” Kristina supplies. “We love being in Michigan after which going to L.A. or Vegas for work.”
Prepared in your permission to load the Instagram Media.
Ready for the Spotlight (in Their Private Method)
After years out of the spotlight, the twins say they’re lastly ready for a return, nevertheless this time, on their very personal phrases.
“We do love consideration. We love the cameras, not in a suggest or narcissistic means. We’re humble, nevertheless we wish to entertain,” Kristina says. “So we love actuality TV because of our character is sort of like people can set up with us and we’re truly precise and reliable.”
They’re moreover desirous about getting their precise property licenses and opening themselves as a lot as relationship and even the potential of motherhood.
“We truly want to do being pregnant collectively. We want to be housewives, we want to get married, we want to have children. We want to have big households. Since all we’ve obtained is each other, we want to have big households. It may be so cool if we could have multiples,” Kristina says, with Karissa together with they they every want to have twins.
Along with the PEOPLE interview obtained right here the pair’s first photoshoot of their 30s, which marked one different modern start for the twin sisters.
Instagram
Kendra Wilkinson Fires Once more at Haters Who Say She ‘Seems to be like Earlier’ Amid Newest Weight Loss
View Story
“We had been excited because of that’s our first time doing {a photograph} shoot in our 30s, as grownups with out the X-rated stuff,” Kristina says. “People haven’t seen us since 2022. Now we have been in hiding since A&E Secrets and techniques and strategies of Playboy. It’s like the first time our followers are seeing us. We’re stepping once more out and letting our followers know the place we’re at, what we look like presently.”
“We’re altering our look. That’s our transition in our 30s and also you’ll see it. We’re merely trying to find out it out like everybody,” Karissa supplies, noting that the pair are reducing their breast implants.
Whereas the long run continues to be unclear, the twins maintained that they’re nonetheless the equivalent women they always had been, merely grown up.
“We’re therapeutic and listening to our inside selves and retaining God first. We reworked our psychological and now you presumably can bodily see how considerably higher we’re. It begins from inside and it’s all truly associated,” she continues. “We’re excited to work arduous, have fulfilling and proceed defending our peace.”