Brigitte Bardot doesn't like you, unless you're an endangered species. The French icon,
who was once called "the most liberated woman of post-war France," isn't who we thought.
Brigitte Bardot grew up in a seven-bedroom apartment in an affluent corner of Paris, but
her childhood wasn't entirely rosy. According to Barnett Singer's 2013 biography "Brigitte Bardot:
A Biography," Bardot's parents, Louis Bardot and Anne-Marie Mucel, ran a strict, Catholic,
conservative household. They reportedly dictated what Brigitte and her sister,
Mijanou, wore each day and demanded the two girls maintain proper etiquette. Mucel exercised
control over who her daughters played with, which left Brigitte feeling inferior at best,
isolated and lonely at worst. One evening, Louis and Mucel served Bardot's beloved rabbit,
Noiraud, as the main course for their family dinner. This experience could likely have
played a role in her later decision to become an animal rights activist.
As Bardot told Singer, she and Mijanou once accidentally broke a vase in their
family apartment and their father whipped them 20 times each as punishment. However,
what stung even more, according to Bardot, was that he took the punishment beyond the
physical and into the psychological by actively ignoring his two daughters. He and Mucel began
addressing the two girls with the French pronoun "vous," which is a word used to address strangers,
formal acquaintances, and certainly not used as a term of endearment.
Although incidents such as these had a profound impact on Bardot and her sister,
she has since described her ability to find some merit in their parenting
style. In an interview with Biography she said,
"My parents gave me a strict upbringing which at times has caused me to suffer
distress but today I am grateful to them for it."
Brigitte Bardot has attempted to commit suicide at least four times over the course of several
decades, as reported by the Sydney Morning Herald. The first attempt happened when she
was 16 years old and wanted to marry 22-year-old director's assistant Roger
Vadim. When her parents found out about the affair, they threatened to send Bardot
to England to keep her away from the older man, as well as keeping him from her. Bardot
responded by sticking her head in a gas oven. Thankfully, her parents discovered her in time.
On September 28, 1960 — her 26th birthday — Bardot attempted suicide again by taking
an entire bottle of sleeping pills and cutting her wrists.
At age 58, Bardot took an overdose of tranquilizers and had her stomach
pumped. Her husband, Bernard d'Ormale said to People magazine at the time,
"Brigitte was overcome with fatigue and took too much medication to go to sleep."
"Right now I am very happy."
Despite her continued attempts to end her life, Bardot has now lived for nearly nine
decades and has found a certain degree of peace. She told The Guardian in 1996,
"I'm happier in my routine life today than when I was chased after by 100 photographers."
Bardot told People magazine that in 1956, at the wild beginning of her career, what she
missed most about her life before the fame and fortune, was, quote, "a life without drama."
On February 8, 1958, French and Italian newspapers reported that Bardot had
intentionally overdosed on sleeping pills two days prior in a suicide attempt. Bardot's public
relations manager denied these claims, stating that Bardot had a mere case of food poisoning,
but the Los Angeles Times reported that the French actor was recovering from a
nervous breakdown at Cortina d'Ampezzo, a winter sports retreat in northern Italy.
Her breakdown came after Bardot split from her then partner,
Jean-Louis Trintignant, with whom she had been living for two years prior.
At 18, Brigitte Bardot married Roger Vadim, who was six years her senior. The pair met
when Bardot was just 16 years old. Four years later Vadim made his directorial debut and cast
Bardot in the starring role in the 1956 film "And God Created Woman." Bardot's performance
in the film made her an overnight sex symbol and ultimately created the hypersexualized
image that followed her entire film career. Bardot eventually divorced Vadim and embarked
on an illicit affair with her married "And God Created Woman" co-star, Jean-Louis Trintignant.
Bardot wrote in her 1996 autobiography,
"Initials B.B.," that she had been intimate with four husbands and over 100 lovers:
"I had a visceral need to be loved, to be desired,
to belong body and soul to the man I admire, whom I love, whom I respect.″
While writing about her intimate partners, which included French
crooner Serge Gainsbourg and American actor Warren Beatty,
she also wrote about being physically abused by actor Jacques Charrier, who fathered her only
son. As noted by People magazine, Bardot has been married to Bernard d'Ormale since 1992.
Brigitte Bardot gave birth to her only child, a son named Nicolas,
with her second husband Jacques Charrier. Detailing her 1959
pregnancy in her memoir "Initials B.B.," the Independent reported that Bardot wrote,
"I looked at my flat, slender belly in the mirror
like a dear friend upon whom I was about to close a coffin lid."
She went on to reveal that she had punched herself in the stomach repeatedly and asked her doctor for
morphine in an attempt to terminate the pregnancy. To top off her disturbing testimonies, Bardot was
quoted as referring to her then-unborn child as a "cancerous tumor" and added that she would have,
quote, "preferred to give birth to a little dog." Following the release of her memoir,
Nicolas and the elder Charrier sued Bardot for the remarks. A French court ordered her to pay
£28,000 — approximately $38,000 — in damages and that certain passages of
the book should be prefaced with warning labels.
Charrier reportedly denied Bardot access to their son once he was born. Nicolas did not
invite Bardot to his wedding in 1982, and he and his mother have been known to have gone as much as
a decade without seeing one another. Even still, they reportedly reconciled in the 1990s, after the
birth of Nicolas's first child and Bardot's first grandchild. Bardot once told the Independent,
"I'm not made to be a mother. 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."
