The Los Angeles Times did a cover story about the Barbi Twins when their billboard went up on Sunset Boulevard in 1989 immediately catapulting them to worldwide attention.
In an unprecedented move, Hefner erected a billboard to promote the Barbi Twins and their second Playboy issue (which also broke sales records).
[citation needed] USA Today said that the twins career brought them "caviar dreams and champagne life styles of the rich and famous".
[4] Playboy called their covers "legendary" and credited their subsequent television appearances with "the highest ratings", remarking that the twins became Hollywood landmarks and global obsessions.
[6] Magazines and tabloids called them everything from "the sexiest twins alive" and "the best selling calendar models of the world" (Cosmopolitan UK)[7] to referring to them as both "bizarre and bulimic" and "sexual icons and America's cartoon sweethearts" (Entertainment Weekly)[8] They were a favorite for cover models appearing on the covers and inside not only Playboy but mainstream national and international magazines including Cosmopolitan and Redbook.
Shane Barbi was among the many notable quotables when Newsweek's "Overheard" section (syndicated from the New York Post, Page Six) picked up a quote from her during an interview, "You can ask us about our cup size or favorite positions but please no personal questions.
"[9] Stuff magazine gave the twins the title of "Sex Symbols for 1993", placing them in good company with other popular female icons such as Marilyn Monroe (1956), Farrah Fawcett (1977), Madonna (1991), Sharon Stone (1992), and Cindy Crawford (1994).
[11] After four years of the "best selling calendars", photographs from a photo shoot were stolen from a NY film lab and "held for ransom" but were later returned.
The twins had a vitamin line they were planning to be introduced in 2004 and they claimed that the pictures, allegedly taken by Shane's then-husband Ken Wahl, were never meant to be published.
True Hollywood Story and a candid interview in USA TODAY[19] their bulimia and insecurities caused them to be obsessed with crash-dieting, bingeing and purging, abusing laxatives and destructive exercise routines for up to 10 hours a day.
Their disorders manifested into agoraphobia preventing them from attending the Hollywood major premieres and invitations they received, causing them to cancel events, and to turn down offers for their own television shows and movies, and even dates with their high-profile suitors.
[21] The twins' first health and fitness book, Dying To Be Healthy: A Breakthrough Diet, Nutrition and Self Help Guide (1999), tells the story of their struggles with eating disorders and how they overcame it.
[31] The Twins use their celebrity status in every way they can including offering their images up in posters displaying their "wacky humor and good looks",[32] such as their 2010 posters to support causes such as the Anti Fur movie Skin Trade[33] and the cruelty that happens in the dairy industry in the documentary Earthlings.=,[34] and their 2011 covers and featured articles in True Cowboy Magazine and their continuing fight to save the wild horses (February and April 2011 issues).
[40] In 2012, the twins spearheaded a movement to track down a person posting online videos of killing kittens, believed to be Luka Magnotta.