Eccentric French TV star twins BOTH die of Covid within a week aged 72 after refusing vaccine: Former heartthrobs Igor and Grichka Bogdanoff shot to fame in 1980s before developing plastic surgery obsession

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Eccentric French TV star twins who shot to fame as the hosts of a 1980s science series and became infamous for their shared love of plastic surgery have both died of Covid within a week of each other. They were 72 years old. 

Igor Bogdanoff died of coronavirus at a hospital in Paris on Monday afternoon, six days after his twin brother Grichka passed away at the same hospital, also from Covid. The pair had been admitted to intensive care on December 15.

Despite being the faces of popular science for a generation of French TV viewers, it has since emerged that neither twin was vaccinated against the virus after refusing to get their shots.

Luc Ferry, a friend of both Igor and Grichka, said he warned them 'fifty times' to get vaccinated but both of them refused - insisting that they 'never got sick' and the vaccine was worse than the illness. 

Speaking after the death of Grichka but before Igor passed away, Ferry insisted the twins were not 'anti-vaxx' in the sense that they didn't believe vaccines worked, but believed they personally did not need to take them. 

Igor and Grichka (pictured left and right) were 72 and known for their ecletic personalities and clothing, storytelling, television hosting and plastic surgery

The twin brothers attend a DJ set at the VIP Room in Saint Tropez in August 2013  (pictured)

'I told [Grichka] it was grotesque. How crazy they were,' Ferry told Le Parisien last week. 'Being very athletic, without a gram of fat, they believed that the vaccine was more dangerous as the virus.

'What stupidity, but what stupidity! Grichka was an out of the world, singular character, anything but a villain.'

Ferry revealed the only small mercy was that Igor was unaware of Grichka's death - news that would have left him devastated - because he was in a coma. 

The twins were descendants of nobility - on their mother's side from the Kolowrat family of Bohemia and on their father's side from a noble Muslim Tatar family who were granted honorary royal status by Tsar Fedor III of Russia.

Their father's family did not use the honorary 'Prince Bogdanoff' title, however, and it was dropped long before they were born, while their maternal grandmother was stripped of her titles after an affair with an African American man.

Countess Bertha Kolowrat-Krakowská forfeited her societal status, access to her four elder children, and homes in Berlin and Prague after her affair with Roland Hayes - the first Black American to attain international fame as a classical musician - was uncovered due to the birth of a daughter, the twins' mother.

Igor and Grichka were born in 1949 in a castle in Gascogne, southern France, where they were raised by Bertha - who died in 1982.

The brothers studied applied mathematics at the Institute of Political Science and the École Pratique des Hautes Études in Paris before finding a niche for themselves as writers and hosts of science show Temps X on France's oldest TV channel, TF1.

Set inside a mocked-up spaceship and featuring the brothers dressed as astronauts, the show became hugely popular by blending news of actual scientific discoveries with screenings of popular sci-fi shows such as Dr Who, The Prisoner and The Twilight Zone.

The show launched in 1979 and remained on-air until 1987, by which time the Bogdanoff twins had become household names.

After the show went off air the twins attempted to capitalise on their reputation by becoming scientists, but were dogged by controversy and claims of plagiarism. 

Pictured: The men starring in popular French sci-fi show Temps X 

The brothers smile in their younger years on French television (pictured)

In 1991 the pair published their first book, Dieu et la Science (God and Science), which became a bestseller in France but saw them hit with a lawsuit by an American academic who accused them of copying his work. The pair settled out of court.

Then, in 1993, the Bogdanoffs started working towards doctorates that they were eventually granted with the lowest passing grade after publishing five articles in peer-reviewed journals and defending their theses.

But their work was roundly criticised in subsequent years, and dismissed by one academic as little more than a collection of 'meaningless buzzwords'.

Interviewed in 2002 by the New York Times, one of their advisers said that teaching them science was like 'teaching My Fair Lady to speak with an Oxford accent.'

The scandal, which played out in public and was dubbed 'the Bogdanoff affair', ended with a report which admitted the twins' theses 'held no scientific value', but nevertheless their diplomas were allowed to stand.

Around the same time, the pair developed an obsession with plastic surgery and each underwent multiple operations on their face.  

When they appeared on the red carpet in 2010 aged 60 for a 150th anniversary Chopard party, people were shocked by their appearance. 

They were both understood to have had a number of chin and cheek implants, as well as botox and fillers.

Their stretched faces echoed the look of socialite Jocelyn Wildenstein, and one Australian newspaper described them has having cheekbones 'so high and bulbous as to appear to threaten their owners' vision.'

Despite obvious evidence to the contrary, the pair denied ever going under the knife.

But the brothers (pictured) were involved in a 2001 scandal called the 'Bogdanoff Affair', where papers penned by the brothers about the Big Bang featured in peer-reviewed scientfic journals

In recent years, the Bogdanoffs found fame among internet users for their increasingly outlandish claims that were mocked and turned them into memes.

Among the claims were that the twins had helped write the source code for Bitcoin and that Satoshi Nakamoto - the anonymous figure often credited with inventing the cryptocurrency - had gifted them two 'ancient' Bitcoin 'in physical form'.

Last year, the twins were involved in yet another controversy when they were accused of 'swindling' a 53-year-old French millionaire suffering from biploar disorder - identified only as Cyrille P - out of hundreds of thousands of euros.

The Bogdanoffs were accused, among other things, of convincing the millionaire to front up cash for a revival of Temps X.

Prosecutors said the plans amount to little more than a deception to get money from Cyrille, who they compared to 'a goose who lays golden eggs'.

The case was due for trial in January this year, and it is unclear if the prosecution will now go ahead. Four people were also accused alongside the brothers.   

Igor Bogdanoff had six children, four from his first marriage and two from his second wife, Amelie de Bourbon-Parme, whom he wed in 2009. They divorced in 2018. 

Little was known about Grichka's personal life but he had no known relationships or children.

The pair had most recently appeared on the French Masked Singer in 2020.

Pictured: The best awards gala in Paris in 2018

The pair (pictured left and right) had most recently appeared on the French Masked Singer in 2020 and been influential personalities in the bitcoin industry