They brought the laughter into our lives for more than three decades and tonight, the Topp Twins will be honoured with the Lifetime Achievement Award at the LGBTI awards.
Dames Jools and Lynda Topp joined TVNZ's Breakfast this morning to discuss their incredible achievement.
Dame Jools said of the award, "This is a great award because it’s who we are, and the gay community – it's our extended family".
"It's interesting, you know, to get a Lifetime Achievement Award from the gay community because we just had to stay gay long enough to get it. Don't want to be wandering off the track!"
She added, "A lot of people come up to us on the street and say, 'You were really visible as a gay person when we were growing up and that made it easier for me to come out' or something like that, so when someone says that to you, you just feel really proud of yourself".
"It can be a lonely place if you're scared about coming out as a gay person."
Dame Lynda said attitudes have changed in New Zealand since they first toured the country in the '80s.
She said, "The first tour we did in New Zealand, a lot of the newspapers weren't allowed to print the word 'lesbian', and so that first year that we toured in New Zealand, they wouldn't print the word, and then the following year - there must have been some sort of memo that went 'round – and everybody who talked to us was like 'lesbian twins on the road'".
Dame Jools added, "It wasn't allowed to be not just sort of, you know, written as a word, but scrutinised as to what was going on in the world".
"'Oh my God, there's gay people in New Zealand!' It was a bit like that, but it had to branch out. It had to get bigger, and I think now, when people come out, we have genderfluid – it's all changed. Us old folks can't keep up with these things anymore."
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