When the closeness of twins goes a step too far

Sharing everything: Charlotte Bonstrom, right, has left her husband for her sister Cecilia’s spouse

I’ve always thought it would be fun to have a twin, and last week we had a deeply moving example of twinly love and courage when British zookeeper Melissa Laurie, swimming in a Mexican lagoon, was saved from a crocodile attack by her twin sister Georgia, who punched the croc until it let her go.

But the closeness of twins isn’t always so rosy, as suggested by another strange tale – this time of sisterly intimacy gone wrong. The Swedish ex-model Bonstrom twins, Cecilia and Charlotte, 50, and their 62-year-old husbands were the toast of Manhattan. Until, last week, they set New York alight with news that Charlotte has left her husband, the Italian restaurateur Vittorio Assaf, for none other than her sister Cecilia’s husband, Thierry Gillier, founder of the fashion house Zadig & Voltaire. The two are now set to marry, and Assaf has had to deny that he has taken up with Cecilia himself.

The closeness of twins who share everything is appealing. But as the Bonstroms show, it can all go horribly wrong if one mistakes the other’s husband as part of the package.