Legendary 1960s sex symbol, animal rights activist, outspoken racist?
Brigitte Bardot may have made a name for herself on the big screen,
but it’s what she’s done in her personal life that’s the real story.
Brigitte Bardot was born to wealthy and conservative parents on September 28,
1934. Her father, Louis, was "an industrialist" and poet,
while her mother Anne-Marie, lived a high-society life, taking an interest in fashion and ballet.
Living in an apartment in Paris' swanky 16th arrondissement, the family was far from poor.
As a teenager, the future star was a ballerina, studying at the National Superior Conservatory
of Paris for Music and Dance. From there, Bardot's mother got her daughter into modeling.
By the time Brigitte was 15, she graced the cover of Elle magazine, in turn, making history.
Fashion historian Nicole Parrot recalled the moment to The Guardian:
"Women of my generation all remember her first cover. [...] She represented something that
had never had its place before in society or in fashion: that of the jeune fille."
The "jeune fille" was a fresh look. According to France Today,
the clothes represented a quote, "prim and proper teenage girl".
Brigitte Bardot continued to find work as a model in her late teens.
After snagging yet another cover of a May 1950 issue of Elle magazine,
she finally started attracting big names in the film industry, too.
One of those big names was director Marc Allégret,
who, according to France Today, was known for sniffing out female talent.
Allégret decided to send his assistant, Roger Vadim, to meet Bardot, and while she ultimately
didn't get cast in Allégret's latest project, she snagged the assistant's heart, instead.
The budding star's parents disapproved of the pair
dating and even threatened to send Bardot away to England.
Tragically, this resulted in an attempt by the young model to take her own life.
Ultimately, this pushed her parents to allow the pair to see one another
on the condition that Vadim didn't marry Bardot until she was 18.
The duo finally wed on December 21, 1952. A mere four years later, Vadim and Bardot
made history when the filmmaker cast her in the first movie he made, "And God Created Woman."
The flick ultimately put Bardot on the map as an international screen vixen,
solidifying the blonde's reputation as a seductress.
"You mean you came from California? All the way? Only to get my autograph?"
Vadim wrote in his book, "Bardot, Deneuve, Fonda":
"I did not invent Brigitte Bardot. I simply helped her to blossom."
Movies up until the 1960s didn't display the sort of sexually liberated heroines of today's time.
According to Biography, Bardot's 1956 debut flick,
"And God Created Woman," stunned moviegoers with its provocative themes.
The film saw Bardot lustfully strutting around, playing with the hearts of her on-screen husband,
his brother, and various other men. Roger Vadim explained to Los Angeles Times:
"I wanted to show a normal young girl whose only difference was that she
behaved in the way a boy might, without any sense of guilt on a moral or sexual level."
The film didn't initially do well in France. And while it may have attracted the attention of
the opposite sex in America, some states actually banned the movie while, according to The Guardian:
"Newspaper articles denounced the depravity of it all."
All of this only boosted Bardot's appeal, as many were curious to see what all the furor was about.
As biographer Marie-Dominique Lelièvre explained to The Guardian.
"[Bardot is] the first woman to have publicly displayed her sexual freedom."
Brigitte Bardot wasn't married to her first husband, Roger Vadim, for that long.
They divorced in 1957, just under five years together as husband and wife.
After quite a few flings, the blonde star finally settled down with her second husband,
Jacques Charrier, in 1959. That was the same year she found out
she was pregnant with what would be her only child: her son, Nicholas.
While this would be a time of joy for many mothers, Bardot, on the other hand, was mortified.
In her 1996 memoir, "Initiales B.B." Bardot revealed that she would, quote,
"repeatedly [punch] herself in the stomach" in hopes to abort her child. She added:
"I looked at my flat, slender belly in the mirror
like a dear friend upon whom I was about to close a coffin lid".
According to the Independent, Bardot had to cough up £28,000 in 1997
"in damages for hurtful remarks about her son and [now] ex-husband."
Unsurprisingly, Bardot never had the best relationship with her son,
and the pair only reconciled sometime around 2014 "after she became a great-grandmother".
Joining the ranks of legendary pop culture pairings like Mick Jagger
and Marianne Faithfull or Sonny and Cher, Brigitte Bardot and Serge Gainsbourg were an iconic duo.
In 1966, Bardot wed German multi-millionaire Gunter Sachs, yet the concept of "till death
do us part" went over the couple's heads, as neither were wholly committed to their marriage.
They ultimately divorced in 1969.
Two years prior to their divorce, Bardot began seeing famous French crooner Gainsbourg. The
two went on a date in 1967, and although Gainsbourg was known to have mastered the
art of wooing, he was allegedly "left so intimidated" by Bardot's dazzling looks.
Before the date was over, Gainsbourg got up and left. Bardot later declared that she'd
grant him another date if he wrote her the, quote, "most beautiful love song ever heard."
The result? Two songs by the following day, "Je T'aime... Moi Non Plus" and "Bonnie et Clyde,"
the latter of which the pair filmed a now-famous music video for.
After hearing "Je T'aime ... Moi Non Plus," Bardot rushed to the studio with Gainsbourg
to record the ultra-sultry track. Bardot dubbed the song a "hymn to love" to Vanity Fair in 2007.
One of the most fascinating things about Brigitte Bardot's career is the
level of fame and worldwide recognition she achieved without ever going to Hollywood.
The star technically was tied to a few international big-name productions:
she starred in 1968's "Shalako" opposite Sean Connery and made an appearance in Twentieth
Century Fox's "Dear Brigitte," but for the most part, she was tied to her native France.
