The earlier playmates share what they’ve been to since leaving the mansion, their new lives outside of L.A. and re-establishing their faith in God.
Karissa and Kristina Shannon are wanting once more on their time inside the Playboy Mansion.
As quickly because the headline-grabbing twins of The Girls 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 outside 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 they’d been raised by their Italian grandmother (“Nonna”) after a rocky childhood. “We bought right here from a small, poor Italian family,” Kristina explains, together with that the sisters don’t affiliate with their mom and father “to at the present time.”
By 16, they’d 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 really started. We labored odd jobs until we had been 16, after we started working there,” Karissa shares, with Kristina calling it their first “centerfold.”
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Playboy caught wind of the twins rapidly after, when a photographer that they’d been working with despatched their images to the publication.
“The calendar man who was capturing all the 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 photographs.”
“They talked about, ‘He loves you women. You guys are in,’” Karissa remembers.
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Life Behind the Playboy Curtain
Their debut made historic previous, with Kristina and Karissa the youngest twins, and in the mean time, the first to get their very personal month inside the Playboy calendar. Nevertheless behind the scenes, points weren’t so glamorous.
“We had been really 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 on account of we had been always inside 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 inside the mansion.
“Hef would current us specific consideration compared with the other women,” Karissa remembers. “It made Kristina cry. Kristina really 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 the use of it, nevertheless there was lots bullying.”
Nonetheless, they caught it out — landing centerfold shoots, a job on The Girls Subsequent Door and further.
Fame, Loss & Hitting Rock Bottom
After three years inside 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 they’d 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 choices they made after leaving the mansion.
“All people was saying we had been going by the use 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 really 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.”
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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 begin out over in Ann Arbor, Michigan, the place they’d been born sooner than re-locating to Florida, the place they’d 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 surprise salon we owned on the time, and talked about, ‘Let’s get the hell out of proper right here and reside a straightforward life. Let’s merely start therapeutic.’”
Therapeutic inside 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 outside 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 normally.”
“We had been utterly merely in a position to be selfish for the first time. And we had been all about God and praying at all times to Jesus,” she explains. “We had been really praying and easily trying to change our lives. And I actually really feel like that’s after we really grew up.”
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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 would ever come out of it. Nevertheless Michigan modified us,” Kristina offers. “We love being in Michigan after which going to L.A. or Vegas for work.”
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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 indicate or narcissistic means. We’re humble, nevertheless we prefer to entertain,” Kristina says. “So we love actuality TV on account of our character is sort of like people can set up with us and we’re really 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 really 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 enormous households. Since all we’ve bought is each other, we want to have enormous households. It may be so cool if we might have multiples,” Kristina says, with Karissa together with they they every want to have twins.
Along with the PEOPLE interview bought right here the pair’s first photoshoot of their 30s, which marked one different up to date start for the twin sisters.
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“We had been excited on account 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 offers, noting that the pair are reducing their breast implants.
Whereas the long term continues to be unclear, the twins maintained that they’re nonetheless the an identical 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 probably can bodily see how considerably higher we’re. It begins from inside and it’s all really associated,” she continues. “We’re excited to work arduous, have pleasant and proceed defending our peace.”