Karissa And Kristina Shannon: Twin Playboy Playmates Hurt In Beverly Hills Car Crash, Alcohol Involved
The Shannon twins, 26-year-old Karissa and Kristina, who shared two months as twin Playboy Playmates in 2009, were both injured in a frightening car crash on Monday in Beverly Hills, California, and even though both former nude models were rushed to a nearby hospital, Kristina Shannon was slapped with a citation by Beverly Hills police for driving under the influence of alcohol.
Karissa and Kristina Shannon were not the first twin sisters to pose nude together in Playboy Magazine, but they were the first to occupy two months of Playboy centerfolds, being named Miss July and Miss August in a single, combined issue of the venerable men’s magazine that year.
According to a report in Britain’s Daily Mail newspaper, Kristina Shannon was at the wheel of a Mercedes-Benz G-Class SUV when she lost control of the vehicle at the corner of Whittier Drive and Trenton Drive in the upscale Southern California city bordered on all sides by the city of Los Angeles.
“We cited her and released her to the care of the hospital… We will be submitting our case to the district attorney for possible criminal filing for driving under the influence.”
The celebrity news site TMZ reported that the twins were driving to an appointment at which they planned to get their nipples pierced.
The twin former Playmates somehow escaped the alarming crash, in which the SUV rolled and flipped over, with nothing worse that bruises and scratches, but the accident could easily have proven fatal for one or both of the women.
Playboy twins Karissa & Kristina Shannon injured in scary car accident! http://t.co/Ycv1xYxxIA pic.twitter.com/eQWOzQDcRu
— HollywoodLife (@HollywoodLife) October 16, 2015
Rescuers were forced to cut through the roof of the Mercedes-Benz vehicle in order to extract Kristina Shannon. Karissa Shannon was pulled through the SUV’s windshield to safety, TMZ reported.
According to a report in the New York Daily News newspaper, the twins have recently been distraught over the death of their mother.
“Their mother passed away this year,” an unnamed friend told the media. “So it has not been that easy for them. They are struggling. Don’t judge them too fast.”
But Monday’s auto accident was not the first time one or both of the Shannon twins had found themselves in trouble.
They were both charged with aggravated assault in connection with a brawl at a St. Petersburg, Florida, party in 2008. Karissa Shannon also faced an earlier misdemeanor assault charge.
Both twins, around the time of their appearance in Playboy Magazine, joined the harem of “girlfriends” surrounding Playboy‘s legendary publisher Hugh Hefner and they moved into the iconic Playboy Mansion in the wealthy Los Angeles neighborhood of Holmby Hills.
The Shannon twins also became cast members on the reality TV show The Girls Next Door, appearing in 2009, the final season of the show, which was set at the Playboy Mansion and focused on the daily misadventures of Hefner’s multiple, live-in female companions.
In 2010, after the fling with Hefner was completed, Karissa Shannon dated TV actor Sam Jones III, of the CW series Smallville, and the two made an explicit sex video that was later released by the pornographic film distributor Vivid Entertainment.
The twins have appeared on other reality TV shows as well, including the E! Network reality series, Botched!, in which Karissa and Kristina Shannon discussed their multiple plastic surgeries, complaining that botched nose jobs had ruined their identical features, and that they paid $80,000 to correct the nose jobs as well as botched breast enhancement surgeries.
Karissa and Kristina Shannon caused controversy on the Botched program by admitting that they consumed alcohol at the same that they took powerful pain medication to deal with the aftermath of the surgeries.
[Featured Image: Frederick M. Brown / Getty Images]