Fellow actor Jane Birkin once mused to The Guardian:
"[Brigitte] never wanted to do a film that was outside France because she didn't want
to leave her dear France. She seemed to have no ambition whatsoever... She just didn't care."
But perhaps Bardot did care — and was particularly aware to
not fall into the Hollywood trap of some of her American counterparts.
She touched upon this concept to Vanity Fair after her retirement, noting that the
tragedies that befell Marilyn Monroe and Romy Schneider quote, "would have happened to" her.
Although Bardot knew of Monroe's seedy demise,
she still had a high respect for her fellow icon, saying once in an interview that Monroe was,
quote, "exploited" by the Hollywood system, which subsequently led to her tragic death.
Even at the start of her film career,
Bardot knew to stay put, telling BBC in 1956 that she didn't even have a desire to go to Hollywood.
During her 1956 BBC interview, then-22-year-old Brigitte Bardot revealed that she had no
intention of transitioning quickly into more serious acting roles.
"I will be a serious actress when I will be older."
It turns out, Bardot never quite made that leap and was never even nominated for an Academy Award.
Perhaps if she stuck to acting, the French star would have earned a coveted gold statue,
yet in 1973, Bardot decided to retire.
In her 2018 book, "Tears of Battle: An Animal Rights Memoir,"
Bardot points out that while she truly did enjoy the press and fans praising her,
it ultimately, quote, "suffocated and destroyed me."
Noting that she was anxious whenever she had to be on a film set, Bardot explained that
she "would break out with herpes," while scene readings left her feeling "upset."
In 1958, still in her A-list heyday, Brigitte Bardot ventured to sunny Saint-Tropez in the
French Riviera to sign a deal for an unimposing property. The property was called La Madrague,
and it was the perfect slice of privacy for the constantly-followed celeb.
Surrounded by bamboo on a hidden, dirt road,
Bardot would throw "costume parties and gypsy dances" for her guests
while paparazzi and fans would await outside its walls, as detailed by Vanity Fair.
As of 2021, Bardot still lives in La Madrague with her husband, Bernard d'Ormale. Together
for 20 years, Bardot has finally found peace without the constant swarm of press outside
and doesn't even leave her property much except to venture to her other home "a few miles away".
"Popularity is a poison," the actor wrote in her book, "Tears of Battle: An Animal Rights
Memoir," adding that she hasn't been able to live her life to its fullest. She explained:
"I don't know what it means to sit quietly at a bistro."
Opposite from her legendary beauty, Bardot is also known for her controversial and,
sometimes, quite ugly viewpoints. Per Reuters,
the former screen star has been fined multiple times for, quote, "inciting racial hatred".
Bardot's first offense came in 1996 after she wrote an opinion piece for
French conservative newspaper, Le Figaro, in which she said:
"My country, France [...] is once again invaded [...] by an overpopulation of foreigners,
particularly Muslims, to whom we owe allegiance."
She added that the ritual of killing sheep for "religious holidays" would lead her
to become an expat. Bardot never became an expatriate, and in 2000,
she made the same argument in her book, "Pluto's Square."
In 2004, she was fined for yet another "race hate" book
and once more in 2008 after penning a letter to then-Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy in 2006.
Bardot revealed to Vanity Fair that she does not think of herself as political. She added:
"I belong to no party and I am militant for no one.
All of my causes, including the most radical, are motivated by the defense of animals."
Brigitte Bardot's passion for animals was apparent even when she was still a movie icon.
According to Vanity Fair, when she was away filming outdoors, she spent her spare time
"picking up stray animals" that were en route to the pound and keeping them in her hotel room.
When she retired from acting in 1973,
it only took her four years to start petitioning for animal rights seriously. She told Vanity Fair:
"It's what I dreamed of. [...] Today, there are more regulations on cars than for animals."
Decades later, Bardot revealed in "Tears of Battle: An Animal Rights Memoir" that acting
was merely a, quote, "stepping-stone" for her true passion: animal activism.
So, why the sudden change of heart? As Bardot explains, animal rights ultimately
gave her a purpose, one which made her dub her acting career as "pointless."
In her eyes, the star felt that since the stories she told were "fake,"
her decision to retire allowed her to focus on things that were "real."
Bardot's next step was to start the Brigitte Bardot Foundation, which she founded by selling
most of her belongings for 3 million francs, or a little over $3.2 million, at an auction.
As ​​Stephanie Roche, a spokesperson for the foundation, explained to the newspaper:
"Nobody devoted herself to the animal cause as she did.
She completely gave up her amazing career to support animal rights."
Brigitte Bardot was once more thrust into the limelight during the rise of the #MeToo movement
in 2018. According to The New York Times, a whopping 201 high-profile figures lost their
"jobs or major roles" after the movement against sexual assault and harassment came to rise.
Interestingly enough, some of France's most respected female icons, including actors
and authors, disagreed. 100 French women protested the #MeToo movement in a letter,
dubbing it a "​​witch hunt" against men.
Bardot herself did eventually speak out, shocking the public with her statements,
as she was once considered one of the first feminist icons of the silver screen.
Speaking to French magazine Paris Match, the '60s icon dubbed the women who spoke
out for the #MeToo movement as, quote, "hypocritical and ridiculous." She added:
"I was never the victim of sexual harassment.
And I found it charming when men told me that I was beautiful or I had a nice little backside."
If you or anyone you know has been a victim of sexual assault,
help is available. Visit the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network website
or contact RAINN's National Helpline at 1-800-656-HOPE (4673).