Twins separated at birth share incredible reunion story

Twenty-five years after being separated at birth in South Korea, twins Samantha Futerman and Anaïs Bordier were reunited the way most 20-somethings reconnect with distant friends and family members: through Facebook.

Their story is the subject of a new book, “Separated @ Birth: A True Love Story of Twin Sisters Reunited,” and a documentary, "Twinsters," that was funded by the pair through Kickstarter.

Bordier, who was adopted and raised as an only child in Paris and Belgium, was studying in London when a friend stumbled upon a photo online of Futerman, an American actress who looked exactly like her.

“I didn’t think she could be my twin," Bordier told the New York Post. "But the resemblance was so strong that I thought she might be related to me to a lesser degree — like my cousin or something.”

Bordier's curiosity was further piqued when she discovered they shared the same birthday.

“I found her date of birth,” Bordier said. “What are the chances you find someone adopted from the same country, same town, who was born on the same day?”

Bordier sent Futerman a friend request.

“Stalked you A BIT, and found out you were born on the 19th of november 1987 ... and discovered you were adopted too," Bordier wrote in the Feb. 21, 2013, Facebook message. "So...I don’t want to be too Lindsay Lohan ... but ... was wondering where were you born.”

Bordier's Facebook message to Futerman (Anaïs Bordier/Facebook)
Bordier's Facebook message to Futerman (Anaïs Bordier/Facebook)

Futerman was so shocked, she didn't respond at first.

"I held off for a little bit," Futerman said. "[But] that entire day, I’d just keep randomly turning to my friends, saying, ‘I have a twin! I have a twin!’”

Futerman told her parents, who were afraid their daughter was the target of a catfishing scam.

But a few days later, after the pair first spoke to each other on Skype, their fears subsided.

“Seeing Anaïs on Skype was unreal,” Futerman writes in the book. “I had never seen anyone who looked even remotely like me, let alone my exact mirror reflection. She had my laugh, my freckles, and that profile. When she turned to the side during that first Skype session, I was blown away. I stopped for a second and freaked out inside.”

The similarities didn't stop there, the Post reports:

They had the same expressions. They learned that throughout their girlhoods, they had had the same series of haircuts in the same order. They both hate cooked vegetables, carrots especially. They both have the same manner of speaking, trailing off mid-sentence. They both brush their teeth multiple times a day, have a fear of being grazed by a shower curtain, freely admit to Napoleon complexes, and require 10 hours of sleep a night, plus daily naps.


In May 2013, Futerman and Bordier met in London. At their first meeting, the twins froze, staring at each other.

“It was very strange,” Bordier said. “Physically, very strange. I would describe it as opposing magnets attracting each other. It’s like seeing a mirror that doesn’t react the way it should.”

Bordier went across the room and poked Futerman in the forehead.

"I felt like we were in two parallel rooms and we shouldn’t be standing in the same place," Bordier said. "I needed to make physical contact with her, to check that I wasn’t dreaming. And when I poked her, I knew that she was real.”


After the reunion, the twins went back to Bordier's apartment, where they slept side by side.

“Maybe this was our way of resuming our story where it started — twins in the womb,” Futerman writes in the book. “We were resuming our life together, waking up with no fear of ever being separated again.”

A DNA test proved they are twins.

Caseworkers eventually tracked down the woman listed as the pair's biological mother, who denied having given birth to them.

“I put it aside,” Bordier told the Post. “I wasn’t disappointed, but I wasn’t relieved, either. I have no idea who she is or what she does. I put it aside, and we’ll see what happens in the future. Maybe she’ll contact us. Maybe she never will.”

“It’s a bit overwhelming to hear that someone you think you might love wouldn’t be reciprocating,” Futerman said. “I also feel an immense sadness for her. That she would feel so much guilt or sadness or pain that she would have to deny us.

"My sister and I do love our birth mother," Futerman added. "She gave us life."

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