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One of these twins is not like the other — but their mother said they’re both from the same dad.
Chantelle Broughton appeared on “Good Morning Britain” on Friday with her son Ayon and daughter Azirah, who were born on April 30.
The pair, however, look quite different as they have totally different skin colors.
Born with fair skin and green eyes, Ayon resembles Broughton — while Azirah, who has brown eyes and a darker complexion, took after Broughton’s partner, Ashton.
“At first, it wasn’t that noticeable. They were quite similar in complexion, you could just see that she was slightly darker,” the new mom explained to hosts Kate Garraway and Ben Shephard. “But as the weeks and months have gone on, she’s just got darker and darker, and he’s just got lighter.”
“We were just surprised. You see it, but you don’t see it with twins so often,” she added. “[But] we’re happy. We like that they’re a bit different and that one has taken after dad and one has taken after me.”
Broughton also shared that other people are often fascinated by her unique set of twins when they’re out and about.
“Everybody’s shocked, really. People will stop you anyway when they see you’ve got a double pram, as everyone seems to love twins,” she explained. “When they notice, they say, ‘Are they twins?’ And I’m like, ‘Yeah.’ And they say, ‘Oh wow, one’s dark, one’s light. That’s so unusual, I’ve never seen that before.’ ”
However, Twitter trolls have not been as graceful. Broughton said she’s received messages questioning if both kids are the couple’s children — or even wrongly accused her of cheating on Ashton.
“Are they both his?” one user asked, according to the Sun.
“Or she was cheating on her fella,” another ignoramus assumed.
But Dr. Amir Khan, who joined Broughton for her “GMB” appearance, explained how twins could, in fact, be born with different skin tones.
“What will have happened is there will have been two eggs and two sperm fertilizing those eggs,” he said. “Skin color is made up of about 20 different genes or so, and it’s a random assortment — what’s going to be found in one sperm won’t be the same as the other sperm, and the same with the eggs.”
“That’s what will happen. A different set of genes will have fertilized one egg, and another on the other side,” Khan continued. “One will have favored lighter skin, one will have favored darker skin.”
“It’s completely by chance and incredibly rare – about one in five interracial couples who give birth to twins will give birth to twins like this,” he concluded.
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