While beauty is generally seen as a gift,
Bardot found the preoccupation with her looks uncomfortable and stifling. Bardot
felt disdain for the watchful gaze of men and fans who saw her as a commodity. She said,
"I still can't stand being watched. Certain people [...] want to embrace me, to touch me."
"Could I have your autograph?"
"You mean you came to California, all the way, only to get my autograph?"
Bardot wanted to shrink from view because despite
her glamorous and outgoing onscreen persona, she was actually very shy.
"[Men] didn't know how to separate the love they felt for me from what
I represented in the eyes of the world."
In the spring of 1973, a 38-year-old Brigitte Bardot retired from making films.
From her breakthrough role in "And God Created Woman" to films like
"Viva Maria,' Bardot's performance career was largely defined by the
public according to her superficial attributes. She told The Guardian,
"Life could not possibly be as pointless as what I was seeing. [...] I was embodying the
very image of frivolity. [...] The heart of my life has never been superficial;
on the contrary, it was always quite serious."
"Oh, no, I prefer this kind of film. I will be a serious actress when I am older."
Bardot discussed her decision to leave the industry with The Guardian,
and drew a parallel to Marilyn Monroe as well as other beautiful women in the industry. She said,
"The majority of great actresses met tragic ends. When I said goodbye to this job, to this life
of opulence and glitter, images and adoration, the quest to be desired, I was saving my life."
Once she left the film industry, Brigitte Bardot devoted her life to animal rights activism.
"I gave my youth and my beauty to men, I am now giving my wisdom and my experience,
the best of myself, to animals,"
She told The Sydney Morning Herald that as of 1992, she was living with "some dozen dogs,
40 cats and assorted livestock," many of which were rescued from pounds or slaughterhouses.
"You make friends with her and she will let you pet her kittens."
Bardot now helms the Brigitte Bardot Foundation, which has led projects in
conservation and animal rehabilitation that have helped protect bears, koalas,
elephants, and beyond. Still, Bardot is not optimistic about curing the widespread
mistreatment and exploitation of animals by human solutions. In 2014 she told the Daily Mail,
"Man has not evolved. He has stayed fundamentally cruel and barbaric,
even if he thinks he has moved on. [...] The industrialisation of the rearing and
death of animals takes away all my hope of it ever improving."
In the introduction to her 2019 book "Tears of Battle: An Animal Rights Memoir," she wrote of
her desire to separate herself from the, quote, "arrogant and bloodthirsty" human species,
adding that she has always related to non-human animals most. Bardot told The Guardian,
"I know what it feels like to be hunted. Humans have hurt me.
Deeply. And it is only with animals, with nature, that I have found peace."
In 1983 — exactly a decade after she left the movie business — Brigitte Bardot was diagnosed
with breast cancer, according to Page Six. She reportedly refused treatment, but her friend,
fellow French actor Marina Vlady, convinced her to undergo treatment and share the diagnosis
with the public. In 1985, the Los Angeles Times reported her recovery was a success.
Despite no longer having breast cancer, Bardot has experienced other health
issues in the decades since — particularly double degenerative arthritis. In 2014,
she told the Daily Mail that she needed to use walking sticks to get around.
Bardot once told People magazine,
"I really wanted to die at certain periods in my life. Death was like love,
a romantic escape. I took pills because I didn't want to throw
myself off my balcony and know people would photograph me lying dead below."
Her first husband, Roger Vadim, once said that "every birthday is a test for her,
and it's usually a desperate time."
Later in life, some of Brigitte Bardot's true colors came to light. By 2001,
BBC News reported that Bardot had made three French court appearances for inciting racial
hatred against Muslims. In one case in 1999, she wrote an article titled "Open Letter to My Lost
France" in which she despaired over increasing Muslim immigration and used inflammatory language.
A noted animal rights activist, Bardot also criticized the ritual slaughter of sheep
during Islamic festivals. Her comments came under fire and she was fined 30,000 francs.
BBC News continued its coverage of Bardot in 2003, highlighting criticism of her book, "A Cry
in the Silence," in which she condemned the gay community, immigrants, and modern sex workers, who
she believed had wrecked French culture. She also praised infamous far-right politician Jean-Marie
le Pen. Two human rights groups announced their intentions to sue her, and a year later she
was fined €5,000 in court. She nearly missed having to face jail time, as per the BBC News.
Bardot's turn in the public image was shocking, but it was known to be deliberate, explains
The Guardian. She believed she was saying what others were afraid to say out loud. Evidently,
court fines weren't enough to stop her from voicing her hateful opinions. In 2008,
Bardot received her largest fine yet of €15,000 after she published more Islamophobic
comments on her personal website. The online letter was addressed to Nicholas Sarkozy,
and she again decried the ritual slaughter of animals, according to reporting by the BBC News.
If you or someone you know is dealing with domestic abuse,
you can call the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1−800−799−7233.
You can also find more information, resources, and support at their website.
If you or anyone you know is having suicidal thoughts,
please call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline​ at​ 1-800-273-TALK (8255)​.
If you or someone you know is struggling with mental health, please contact the
Crisis Text Line by texting HOME to 741741; call the National Alliance on Mental Illness
helpline at 1-800-950-NAMI (6264); or visit the National Institute of Mental Health website.