Siamese twin Mpho Mathibela was glad to meet former president Nelson Mandela in Johannesburg on Tuesday.
"I've seen him in newspaper pictures before. I'm happy to have met Tata Madiba," said Mpho with a shy smile.
Mandela shook the young woman's hand and said he was happy to have met her in front of journalists at the Nelson Mandela foundation in Houghton.
Maggie Nkwe from the Mathibela Trust - which was formed by the Sowetan newspaper when the girls were born - said it had always been Mpho's wish to meet Mandela and they arranged the meeting for her now as her twenty first birthday gift.
She will be turning 21 in December.
Mpho is the surviving twin of the famous Mathibela conjoined twins, Mpho and Mphonyana.
They hit headlines when they were born joined at the head at the Chris Hani Baragwanath hospital on December 7, 1986.
Mphonyana died of pneumonia in 1990, a year after they were separated. - Sapa