“And so right now New Zealand, I’d just like to thank you for being there for us for over 40 years, We couldn’t have done it without you. You made us who we are, you made us the Topp twins,” Dame Lynda told 1News.
Dame Jools, who was living with breast cancer, died on Saturday, her family confirmed on Monday morning.
In 2008, the comedy and music duo were inducted into the New Zealand Music Hall of Fame, and on Friday the twins received the 2026 Country Music Honours for Contribution to New Zealand Country Music.
“Be there for them and love them and hold them in your hearts.
"Tonight I sign off for Jools Topp – a Dame, a beautiful horse woman, my very special twin sister."
Tributes have flooded in from fans, colleagues and friends after news of her death spread.
Actress Karen O’Leary, who worked with Lynda, told Morning Report New Zealanders owed it to the Topp twins, who were trailblazers for LGBTQ+ and joined Springbok Tour protests, “to make sure that we're still fighting those fights that are really important”.
“I think, you know, especially in the current climate that we're living in, we need people like the Topp twins. When we've got a government saying, what's a man, what's a woman? What would Jools Topp say about that?
“I know what she'd say. She'd say, 'what an absolute load of rubbish'.”
O’Leary says she was “absolutely starstruck” meeting them at the NZ TV Awards in 2018.
“They really did let me believe in who I wanted to be and be who I wanted to be. And I think they were trailblazers in that regard.
“They were exactly how you'd expect them to be. They were so lovely, so friendly, so funny, and just fantastic.”
Filmmaker Leanne Pooley, whose documentary about the twins Untouchable Girls won multiple awards, says the documentary did so well because they were “like nothing else”.
“They were completely original and they were completely themselves. That’s what was so amazing about them, and Jools,” Pooley told The Panel.
The film resonated outside New Zealand too, Pooley says. The documentary won prizes in “the weirdest markets”, like Sweden – “the land of existential angst”.
“There was something that transcended New Zealand even though they were uniquely New Zealand. And that’s what we need to embrace. If we’re ourselves, then people connect.”
“You don’t survive as kind of what might’ve been a niche act for 40 or more years if you’re not quite special.”
Many have been texting in their stories and memories of the twins. Marian Burns, the twins’ go‑to fiddler who toured and recorded with them, told Afternoons Dame Jools was a “horse whisperer”.
One listener messaged the The Panel to say Dame Jools came to their farm to trim their horses’ hooves, “her day job”, when a starstruck visitor embarrassed them by asking her to sing a song. Dame Jools laughed it off but then when she was done with the hooves, she sat up on the gate and sang two songs much to their delight. “She was amazing with the horses and so utterly charming, and so generous.”
