Eccentric French TV star twins die of COVID-19 within a week

Grichka and Igor Bogdanoff, twins who descended from Austrian nobility and became famous for hosting a TV science and science-fiction show in the 1980s, died within days of each other, both from the COVID-19 virus.

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The twins, age 72, had not been vaccinated against the virus, according to members of their family. Friends told media outlets the brothers believed that their healthy lifestyle would protect them, the BBC reported.

“People have said they were anti-vaxxers but they absolutely weren’t,” family friend Pierre-Jean Chalençon told BFMTV. “Several friends told them to get themselves vaccinated but they felt because of their lifestyle and their (lack of) comorbidity, they weren’t at risk of Covid.”

The two had a popular TV show called Temps X from 1979 to 1987. In recent years, the twins claimed to have invented Bitcoin.

Grichka said on French TV: “Igor and I, as mathematicians, were able to participate in the elaboration of some of the [Bitcoin] source code, especially the ‘predictive code’.”

In recent years, the two were accused of defrauding a millionaire.

The twins were charged with “swindling” a 53-year-old hotelier known only Cyrille P. The man killed himself in 2018.

During the 1990s their facial features changed dramatically, leaving them with exaggerated-looking chins, lips and cheekbones.

“We are proud of having faces like extra-terrestrials,” they once said, according to the BBC.

Grichka Bogdanoff said the two had never had “what people call cosmetic surgery”, but that the two were experimental by nature and had tried out very advanced technology.

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