Identical twins Annamarie and Ginamarie Russo, natives of south Lynbrook and Hewlett, are battling it out for a win on VH-1’s reality competition show, “Twinning.” It premiered on July 21 in its debut season and airs on Wednesdays at 10 p.m.
The Russo sisters are competing against 11 other sets of twins to win a grand prize of $222,222.22. All the twins are challenged with a series of tasks, but cannot enlist their sibling for help. The twins who best complete the tasks relying on intuition and skill will win the money.
Annamarie said she found out about “Twinning” through word-of-mouth. “We did a video admission we called, ‘A Day in the Life of Twins,’” she said. “The show’s producers flew us out to Los Angeles within the week. Everything happened really quickly. We were up against 1,000 twins from all over the country. We had no idea what we were getting into.”
The biggest challenge in their lives is that the girls have been separated for a lengthy period of time, where they’ve had limited communication, Ginamarie said. “I don’t have any bonds with any one of the other twins on the show,” she said. “Alliances are ever changing. While friends come and go on the show, I have always been true to myself.”
When the show began, Ginamarie said she didn’t know if she could finish competing. “I had tunnel vision,” she said. “I just wanted to see Annamarie. I cried to the producer on the first day and said that I didn’t know if I could do it. The producer said, ‘Yes, you can.’ Seeing my sister after being separated on the show crying when she saw me has been the hardest part — intense.”