Brigitte Bardot, the French actress and singer who became an international sex symbol before turning to animal rights activism, has passed away aged 91.
Bardot had been ill in hospital in Toulon, according to local media. The star’s animal rights charity announced her passing on Sunday morning with a statement.
‘The Brigitte Bardot Foundation announces with immense sadness the death of its founder and president, Madame Brigitte Bardot, a world-renowned actress and singer, who chose to abandon her prestigious career to dedicate her life and energy to animal welfare and her foundation,’ it said.
The organisation did not specify the time or place where Bardot died.
Known as the original ‘Sex Kitten’, Bardot shot to international notoriety with her role in 1956 film And God Created Woman, which was directed by her first husband Roger Vadim.
That turn as a voluptuous, hedonistic orphan made her an object of edgy fascination for millions, even though the film itself got a mixed reaction from critics.
Described by Time magazine as France’s ‘most ogled export’, Bardot’s sex appeal was further fuelled by her outings as a model.
Following the news of her death, French president Emmanuel Macron paid tribute to Bardot, saying she was ‘a legend who embodied a life of freedom’.
He wrote on X: ‘Her films, her voice, her dazzling fame, her initials, her sorrows, her generous passion for animals, her face that became Marianne, Brigitte Bardot embodied a life of freedom.
‘A French existence, a universal radiance. She touched us. We mourn a legend of the century’.
Jordan Bardella, president of the National Rally party, saluted ‘a woman of heart, conviction, and character’.
Bardella wrote on X: ‘The French people have lost today the Marianne they so loved and whose beauty astonished the world.
‘Brigitte Bardot was a woman of heart, conviction, and character. A fervent patriot, a lover of animals whom she protected throughout her life, she embodied an entire era of French history, but also and above all, a certain idea of courage and freedom.’
Bardot had suffered a great deal of ill health in recent months, and was frequently admitted to hospital.
In October, she was forced to release a statement confirming she was not dead, after an influencer put out a false report.
Bardot took to X to announce: ‘I don’t know who the idiot is who started this fake news about my disappearance this evening, but know that I am fine and that I have no intention of bowing out. A word to the wise’.
She was soon back at her home in Saint-Tropez following three weeks of treatment for an unspecified condition.
The star, who married and divorced three times before settling with her fourth husband Bernard d’Ormale in 1992, retired from acting in 1973 to focus on her passionate animal rights activism.
But she drew controversy with her engagement in far-right politics, which saw her endorse National Rally leader Marine Le Pen and be fined six times for inciting racial hatred.
The star was reclusive in her final years, instead preferring to remain out of the spotlight at her secluded and very private property in Saint Tropez.
Born on September 28, 1934, in Paris, Bardot initially trained as a ballet dancer at the National Superior Conservatory of Paris for Music and Dance.
At 15, she had already appeared on the front cover of France’s Elle magazine and began to establish herself as a model.
Her acting career began in 1952 when she starred in a series of small roles, but she soon began to turn heads at the Cannes Film Festival in 1953 when she frolicked on the beach in a skimpy bikini.
Bardot said: ‘Yes, I knew I was ugly as a child. I said to myself: “Well, I am ugly, so I must at least be bright and funny and have other things to compensate.”
‘I knew I had to be the best at something, otherwise I would be nothing. I knew I wanted the world to know about Brigitte Bardot.’
And the world certainly did.
Over the course of her career she starred in 47 films and recorded more than 70 songs.
Bardot’s willingness to be part of steamy on-screen scenes made her controversial. And her personal life was no different.
Despite her parents’ fierce opposition, she married Vadim in 1952. The couple’s relationship lasted just five years.
After their divorce in 1957, Bardot became ensconced with actor Jacques Charrier.
By the time they married in 1959, she was already heavily pregnant with her first and only child.
Nicolas-Jacques Charrier was born on January 11, 1960. Bardot would later say: ‘I’m not made to be a mother.
‘I don’t know why I think this because I adore animals and I adore children, but I’m not adult enough – I know it’s horrible to have to admit that, but I’m not adult enough to take care of a child.
‘I need somebody to take care of me. I’m sad to have had that baby. What will be his life? People who are making babies and families now are mad. It is such a bad world.’
In 1962, Bardot’s union with Charrier ended in divorce.
She went on to marry German millionaire playboy Gunter Sachs in 1966. But that relationship was similarly short-lived. By 1969, they had divorced.
Although she went on to have a string of other relationships, Bardot did not marry again until 1992, when she tied the knot with businessman Bernard d’Ormale, who had advised the far-right Front National.
Through the course of her life she attempted suicide four different times, including once at just 16.
At the peak of her fame, and after another suicide attempt, fans broke into her property to claim bloodstained curtains and bathroom tiles as mementoes.
After quitting acting in 1973, Bardot took her life in a different direction.
She said: ‘I gave my youth and my beauty to men, I am now giving and my experience, the best of myself, to animals.’
Setting up the Brigitte Bardot Foundation in 1986, she was a dedicated vegetarian and regularly campaigned for the rights of animals.
In 2013 she threatened to request Russian citizenship and leave France after a pair of 42-year-old elephants were refused treatment for tuberculosis in a Lyon zoo.
She referred to France as a ‘graveyard for animals’ but ultimately won the case and saved the two former circus animals.
In 2001 she also donated $140,000 over two years to sterilise and adopt 300,000 of Bucharest’s stray dogs.
Not all of her activism work since quitting acting was quite so well received.
In 2004 she was convicted by a French court and fined £4,000 for ‘inciting racial hatred’ in her book A Scream in the Silence.
She was a keen supporter of the far-right Marine Le Pen. At the 2017 French elections, she told people not to vote for Emmanuel Macron because he had a ‘coldness’ in his ‘steel eyes’.
She lived out the final years of her life in a secluded property in Saint Tropez, a vacation hotspot she allegedly made famous, with her husband.
Bardot will live on through her style and her modelling years.
Never one for tradition, she posed for a nude spread in Playboy to celebrate her 40th birthday.
She created the Bardot pose, where she sat with her legs crossed in just a pair of black stockings, and the Bardot neckline was named after her because she made the style famous.
Her bouffant hair routinely makes a comeback, and her effortless style will continue to draw in fans, long after her death.
